David Platt quotes:

The key is realizing - and believing - that this world is not your home. If you and I ever hope to free our lives from worldly desires, worldly thinking, worldly pleasures, worldly dreams, worldly ideals, worldly values, worldly ambitions, and worldly acclaim, then we must focus our lives on another world.

So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.

Somewhere along the way we have subtly and tragically taken the costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations and mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and listen in one location.

Salvation has absolutely nothing to do with human merit and absolutely everything to do with divine mercy.

Consider what it takes for successful businessmen and businesswomen, effective entrepreneurs and hardworking associates, shrewd retirees and idealistic students to combine forces with a creative pastor to grow a "successful church" today. Clearly, it doesn't require the power of God to draw a crowd in our culture. A few key elements that we can manufacture will suffice.

But then I realize there is never going to be a day when I stand before God and He looks at me and says, 'I wish you would have kept more for yourself.' I'm confident that God will take care of me.

The road that leads to heaven is risky, lonely, and costly in this world, and few are willing to pay the price. Following Jesus involves losing your life-and finding new life in him.

Do you realize the weight of the one who has invited us to follow him? He is worthy of more than church attendance and casual association; he is worthy of total abandonment and supreme adoration.

Good intentions, regular worship, Bible study, do not prevent blindness. Part of our sinful nature instinctively chooses to see what we want to see and to ignore what we want to ignore.

Radical obedience to Christ is not easy... It's not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.

On popular issues like poverty and slavery, where Christians are likely to be applauded for our social action, we are quick to stand up and speak out. Yet on controversial issues like homosexuality and abortion, where Christians are likely to be criticized for our involvement, we are content to sit down and stay quiet.

My life is a blank check before God... No strings attached.

Repentance is a rich biblical term that signifies an elemental transformation in someone's mind, heart, heart, and life.

Christianity does not start with an invitation we offer to Jesus, but with an invitation Jesus offers to us.

Disciple making is not a call for others to come to us to hear the gospel but a command for us to go to others to share the gospel.

The most glorious reason you exist is for the proclamation of the glory of God to the ends of the world. And it's more than having a nice life.

A materialistic world will not be won to Christ by a materialistic church.

You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us. Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and dare to ask what the consequences might be if we really believed him and really obeyed him.

We are settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.

We bask in sermons, conferences, and books that exalt a grace centering on us.

God has clearly called and gifted some people in the church to teach his Word formally.

Some people think that if they will do certain things, they will somehow earn the favor of God, but this misses the whole point of Christianity and ironically devolves into a me-centered approach.

This is the curse of superficial religion: the constant attempt to do outward things apart from inward transformation.

My prayer is that people will see that following Jesus costs you everything you are and everything you have. And my prayer is that people will see that Jesus is worth it.

The message of biblical Christianity is 'God loves me so that I might make him- his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness- known among all nations.' Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is'

Why make disciples? Because heaven and hell exist, and the end of the world is coming.

What if all it took to bring us to our knees and to ignite our affections was the Word opened and the presence of God? What if that was enough for us? What if it didn't take a great band to evoke that kind of response from us in worship? What if His presence - His Word opened - what if it was enough?

The journey begins, though, with understanding what it means to be a christian. To say you believe in Jesus apart from conversion in your life completely misses the essence of what it means to follow him. Do not be deceived.

What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?

God involves us in his missions not because He needs us, but because He loves us. And in His mercy He has invited us to be involved in His sovereign design for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

The body of Christ is a multicultural citizenry of an otherworldly kingdom.

The bible informs us, compels us to care for the poor, to love the outcast, to serve the needy.

I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we had missed what was radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable.

We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in his Word, we might discover that he evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give him.

While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.

The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability.

We have a dangerous tendency to misunderstand, minimize, and even manipulate the gospel in order to accommodate our assumptions and our desires.

Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator... until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say, "No."

No sound system. No band. No guitar. No entertainment. No cushioned chairs. No heating or air-con. Nothing but the people of God and the word of God. And strangely, that's enough. God's Word is enough for millions of believers who gather in house churches... Jungles... Rainforests, and middle-eastern cities. But is his Word enough for us?

That is relinquishing control in a culture that prioritizes control and doing what you need to do in order to advance yourself.

My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to Him.

I can almost picture the disciples faces. "No, not the drink-my-blood speech! We'll never get on the list of fastest-growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you!

God's revelation in the Gospel not only reveals Who He is, but it also reveals who we are.

No matter how many red Xs we write on our hands to end slavery, as long as these same hands are clicking on pornographic websites and scrolling through sexual pictures and videos, we are frauds to the core.

Surrounded by the self -sufficiency of American culture, we can convince ourselves that we have what it takes to achieve something great.

And while we stand with conviction and courage, we must live with compassion. Amid a world with massive social needs around us, ranging from desperate poverty and orphan crises and millions of girls being trafficked for sex, to the degradation of marriage and the abortion of babies, we need to speak and act with selfless love on all of these issues.

Salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity, and the desperation of our need for his grace.

Surely the greatest social injustice is that 2 billion people haven't heard of God's love in Christ.

The sovereignty of God is the only foundation for worship in the midst of tragedy.

Who God is and what Christ did have huge implications for who we are personally and what we desire sexually.

We can rest confident in the fact that nothing will happen to us in this world apart from the gracious will of a sovereign God. Nothing.

And ultimately, If you sin against an infinitely holy and eternal God, you are infinitely guilty and worthy of eternal punishment.

The modern-day gospel says, 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Therefore, follow these steps, and you can be saved.' Meanwhile, the biblical gospel says, 'You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, & in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life. Therefore, you are radically dependent on God to do something in your life that you could never do.

This is how God works. He puts people in positions where they are desperate for his power, and then he shows his provision in ways that display his greatness

Don't underestimate what God can do with ordinary people.

If you can trust God to save you for eternity, you can trust him to lead you for a lifetime.

When you come to Jesus, you don't come to get health, wealth and prosperity. You come to Jesus to get Jesus

God involves us in his mission not because he needs us but because he loves us.

People who claim to be Christians while their lives look no different from the rest of the world are clearly not Christians

People will never know how glorious the cross is until they know how serious sin is.

Every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every lost person this side of hell.

The call of Christ is to deny ourselves and to let go of our lives. To relinquish control of our lives, to surrender everything we are, everything that we do, our direction our safety our security is no longer found in the things of this world. It is found in Christ. And that is great risk when it comes to the things of this world.

This is the gospel. The just and loving Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent His Son, God in the flesh, to bear His wrath against sin on the cross and to show His power over sin in the resurrection so that all who trust in Him will be reconciled to God forever.

Suddenly contemporary Christianity sales pitches don't seem adequate anymore. Ask Jesus to come into your heart. Invite Jesus to come into your life. Pray this prayer, sign this card, walk down this aisle, and accept Jesus as your personal Savior. . . We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God and who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and we have reduced him to a poor, puny Savior who is just begging for us to accept him. Accept him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don't we need him?

In a world where everything revolves around yourself-protec t yourself, promote yourself, comfort yourself, and take care of yourself-Jesus says, 'Crucify yourself. Put aside all self-preservati on in order to live for God's glorification, no matter what that means for you in the culture around you.'

God's ultimate concern is not to get you or me from point A to point B along the quickest, easiest, smoothest, clearest route possible. Instead, his ultimate concern is that you and I would know him deeply as we trust him more completely.

To everyone wanting a safe, untroubled, comfortable life free from danger, stay away from Jesus. The danger in our lives will always increase in proportion to the depth of our relationship with Christ.

The gospel does not prompt you to mere reflection; the gospel requires a response. In the process of hearing Jesus, you are compelled to take an honest look at your life, your family, and your church and not just ask, 'What is he saying?' but also ask, 'What shall I do?'

I believe that the gospel and the American Dream have fundamentally different starting points. The American Dream begins with self, exalts self, says you are inherently good and you have in you what it takes to be successful so do all you can, work with everything you have to make much of yourself. The gospel begins with God, the reality that we were created to exalt his name to the ends of the earth.

We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American and how much is biblical.

We can accomplish more in one month of dependence on the Spirit than we can in 100 years of dependence on ourselves.

We go wherever God leads whenever God moves us...because we love His glory more than we love our lives.

I want to be apart of something that can only be explained by the hand of God!

Faith is the realization that God's pleasure in you will never be based upon your performance for him.

If there were 1,000 ways to God we would want 1,001.

The more Christ fulfills the cravings of our souls, the more he changes our taste capacities from the inside out. The more we walk with him, the more we want him. The more we taste of him, the more we enjoy him. And this transforms how we live and what we live for.

There is indescribable joy, deep satisfaction and an eternal purpose in dying to ourselves and living for Christ.

We do not have time to waste our lives coasting out casual, comfortable Christianity.

When God tells us to give extravagantly, we can trust Him to do the same in our lives. And this is really the core issue of it all. Do we trust Him? Do we trust Jesus when He tells us to give radically for the sake of the poor? Do we trust Him to provide for us when we begin using the resources He has given us to provide for others? Do we trust Him to know what is best for our lives, our families, and our financial futures?

Unreached peoples are unreached for a reason. They're hard, difficult, and dangerous to reach. All the easy ones are taken

God beckons storm clouds and they come. He tells the wind to blow and the rain to fall, and they obey immediately. He speaks to the mountains, 'You go there,' and He says to the seas, 'You stop here, and they do it. Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator...until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say, 'No.

The primary purpose of prayer is not to get something, but to know Someone.

Our great need is to fall before an almighty Father day and night and to plead for him to show his radical power in and through us, enabling us to accomplish for his glory what we could never imagine in our own strength.

We desperately need each other in the daily fight to follow Christ in a world that's full of sin.

Consider the cost when Christians ignore Jesus commands to sell their possessions and give to the poor and instead choose to spend their resources on better comforts, larger homes, nicer cars, and more stuff. Consider the cost when these Christians gather in churches and choose to spend millions of dollars on nice buildings to drive up to, cushioned chairs to sit in, and endless programs to enjoy for themselves. Consider the cost for the starving multitudes who sit outside the gate of contemporary Christian affluence.

Anyone wanting to proclaim the glory of Christ to the ends of the earth must consider not only how to declare the gospel verbally but also how to demonstrate the gospel visibly in a world where so many are urgently hungry. If I am going to address urgent spriitual need by sharing the gospel of Christ or building up the body of Christ around the world, then I cannot overlook dire physical need in the process.

Do you and I believe him (Christ) enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture - and maybe in our churches - turn the other way?...For the sake of an increasingly marginalized and relatively ineffective church in our culture, I want to risk it all. For the sake of my life, my family, and the people who surround me, I want to risk it all.

As Christ begins to live in us, everything begins to change about us.

In every genre of biblical literature and every stage of biblical history, God is seen pouring out his grace on his people for the sake of his glory among all peoples.

God stands ready to allocate his power to all who are radically dependent on Him and radically devoted to making much of Him.

If we want to know the Glory of God, if we want to experience the beauty of God, and if we want to be used by the hand of God, then we must LIVE in the WORD of God.

We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of this world. Instead, we will wish we had given more of ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing the praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship.

Being a member of a church means realizing that we are responsible for helping the brothers and sisters around us to grow as disciples of Jesus. In the same way, they are responsible for helping us. We desperately need each other in the daily fight to follow Christ in a world that's full of sin.

May even the concept of unreached peoples be totally intolerable to us.

We do not follow a health and wealth savior. We follow a homeless and wounded Savior.

To be a Christian is to be loved by God, pursued by God, and found by God.

To be a Christian is to realize that in your sin, you were separated from God's presence, and you deserved nothing but God's wrath.

And as we meet needs on earth, we are proclaiming a gospel that transforms lives for eternity. The point is not simply to meet a temporary need or change a startling statistic; the point is to exalt the glory of Christ as we express the gospel of Christ through the radical generosity of our lives.

God actually delights in exalting our inability. He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him.

It is impossible to be a follower of Christ while denying, disregarding, discrediting, and disbelieving the words of Christ.

God's revelation is in the gospel not only reveals who He is, but it also reveals who we are.

We assume that our race simply deserves heaven; that God owes heaven to us unless we do something really bad to warrant otherwise.

Nothing is impossible for the people of God who trust in the power of God to accomplish the will of God.

What if the word of God was enough to inspire passionate worship among his people?

He (Jesus) came so that we might receive new life through supernatural regeneration.

God really is in the business of blessing his people in unusual ways so his goodness and his greatness will be declared among all peoples.

Surely the gospel evokes unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that He is.

Real success is found in radical sacrifice. Ultimate satisfaction is found not in making much of ourselves but in making much of God. The purpose of our lives transcends the country and culture in which we live. Meaning is found in community, not individualism; joy is found in generosity, not materialism; and truth is found in Christ, not universalism. Ultimately, Jesus is a reward worth risking everything to know, experience, and enjoy.

The very first word out of Jesus; mouth in is ministry in the New Testament is clear: repent.

Do you believe that Jesus is worth abandoning everything for? Do you believe him enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture - maybe even our churches - turn the other way?

Instead of trying to conquer sin by working hard to change our actions, we can conquer sin by trusting Christ to change our affections.

For God to be holy does not just mean He is without error. It means He is without equal. May it not be said of any one of us that there is not respect for the author of the universe. He is sovereign over all nature, over all nations and over every single one of our lives.

The Word of God and the Spirit of God are enough for the people of God to enjoy and spread the worship of God.