Ordinary Quotes

“Sometimes, chasing your dreams can be “easier” than just being who we are, where God has placed you, with the gifts he has given to you.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“The gospel makes us extrospective, turning our gaze upward to God in faith and outward to our neighbor in love.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Christ’s body is not a stage for my performance,”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“However, the power of God unto salvation is not our passion for God, but the passion he has exhibited toward us sinners by sending his own Son to redeem us.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Contentment is the virtue that contrasts with restlessness, ambition, avarice. It means realizing, once again, that we are not our own — as pastors or parishioners, parents or children, employers or employees. It is the Lord’s to give and to take away. He is building his church. It is his ministry that is saving and building up his body. Even our common callings in the world are not really our own, but they are God’s work of supplying others — including ourselves — with what the whole society needs. There is a lot of work to be done, but it is his work that he is doing through us in daily and mostly ordinary ways.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“CNN will not be showing up at a church that is simply trusting God to do extraordinary things through his ordinary means of grace delivered by ordinary servants. But God will. Week after week. These means of grace and the ordinary fellowship of the saints that nurtures and guides us throughout our life may seem frail, but they are jars that carry a rich treasure: Christ with all of his saving benefits.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“we’ve forgotten that God showers his extraordinary gifts through ordinary means of grace, loves us through ordinary fellow image bearers, and sends us out into the world to love and serve others in ordinary callings.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Because of Christ alone, embraced through faith alone, for the glory of God and the good of our neighbors alone, on the basis of God’s Word alone” — and nothing more. This is the slogan of the ordinary Christian (Luke 10:27).”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Facing another day, with ordinary callings to ordinary people all around us is much more difficult than chasing my own dreams that I have envisioned for the grand story of my life.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“But I’ve come to the point where I’m not sure anymore just what God counts as radical. And I suspect that for me, getting up and doing the dishes when I’m short on sleep and patience is far more costly and necessitates more of a revolution in my heart than some of the more outwardly risky ways I’ve lived in the past. And so this is what I need now: the courage to face an ordinary day — an afternoon with a colicky baby where I’m probably going to snap at my two-year old and get annoyed with my noisy neighbor — without despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I’ve done nothing that is powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of me and that that is enough.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Although it is a bit of a caricature, I think that there is some truth in the generalizations I’m about to make. The tendency in Roman Catholic theology is to view the kingdom of Christ as a cosmic ladder or tower, leading from the lowest strata to the hierarchy led by the pope. Anabaptists have tended to see the kingdom more as a monastery, a community of true saints called out of the world and a worldly church. Lutheran and Reformed churches tend sometimes to see the kingdom as a school, while evangelicals (at least in the United States) lean more toward seeing it as a market.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“How was church today?” In most times and places of the church, this would have been an unlikely question. In fact, the hearer might have been confused. Why? Because it’s like asking how the meals at home have been this week or asking a farmer how the crops did this week. “How was the sermon?” “Was it a good service?” Same blank stare from the ancestors. In those days, churches didn’t have to be rockin’ it, nobody expected the preacher to hit it out of the park, and the service was, well, a service.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“This has been the vicious cycle of evangelical revivalism ever since: a pendulum swinging between enthusiasm and disillusionment rather than steady maturity in Christ through participation in the ordinary life of the covenant community. The regular preaching of Christ from all of the Scriptures, baptism, the Supper, the prayers of confession and praise, and all of the other aspects of ordinary Christian fellowship are seen as too ordinary.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“What would it say to our youth group if, instead of inviting the former NFL star, we had a couple visit who had been married for forty-five years to talk honestly about the ups and downs of growing together in Christ? What if we held up those “ordinary” examples of humble and faithful service over the worldly success stories?”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Loving Neighbors Is Tougher Than Loving Causes”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“In an economy of grace, there is enough to go around. The Father’s love and generosity are not scarce. His table is brimming with luxurious fare. That is why we invite those who cannot repay us. After all, it is not our table, but his.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Our families, including us, do not need more quality time, but more quantity time.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“In a digital age, blogs are often more authoritative than sermons.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“There are two kinds of prosperity gospels. One promises personal health, wealth, and happiness. Another promises social transformation. In both versions, the results are up to us. We bring God’s kingdom to earth, either to ourselves or to society, by following certain spiritual laws or moral and political agendas. Both forget that salvation comes from above, as a gift of God. Both forget that because we are baptized into Christ, the pattern of our lives is suffering leading to glory in that cataclysmic revolution that Christ will bring when he returns. Both miss the point that our lives and the world as they are now are not as good as it gets. We do not have our best life or world now.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“We need fewer Christians who want to stand apart from their neighbors, doing something that will really display God’s kingdom in all of its glory. We need more Christians who take their place alongside believing and unbelieving neighbors in the daily gift exchange. The thief is not expected to become a monk or a famous evangelist, but to “labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph 4:28).”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“The problem is that our children increasingly have not been given enough of the Christian faith even to apostatize from it properly.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“The power of our activism, campaigns, movements, and strategies cannot forgive sins or raise the dead.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“If your personal relationship with Jesus is utterly unique, then it is not properly Christian.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“I’m not saying that there is something wrong with moving to the city to pursue an adrenaline-racing calling. And I understand the fact that advertisers have always targeted our longing for self-importance. The real problem is that our values are changing and the new ones are wearing us out. But they’re also keeping us from forming genuine, long-term, and meaningful commitments that actually contribute to the lives of others. Over time, the hype of living a new life, taking up a radical calling, and changing the world can creep into every area of our life. And it can make us tired, depressed, and mean.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Our life has to count! We have to leave our mark, have a legacy, and make a difference. And all of this should be something that can be managed, measured, and maintained. We have to live up to our Facebook profile. It’s one of the newer versions of salvation by works.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“The Next Big Thing is Christ’s return. Until then, we live in hope that changes our ordinary lives here and now.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“So get on with life, with love, with service — fully realizing that God already has the perfect service he requires of us in his Son and now our neighbor needs our imperfect help.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“As Luther said, “God does not need our good works; our neighbor does.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Patient dedication to the ordinary and often tedious disciplines of corporate and family worship, teaching, prayer, modeling, and mentoring have been eroded by successive waves of enthusiasm.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World

“Christians should be some of the most conflicted people in the world. It is far simpler to be dead to God and to live for oneself. But Christians must struggle against their selfish ambition because they are alive to God in Christ Jesus, and the indwelling Spirit turns on the lights to enable them to see their sin.”
― Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World