Mark Dever
Your plans are fine, as long as you realize God has the right to change them.Collection: Long
God’s Word has always been His chosen instrument to create, convict, convert, and conform His people.Collection: People
Pride causes us to care more about what our non-Christian friends think of us than what God will do to them in their sin.Collection: God
A gospel that in no way offends the sinner has not been understood.Collection: Way
Evangelism is not imposing anything on anyone; it is simply sharing the truth.Collection: Evangelism
The gospel of Christ has never needed the gimmicks of man to effect conversion in the soulCollection: Men
T]he church is not a place. It's not a building. It's not a preaching point. It's not a spiritual service provider. It's a people - the new covenant, blood-bought people of God. That's why Paul said, 'Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her' (Eph. 5:25). He didn't give himself up for a place, but for a people.Collection: Spiritual
We are called to love others. We share the gospel because we love people. And we don't share the gospel because we don't love people. Instead, we wrongly fear them. We don't want to cause awkwardness. We want their respect, and after all, we figure, if we try to share the gospel with them, we'll look foolish! And so we are quiet. We protect our pride at the cost of their souls. In the name of not wanting to look weird, we are content to be complicit in their being lost.Collection: Pride
Christian proclamation might make the gospel audible, but Christians living together in local congregations make the gospel visible (see John 13:34-35). The church is the gospel made visible.Collection: Christian
When a person becomes a Christian, he doesn’t just join a local church because it’s a good habit for growing in spiritual maturity. He joins a local church because it’s the expression of what Christ has made him—a member of the body of Christ.Collection: Christian
I'll tell you what's more important than all the commentaries in your library: prayer.Collection: Prayer
Our examples of enduring hardship are often more powerful than our stories of success and triumph.Collection: Powerful
Avoiding the doctrine of Hell is one step away from denying it altogether.Collection: Steps
As long as quick numerical growth remains the primary indicator of church health, the truth will be compromised. Instead, churches must once again begin measuring success not in terms of numbers but in terms of fidelity to the Scriptures.Collection: Numbers
If you need wisdom and guidance, then pray to the Lord to guide you.Collection: Needs
Friend, the church finds its life as it listens to the Word of God. It finds its purpose as it lives out and displays the Word of God. The church’s job is to listen and then to echo.Collection: Jobs
We mustn't be content to just sit around pointing out the errors in others; we actually need to be sharing the gospel and praying for people to be converted.Collection: Errors
We do not fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not subsequently converted; we fail only if we do not faithfully tell the gospel at all.Collection: Failing
If you are not offending people, then you are not an evangelist.Collection: Offending
We do live best in this world when we keep the next in mind.Collection: Mind
A healthy church is not a church that's perfect and without sin. It has not figured everything out. Rather, it's a church that continually strives to take God's side in the battle against the ungodly desires and deceits of the world, our flesh, and the devil. It's a church that continually seeks to conform itself to God's Word.Collection: Perfect
The church is the gospel made visible.Collection: Church
Correct division should be preferred over corrupt unity.Collection: Unity
The church arises only from the gospel. And a distorted church usually coincides with a distorted gospel.Collection: Church
The truly changed, truly converted, truly Christian heart can say with John Newton, “I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God, I am what I am.Collection: Christian
I think many people in the church are probably concerned that they can't answer all the questions that might come up. I am sure this affects people by playing on their doubts - especially if they have their own questions that they are wrestling with.Collection: Wrestling
I think that there are many things in the New Testament that show us that the godliness of our conversation plays an important evangelistic role. The apostles are clear that we mustn't limit the explicit sharing of the gospel to formal preaching. It can also happen in ordinary conversations.Collection: Thinking
To evangelize properly by delivering the gospel, we need to follow God's agenda.Collection: Needs
I know a girl who has become a really enthusiastic Christian. I remember meeting her several years ago. She lived in a house near us. She was standing out the front smoking, not apparently interested in religious things, but she did have a respect for spiritual matters when I spoke to her. So as we talked, she expressed an interest, and began to come to church occasionally. Over the years, I have watched her come to Christ, be converted, baptized and changed in wonderful ways. It's a real joy to me when I see things like this.Collection: Girl
I don't have any way to control the Spirit or create revival. I pray that the Holy Spirit would move upon the church, but at the same time, I want to busy evangelizing. I am not one of those people who moan and pray for revival all the time, but do nothing.Collection: Moving
Let's say that you want to do everything out of the joy that comes from knowing the Lord. Well, a lot of people aren't built like that emotionally. If they think that some sort of feeling is the basis for their action, they are going to feel justified sitting around, although they are going to feel bad that they have never taken one step of obedience because their heart is cold.Collection: Taken
All evangelists want to do is share a message about the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. But our world is confused by the confidence we have in the gospel, and is threatened by it. Satan, I am sure, causes those things to echo in the world to increase this sort of common confusion.Collection: Confused
We need the word proclaimed so that we hear the gospel clearly, but then it's also very natural to have people talk about the Christian faith in ordinary conversation.Collection: Christian
We need to be realistic and recognize that there will be times when we won't be sharing our faith out of an overwhelming sense of joy. When that happens, that's a call to look at our own devotional lives. Are we putting our hearts and minds before the Lord and under his cross everyday? Do we remind ourselves continually that we have been ransomed by the death of the Saviour? When we meditate on Christ's death for us, it doesn't mean that we never have struggles in our obedience, but it does help.Collection: Struggle
I think that honesty in presenting the gospel goes out the window when you want people to respond to the message, but you are prepared to accept any sort of response. Of course, the only true response is heartfelt repentance and faith. However, if you don't feel the need to be honest in your presentation, then you will calibrate your presentation of the gospel to whatever gets the response you want.Collection: Honesty
Advice on evangelism needs to be tailored to individual situations. For instance, I know someone who needs to be encouraged to speak less and work more. That would be a better testimony for him because he has certainly let his work colleagues know about Jesus. It's not that I don't want him to witness about Jesus, but I have a lot of sympathy for his employer. He is paying for work to be done.Collection: Jesus
If we feel that our ministry has come to an end in one place, then it seems reasonable to move on.Collection: Moving
You have to push on both pedals to make the wheels go 'round. Similarly, you need faith in Christ as well as knowledge. The problem is that there are always Christians who want to push one pedal - either knowledge or experience. We need both.Collection: Christian
There are opportunities around. It takes time and motivation to take them.Collection: Motivation
There is no gospel without the offence. This is God's wisdom. It never seems sensible to us in our flesh.Collection: Flesh
Let's say you don't want to stress the urgency of the gospel. Imagine that you are a hyper-Calvinist, and you just figure that people's salvation is a matter for the sovereignty of God. Well, if that's the case, there will never be the heartfelt pleading that you would see in a Spurgeon or an Edwards, or in the Apostle Paul where he pours out his heart in Romans 9 and 10 for the Jewish people.Collection: Stress
I do want to pray for the Lord to glorify himself and, yes, I also will pray for an outpouring of his Spirit, but I also will rejoice in what he is doing now, and I will try to be a faithful steward of the gospel by preaching it "in season and out of season", as Paul reminds us. So I want to be careful not to make an idol out of revival, or to rely upon it to the point where I don't plan for evangelism.Collection: Idols
My task as a pastor is to remind people of the need for balance. If someone wants to stress personal union with Christ, I remind them of the need for knowledge as well. If they want to stress knowledge, I tell them about their need to depend on Christ.Collection: Stress
I don't mind talking about a football game - that's fine. I don't want Christians to be unnatural. But I do want to hear them talking fully, freely and naturally of the things of the Lord in their own lives too.Collection: Christian
Discipling involves instruction and imitation.Collection: Imitation
If you are not a member of the church you regularly attend, you may well be going to hell.Collection: Church
Most people are glad for somebody else to share their own story of how they have found spiritual help. The problems start when you begin to universalize your story - when your narrative becomes authoritative and begins affecting their lives as well.Collection: Spiritual
An evangelist no more imposes his views on others than a pilot imposes his views on his passengers when he lands a plane on a runway. I bet the passengers are glad!Collection: Views
Sadly, there are some fine Christian people who believe that the only way to advance the gospel is to pray for revival and nothing else. You don't know if they have any non-Christian friends or if they have ever shared the gospel with anybody in the last 30 years. It's depressing going to prayer meetings like that. I don't want to pray like that.Collection: Christian
People forget that there is a big difference between coercion and persuasion. The idea that evangelism is coercive is nonsense.Collection: Ideas