I saw The Disciplined Life by Calvin Miller for free on Kindle a few weeks ago and picked it up. This is a short e-book…probably took an hour to read it…that digs into what the disciplined Christian life should look like in light of what it means to truly follow Christ. This book addresses the complacency that we all tend to become comfortable with if we are not careful. I highlighted a few things while reading and have pasted them below…
- Should we not all be flexible before we know God’s will? Should we not all be immovable after we understand what he wants done?
- Appetite is a life sign. Healthy people get hungry. Our appetites can at last define us. Christians are to be people who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6).
- Evangelicals for most of their history have had a curious emphasis on the brakes rather than on the steering wheel. They are forever quitting this or that.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, near the end of his life, realized that his life held no firm definition except that which God gave it. He wrote exquisitely: I bore the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win. Am I then really that which other men tell of? Or am I only what I know of myself? Restless and longing and sick. Whoever we are, we are God’s.
- Living the God-life is all that ever can satisfy us.
- How shall we break free of this world except by thinking of the next?
- God never denies us what we want in an attempt to be mean to us. He withholds what we don’t need so that what he wants will become possible for us. And what does he want? Our conformity to the image of his Son. So let us never be guilty of thinking that our cravings for material things will ever produce Christlikeness in our lives.
- It is amazing that we take our individual schedules so seriously that we never wonder if God has anything else for us to do.
- Of all the gifts God gives us, surely the most precious is the gift of time.
- The basis of real praying is longing after relationship. Real relationships never keep their eye on the clock.
- We are clearly not the owner of our days.
- We are to be faithful in our management of all those gifts and goods God has given us (1 Corinthians 4:2).
- The ultimate purpose of Christians is to glorify God (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
- We are the trustees of our glorious individuality (1 Timothy 6:20).