This is the saddest warfare that any poor creature can be engaged in. A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but has no strength for the combat. They cannot but fight, and they can never conquer; they are like men thrust on the sword of enemies on purpose to be slain. The law drives them on, and sin beats them back.

~John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers

This is the leader’s responsibility—to deal with himself. We are not perfect, and claims of perfection will only serve to undermine our leadership. We will fail, and we must be answerable for those failures. Our sin will show up in our leadership, usually without delay.

~Al Mohler, The Conviction to Lead

God designed the church to make the previously invisible visible to God and to one another in a new kind of fellowship that the Roman Empire and the Jewish world had never seen before.

~Scot McKnight, A Fellowship of Differents

Once I have labeled someone a fundamentalist or a liberal, I no longer have the obligation to deal with them as one human being to another; their humanity has been eclipsed by the reification of some view they hold which now gives me an exhaustive, and subhuman, account of who they are.

~Carl Trueman, Minority Report

When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even when there is least suspicion.

~John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers

To desire to be an overseer is a marvelous thing. Aspire to greatness in it! Aspire to frequent the unknown, to bless the unnamed, to lose your fame and your reputation among the influential, in order to take a stand for an end to appearance making as a way of life and ministry.

~ Zack Eswine, Sensing Jesus

Every leader who truly follows Christ will have followers who look more and more like Jesus Christ, not like the leader.

~ Dr. Diane Langberg, Narcissism and the System it Breeds

Often readers don’t stop reading because they don’t have “permission” to stop. You have permission. The only book you should read entirely is the Bible. All other books must prove their value along the way. Don’t allow unfinished books to pile up in a mountain of guilt. Show patience with a book, but cut the ties when necessary and move on.

~Tony Reinke, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books

We explored the reasons that adults who have changed churches chose their current churches. The most important factors were the beliefs or doctrines of the church, the preaching, and the authenticity of members.

~ Ed Stetzer, Southern Baptists, Evangelicals, and the Future of Denominationalism