A person may forget 90% of what a leader says, but he will never forget how the leader lives.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who seek God and those who seek to avoid him... and both will be successful.

All of life is to be lived in the presence and power of God, not just for a few minutes or even an hour in the morning. It's as though we want to take a tiny nibble of spiritual food and hope that sustains us for a while; then we wonder why we're so weary and unable to live as Christ calls us to live. To truly enjoy the abundant life Jesus invited us into, we need to be more aware of God all the time, just as he was. We need that regular, focused quiet time, but we also need to take our awareness of and commitment to God into our more numerous "noisy times".

When we think of training ourselves in godliness, we usually think of the traditional spiritual disciplines, but it can also be practical activities like taking a nature walk or listening to music - whatever helps us draw closer to God. God hardwired our brains and bodies in such a way that spiritual training, combined with God's work in us, has the very real effect of making us more attuned to spiritual reality and our true identity in Christ.

When we see through the lens of God's truth, revealed primarily in his Word, everything comes into sharper focus. Suddenly, we'll see that everything is integrated and overlapping - that the world is not divided between the sacred and the secular, but there's one life, and God is the Master of all of it. God knows all things, past, present, and future, and is all-wise; when we train ourselves to see more as he sees, we'll pursue the things he values and seek to live before him as our primary audience.

Our presuppositions shape our perspective, our perspective shapes our priorities, and our priorities shape our practice.

Believers are often encouraged to spend some time each day alone praying and reading the Bible. This is a good thing, modeled by Jesus himself. But too often people view this time with God as sufficient, and as separate from the rest of their lives; they essentially leave Jesus on their bedside table and ignore him the rest of the day. This is a far cry from the ongoing walking in the Spirit, abiding in Christ, persevering, praying, and rejoicing presented in Scripture.