Quotes from Books I am reading

Currently, I am reading two books by Jared C. Wilson.  One is on the Holy Spirit and the other is about the church.  Here are a few quotes from recent chapters I have read:

the truth is, God is never silent.

the primary way any Christian will participate in a friendship with God is by Bible study and prayer.

(Bill is) approaching the Bible not as a religious token of routine affection but as Spiritual food to feed his hunger.

Showing you Jesus is what the Holy Spirit is most after in your life.

Applying (Scripture) prayerfully is key as well. We have no power in and of ourselves. The power we need to apply God's Word in ways that honor God and magnify Jesus can only come from God himself. It is in prayer that we "tap into" this power.

Everybody hungers for community whether they realize it or not. We were made for relationships with God and with other people. Because of sin and the fallenness of the world, however, we are not "discipled" well in our daily routines to fulfill this hunger in a healthy, God-honoring ways...We swim in a sea of individualistic messages aimed at our consumeristic hearts.

God's vision for the world is not primarily the bigness of the church but the bigness of his own manifest presence in every nook and cranny of the world.

God's purposes are much bigger. God wants us to grow in devotion to Christ, not simply to grow our little churchly kingdoms.

The key to this kind of discipleship is intentionality and relational proximity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sermon Notes-"Transitional Thoughts"

Introduction: As I was thinking and praying about what to share during my final sermon on staff, I began to think of the transition that I am making as well as the church.   We as pastors have been consistently focused on three priorities over the last several years: prayer, worship and equip.   So, even though I may no longer be on staff in a few weeks at this church, as a member of this church I believe just as strongly that Hesston MB needs to continue to be about these priorities in the days ahead.   However, the more I prayed about it, the more I realized that to get to these priorities, we as a church also had to make some transitions so that is why I am entitling this message “Transitional Thoughts”.   Transition is defined as “the process or an instance of changing from one form, state, activity, or place to another.” Educate to Equip- Ephesians 4:11-16 ·          What is the difference?   o    To educate the focus is information; to equip the focus is transformation o
Read more

Sermon Notes-The Challenge based on Acts 11:1-18

Introduction: What is the definition of challenge? Challenge can be defined in multiple ways: engage in a contest or fight, a demand for explanation; a calling into question or the quality of requiring full use of one’s abilities, energy or resources. We will see in our Scripture this morning from Acts that Peter faced a challenge from his friends and religious leaders.   It actually fits the definitions above: it could become a fight, it required an explanation and it uses all Peter’s abilities, energy and resources. React- vs. 1-3 ·          Why is this story repeated?   It is important for the rest of the story which includes Paul’s missionary journeys in the rest of the book of Acts. ·          Vs. 1-Others throughout Judea hear that the Gentiles have received the Word of God. o    The Good News spread quickly about what had happened with Cornelius ·          Vs. 2-The circumcision party (religious leaders) criticized Peter o    We see that the Good News of God working
Read more