Many of us wish we had an apostle Paul to travel with, not realizing how much the leader also needs the close follower.

We have suffered from the preaching of cheap grace. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. People will take anything that is free, but they are not interested in discipleship. They will take Christ as Savior but not as Lord.

If Christ seldom makes offers without demands, He also seldom makes demands without offers. He offers His strength to enable us to meet His demands. What Christ Thinks of the Church: An Exposition of Revelation 1 - 3 (Grand Rapids, Baker: 2003) 43

What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow.

All Christians are Disciples or Schollars of Christ, the church is his School; we are his Ushers, the Bible is his Grammar.

We are long on membership but short on discipleship. We are more anxious to gather statistics than to grow saints.

Institutions are designed to equip individuals to walk with God. They are a means to an end. But often the institution becomes more important than the individual, and the individual begins serving the institution.

We complain today that ministers do not know how to preach; but is it not equally true that our congregations do not know how to hear?

Monastic vows rest on the false assumption that there is a special calling, a vocation, to which superior Christians are invited to observe the counsels of perfection while ordinary Christians fulfil only the commands; but there simply is no special religious vocation since the call of God comes to each at the common tasks.