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(Joe Stowell)
If Christianity is dull and boring,if it is a burden and not a blessing, then most likely we are involved in a project,not a Person;a system, not a Savior; rules rather than a relationship. We are prone to embrace the forms and functions as though they were the essence. But they are only expressions;He is the essence

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without descipleship, and Christianity without descipleship is always Christianity without Christ

(Joe Stowell) With every thought, choice, and response to life, fully devoted followers move toward proximity and intimacy with Christ. And what of us who have decided that we are close enough and simply go in orbit around Christ? This holding pattern is particularly comfortable when we note that others are orbiting farther away than we are. But to be a follower means Christ is the all-consuming center of our experience toward whom we are moving. Life is like a galaxy. There is always something at the center that defines and directs everything else that moves around it. As the sun is to our solar system, so the Son should be to our existence. For many Christians, Christ is relegated to one of the tracks circling whatever it is that we have substituted in the center. Christ followers refuse to have anything in the center but Him. The closer we get to Him at the center of our universe, the more of Him we reflect. Few are bent toward following Him unconditionally. And that makes all the difference in the world- in our little world and the larger world around us.