Quotes about Sacrifice

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it." — LUKE 9:23-24

in this case, the blood of the Passover Lamb — means the difference between life and death. To ignore the requirements whereby the sign would be present is to invite death and destruction into your home and family — and your nation. So, to some degree, the choice to live or to die is left to us.

To walk in a deep and consistent level of the anointing requires a price of personal sacrifice—spending more time with God than with people, fasting, and separating yourself in prayer and study of the Word. The anointing activates the presence of God, mixing it with a person's faith, and brings deliverance to the body, mind, and spirit.

What if the call to pray is a call to bleed as well as to receive blessing?

There is no higher "law" to be obeyed than the law of love. That, at the end of the day, is what it means to follow Jesus.

Lord, help me let go of control. Help me die. Help me trust.

Following Jesus isn't like a burden we carry on our shoulders. It's an internal process so radical and painful that the best way to describe it for people of that day is as the act of being bound and nailed like a criminal to a piece of wood lifted above the ground where you are left hanging in naked humiliation and intense pain until you suffocate.

We have to die, and the choice is ours. If we don't, we are still holding on to something. And if we are holding on, we aren't really following. Just sort of following. Standing around. [Oh God, what did I sign up for? This Christianity thing is hard. Deep breath . . .] The apostle Paul chimes in, too: I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. (Galatians 2:19—20)

Being "saved" by God is an ongoing process of growth and transformation, of dying and rising, of being "conformed to the image of his [God's] Son," as Paul puts it (Romans 8:29). Following Jesus means experiencing the taste of resurrection and ascension now—whether doing laundry, paying bills, or leading nations.

Getting there is all about dying, and each cycle of dying and rising we come to in our lives brings us, I believe, to greater insight into our deep selves, where Christ lives "in us" and our lives are "hidden" in God.

God wants us dead. Or better: God wants us to get used to the need to die, not once, but as a pattern for our lives.

Perhaps her long dark night fueled her life, where she kept moving anyway, as an act of trust so deep it cannot be rationally explained—and indeed would look foolish if anyone tried. And the result was about as clear a Jesus movement as you can point to in recent history. Mother Teresa learned