It is said that sheep may get lost simply by nibbling away at the grass and never looking up. That can be true for any of us. We can focus so much on what is immediately before us that we fail to see life in larger perspective.
Compromise
Bill Johnson
Grace that does not lead us to becoming like Jesus is not grace. It’s something else and definitely not Biblical grace.
Clint Pascal
You can be a “Thermometer” Christian or a “Thermostat” Christian. The thermometer registers and reflects the spiritual status around it – in other words, “He’s not acting holy, so I’m not going to”. But the thermostat sets the temperature for the spiritual status around it. Thermostats walk into a room and go, “It’s a little cold in here, Lord – let’s heat it up.” Thermostats are change agents and affect others around them. Don’t go with the flow – be a thermostat.
Watchman Nee
Satan has in fact a plan against the saints of the Most High which is to wear them out. What is meant by this phrase, “wear out”? It has in it the idea of reducing a little this minute, then reducing a little further the next minute. Reduce a little today, reduce a little tomorrow. Thus the wearing out is almost imperceptible; nevertheless, it is a reducing. The wearing down is scarcely an activity of which one is conscious, yet the end result is that there is nothing left. He will take away your prayer life little by little, and cause you to trust God less and less and yourself more and more, a little at a time. He will make you feel somewhat cleverer than before. Step by step, you are misled to rely more on your own gift, and step by step your heart is enticed away from the Lord. Now, were Satan to strike the children of God with great force at one time, they would know exactly how to resist the enemy since they would immediately recognize his work. He uses the method of gradualism to wear down the people of God.
John Ortberg
For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.
David Platt
I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we had missed what was radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable.
Jon Bloom
What are your actions saying? What do you do when you are alone, or when your plans are interrupted, or you are disappointed, or your weakness is exposed, or you’re tempted to fear, or someone else prospers or excels you, or you’re called on to help meet someone else’s financial need? How much of a priority do you make your local church? How willing are you to serve obscurely? When those who are closest to you are honest, those who observe you in your unguarded, uncalculated moments, what do they hear from your actions? These are exposing and convicting questions. Jesus had perfect consistency between his words and works. None of the rest of us has this yet.
Christine Caine
Angus Buchan
If you allow one little sin to creep into your life, and think it doesn’t matter, it will grow and grow until it affects your whole spiritual life, deflecting you from your primary aim of serving God.
Gilbert Keith G. K. Chesterton
Men do not differ much about what things they call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.