Real Faith Is Refined In The Fires

The Gospel Is Never About Everybody Else; It Is Always About You, About Me. The Gospel Is Never Truth In General; It's Always A Truth In Specific. The Gospel Is Never A Commentary On Ideas Or Cultures Or Conditions; It's Always About Actual Persons, Actual Pains, Actual Troubles, Actual Sin; You, Me; Who You Are And What You've Done; Who I Am And What I've Done.

I Think Pastors Are The Worst Listeners. We're So Used To Speaking, Teaching, Giving Answers. We Must Learn To Be Quiet, Quit Being So Verbal, Learn To Pay Attention To What's Going On, And Listen.

The Minute The Church And Pastors Start Saying What Do People Want And Then Giving It To Them, We Betray Our Calling. We're Called To Have People Follow Jesus. We're Called To Have People Learn How To Forgive Their Enemies.

To Follow Jesus Implies That We Enter Into A Way Of Life That Is Given Character And Shape And Direction By The One Who Calls Us. To Follow Jesus Means Picking Up Rhythms And Ways Of Doing Things That Are Often Unsaid But Always Derivative From Jesus, Formed By The Influence Of Jesus. To Follow Jesus Means That We Can't Separate What Jesus Is Saying From What Jesus Is Doing And The Way That He Is Doing It. To Follow Jesus Is As Much, Or Maybe Even More, About Feet As It Is About Ears And Eyes" (the Way Of Jesus, Eugene H. Peterson, 22).

God Is The Larger Context And Plot In Which Our Stories Find Themselves.