Jesus Discipleship Quotes

“Jesus-shaped spirituality hears Jesus say "believe and repent," but the call that resonates most closely in the heart of a disciple is "follow me." The command to follow requires that we take a daily journey in the company of other students. It demands that we be lifelong learners and that we commit to constant growth in spiritual maturity. Discipleship is a call to me, but it is a journey of "we.”

— Michael Spencer

“If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do.”

— Neal A. Maxwell

“Genuine Christianity is more than a relationship with Jesus, as expressed in personal piety, church attendance, Bible
study, and works of charity. It is more than discipleship, more than believing a system of doctrines about God. Genuine Christianity is a way of seeing and comprehending all reality. It is a worldview.”

— Charles W. Colson

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession ... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“I have come to realize my need to take the New Testament witness seriously that groaning and grief and feeling broken are legitimate ways for me to express my cross-bearing discipleship to Jesus. It's not as if groaning means I am somehow doing something wrong. Groaning is a sign of my fidelity.”

— Wesley Hill

“It is possible to know all about doctrine and yet not know Jesus. The soul is in danger when knowledge of doctrine outsteps intimate touch with Jesus ... Have I a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one sign of discipleship is intimate connection with Him, a knowledge of Jesus Christ nothing can shake.”

— Oswald Chambers

“Discipleship is based not on devotion to abstract ideals, but on devotion to a person, the Lord Jesus Christ;”

— Oswald Chambers

“Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him-a”

— Oswald Chambers

“I do not politicize Christianity nor my discipleship as Jesus did not politicize either His divinity nor his humanity.”

— R. Alan Woods

“Discipleship is a commitment to the memory and presence of Jesus Christ that makes a difference in how a life is lived, driving thought and behavior week in and week out.”

— James Carroll

“Do we now even have any idea of what discipleship evangelism, as we might call it, would look like? What message would we preach that would naturally lead to a decision to become an apprentice to Jesus in The Kingdom Among Us? I hope we can now understand what it might be, having worked our way this far. I hope that our understanding of what it is really to trust Jesus Christ, the whole person, with our whole life, would make the call to become his whole-life apprentice the natural next step. That would be discipleship evangelism. And it would be very different from what is now done.”

— Dallas Willard

“And so we have the result noted: the resources of God's kingdom remain detached from human life. There is no gospel for human life and Christian discipleship, just one for death or one for social action. The souls of human beings are left to shrivel and die on the plains of life because they are not introduced into the environment for which they were made, the living kingdom of eternal life. To counteract this we must develop a straightforward presentation, in word and life, of the reality of life now under God's rule, through reliance upon the word and person of Jesus. In this way we can naturally become his students or apprentices. We can learn from him how to live our lives as he would live them if he were we. We can enter his eternal kind of life now.”

— Dallas Willard

“If Christ has been given us, if we are called to his discipleship we are given all things, literally _all_ things. He will see to it that they are added unto us. If we follow Jesus and look only to His righteousness, we are in his hands and under the protection of Him and His Father. And if we are in communion with the Father, nought can harm us. God will help us in the hour of need, and He knows our needs.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“But discipleship never consists in this or that specific action: it is always a decision, either for or against Jesus Christ ... Christ speaks to us exactly as he spoke to them. It was not as though they first recognized him as the Christ and then received his command. They believed his word and command and recognized him as the Christ
in that order.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Discipleship does not come from positions of prominence, wealth, or advanced learning. The disciples of Jesus came from all walks of life.”

— James E. Faust

“This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something-someone-worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him.”

— David Platt

“To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations. It is to pick up our crosses and count the cost of losing all that contradicts his will and his way-including our reputations before the world, and our standing with the people and in the communities that we once held dear. It is to live before one audience, the audience of One, and therefore to die to all other conflicting opinions and assessments. There is no room here for such contemporary ideas as the looking-glass self, and no consideration here for trivial contemporary obsessions such as one's legacy.”

— Os Guinness

“When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the inner healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation.
Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguish gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no record of wrong. This is the criterion, sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God.”

— Brennan Manning

“Why do we judge Jesus' criterion for authentic discipleship irrelevant? Jesus said the world is going to recognize you as His by only one sign: the way you are with one another on the street every day.”

— Brennan Manning

“Jesus Christ spoke frankly to His disciples concerning the future ... In unmistakable language He told them that discipleship means a life of self-denial, and the bearing of a cross.”

— Billy Graham

“We see baptism as the starting point in our journey of discipleship. Our daily walk with Jesus Christ leads to peace and purpose in this life and profound joy and eternal salvation in the world to come.”

— Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.”

— Dallas Willard

“Discipleship never consists in this or that specific action: it is always a decision, either for or against Jesus Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Your love for Jesus Christ and your discipleship in His cause must be the consuming preoccupation and passion of your mortality.”

— Jeffrey R. Holland

“Again and again the Sermon on the Mount calls and challenges us to a life of radical discipleship. Note: when Jesus says 'Blessed are the ... merciful, peacmakers', and so on, he doesn't just mean that they themselves are blessed. He means that the blessing of God's kingdom works precisely through those people into the wider world. That is how God's kingdom comes. That's one thing to hear afresh.”

— N.T. Wright

“Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine.”

— Oswald Chambers

“Discipleship is not an option. Jesus says that if anyone would come after me, he must follow me.”

— Timothy Keller

“In the gospel of Jesus, sincere and costly discipleship always accompanies genuine conversion. The gospel of Jesus teaches men that a mere profession of faith alone is no sound evidence of salvation.”

— Paul Washer

“Discipleship is a daily discipline; we follow Jesus a step at a time, a day at a time”

— Warren W. Wiersbe

“Dallas Willard warns us too of the "cost of non-discipleship." We may be able to live with some pain, but when our whole self becomes more and more rotten, the cost is far greater than dealing with the problem as soon as possible. This is why I think following Jesus, though challenging, is much easier than following anything else. The world has nothing better to offer me. Jesus has come to right my wrongs and to make me refreshingly new.”

— Dallas Willard