Risk Before the Fall

“God did not create a safe world for us. Even before the sin of man ruined so much, the paradise of Eden had a serpent in it. Adam was in a momentous conflict before he sinned. God insists that we bet with real money. God requires us to risk things. This risk includes all that we hold dear, and to shrink back from it is to incur the displeasure of God. The wicked and lazy servant was the one who would not risk what had been entrusted to him. To play it safe is to play it dangerous.”

Concise and to the Point, p. 127

Fighting for Love is Not Loving to Fight

“The shepherd who will not fight the wolves does not love the sheep. The shepherd who loves to fight simply for the sake of fighting, and wolves will do for an adversary, is a shepherd with disordered affections. The shepherd must hate the wolves because he loves the sheep. If he hates the wolves because loves to hate, then he is a wolf himself.”

Concise and to the Point, p. 126

Blinkered Dogmatism

“More is involved in raising up a godly seed than for a man to have dogmatic convictions about birth control, matched only by his unwillingness to feed, read to, educate, pay tuition for, bestow upon, and love the results of his dogmatism. There are no promised covenantal blessings for the self-absorbed proprietors of stud farms.”

Concise and to the Point, p. 108

Breathing Really Hard

“Every fruitful minister in the history of the world has routinely been in over his head. Trust God and go . . . And when you have done all, and you stand before your Maker—cut, bleeding, grimy, sweating, and breathing hard—you will say that you are an unworthy servant, and only did as you were instructed (Luke 17:10). If that. And he will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:23). Enter into joy.”

Concise and to the Point, pp. 98-99