christian living on Self-Reliance

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

The fact that our works are done in the service of God is not enough, by itself, to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and n...

In her excellent book on following Jesus in the suburbs, Ashley Hales describes one of the ways in which our discipleship has been influenced by modern secular trends such as the desire for self-actua...

And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is bett...

Jesus, though you were in very nature God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be used to your own advantage. Rather, you humbled yourself, you made yourself nothing. Lord, you are ...

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

“Would I rather be feared or loved? That’s easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

The word eccentric comes from a combination of the Greek terms ex (out of) and kentron (center). When combined, ekkentros means “out of center.” The term gained currency in the late Middle Ages, when ...

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. In your ...

’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.

But what will not Ambition and Revenge Descend to? Who aspires must down as low As high he sor’d, obnoxious first or last To basest things.

What self denial! What self abasement! What self emptying! He, whom no infinitudes can hold, is contained within infant’s age, and infant’s form. Can it be, that the great ‘I AM THAT I AM’ shrinks int...

All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...

C.S. Lewis on the Incarnation: We catch sight of a new key principle—the power of the Higher, just in so far as it is truly Higher, to come down, the power of the greater to include the less. . . . ...

The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves.

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done befor...

Emerson once observed, Do you love me? actually means Do you see the same truth? Or at least . . . Do you care about the same truth?”

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am bla...

Love to be unknown.

Our confidence in Christ does not make us lazy, negligent or careless, but, on the contrary, it awakens us, urges us on and makes us active in living righteous lives and doing good. There is no self-c...

There’s undeniably a dark side to restless ambition, however. You can see it in dramatic fashion in the documentary  Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop , which follows the comedian on tour after he left the To...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the sobering truth of what happens to many leaders when they climb the “ladder of success”: The ground at the foot of the ladde...

In his book, Soul Keeping, pastor John Ortberg describes his mentorship by Dallas Willard early in his ministry. The following vignette occurred while Willard was teaching a philosphy course at the Un...

Merciful Jesus Give us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety in order to take up the cross of opportunity and justice Too often we fail to do this Merciful Jesus Give us courage to d...

As I have worked to clarify my calling, I have learned to pay attention to my energy levels in response to different activities. If I experience a particular activity as being inordinately draining, I...