The following is a condensed excerpt of one of my favorite sections of David Platt’s book, Radical. It is the section where he encourages us to take responsibility for helping others grow in Christ.

While we should certainly acknowledge and affirm gifted teachers given by God to the church, Jesus’ command for us to make disciples envisions a teaching role for all of us.

This raises the bar in our own Christianity. In order to teach someone else how to pray, we need to know how to pray. In order to help someone else learn how to study the Bible, we need to be active in studying the Bible. But this is the beauty of making disciples. When we take responsibility for helping others grow in Christ, it automatically takes our own relationship with Christ to a new level.

But the reality is, few are listening to reproduce. We are by nature, receivers. Even if we have a desire to learn God’s Word, we still listen from a default self-centered mind-set that is always asking, “What can I get out of this?”

What if we changed the question whenever we gathered to learn God’s Word? What if we began to think, “How can I listen to his Word so that I am equipped to teach this Word to others?”

When we realize we have the responsibility to teach the Word, it changes everything about how we hear the Word. It also changes who hears the Word … [it's] no longer just being heard in a building; it is being multiplied throughout a community. It is multiplying because the people of God are no longer listening as if his Word is intended to stop with them.

In a culture where bigger is always better and flashy is always more effective, Jesus beckons each of us to plainly, humbly, and quietly focus our lives on people. The reality is, you can’t share life like this with masses and multitudes … We [can't] mass-produce disciples … God’s design for taking the gospel to the world is a slow, intentional, simple process that involves every one of his people.

Exciting things happen when the people of God believe the Word of God is worth spending their lives to teach to others.

(More Radical Quotes by David Platt) (Buy The Book)

Keeping it real,

Photo courtesy of: cincooldesigns

• In Matthew 9 we see him [Jesus] surrounded by the multitudes and moved with compassion because they were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” So he turned to his disciples and said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” …
• I would have expected Jesus to say, “You guys see the need. The harvest is plentiful. So pray for these people who are harassed and helpless. Pray for them.” But that isn’t what he said. Jesus didn’t say to pray for those who were lost. Instead he told the disciples to pray for the church …
• When Jesus looked at the harassed and helpless multitudes, apparently his concern was not that the lost would not come to the Father. Instead his concern was that his followers would not go to the lost.

(More Radical Quotes by David Platt) (Buy The Book)

Keeping it real,

**************
Photo courtesy of: Koshy Koshy

• The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability … what we can accomplish when we believe ourselves and trust in ourselves … But the gospel has different priorities … die to self, believe in God, trust His power.
• While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.
• After spending a week around precious children who eat a small cup of porridge a day, the question I have come back to Birmingham asking God is why He has blessed me when others have so little. And this is what He has shown me: “I have blessed you for my glory. Not so you will have a comfortable life with a big house and a nice car. Not so you can spend lots of money on vacations, education, or clothing. Those aren’t bad things, but I’ve blessed you so that the nations will know me and see my glory.” All my life I have completely disconnected God’s blessings from God’s purpose, and now I realize what I had never seen. God has blessed me to show His love to Domingo [an elderly man who was born again as a result of a mission trip].
• I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we had missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable. We were settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.
• We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is influenced by the American Dream [more blessings for me] and how much is biblical.
• If Jesus is who he said he is, and if his promises are as rewarding as the Bible claims they are, then we may discover that satisfaction in our lives and success in the church are not found in what our culture deems most important but in radical abandonment to Jesus.

(More Radical Quotes by David Platt) (Buy The Book)

Keeping it real,

**************
Photo courtesy of: tinou bao

• Without [the Holy Spirit], people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results.
• When it comes down to it, many of us do not really want to be led by the Holy Spirit. Or, more fundamentally, many of us don’t want to be led by anyone other than ourselves.
• I can’t imagine how much it pains God to see His children hold back from relationship with the Holy Spirit out of fear that He won’t come through.
• The truth is that the Spirit of the living God is guaranteed to ask you to go somewhere or do something you wouldn’t normally want or choose to do. The Spirit will lead you to the way of the cross, as He led Jesus to the cross, and that is definitely not a safe or pretty or comfortable place to be.
• The Holy Spirit will mold you into the person you were made to be. This often incredibly painful process strips you of selfishness, pride, and fear.
• The Holy Spirit is absolutely vital to our situation today … if the Holy Spirit moves, nothing can stop Him. If He doesn’t move, we will not produce genuine fruit no matter how much effort or money we expend.

Quotes from Forgotten God, by Francis Chan

Forgotten God Quotes

• Could it be that we’ve forgotten the One who distinguishes us from every religion and cult in the world?
• I think the fear of God failing us leads us to “cover for God.” This means we ask for less, expect less, and are satisfied with less because we are afraid to ask for or expect more.
• We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God.
• When we are referring to God, balance is a huge mistake. He wants an invitation from us to permeate everything and every part of us.
• The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation. And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit.
• The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes purely a human creation … apart from the work and presence of the Holy Spirit.
• I believe that the Spirit is more obviously active in places where people are desperate for Him, humbled before Him, and not distracted by their pursuit of wealth or comforts.
• I can’t imagine how much it grieves God to watch His children ignore the promises He’s made throughout Scripture due to fear that those promises won’t be kept!
• Is it possible to get enough or even too much God? Perhaps the core issue is really about our holding back from giving ourselves to God, rather than our getting “too much” of Him.

Quotes from Forgotten God, by Francis Chan