The Jesus Way Quotes

“The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“[Jesus] said “Follow me” and ended up with a lot of losers. And these losers ended up, through no virtue or talent of their own, becoming saints. Jesus wasn’t after the best but the worst.”
― Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way: A conversation in following Jesus

“I want to develop discernments that say an unapologetic "no" to ways that violate the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life. Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for fifty years as a North American pastor.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“We can't suppress the Jesus way in order to sell the Jesus
truth. The Jesus way and the Jesus truth must be congruent. Only when the Jesus way is organically joined with the Jesus truth do we get the Jesus life.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“God's providence is never characterized
in broad generalities or pious abstractions but always in the particular, in the personal, in the recognition of grace in an unlikely time, at an unlikely place. Who could have anticipated ravens?”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“Real life, the real world, is a vast theater of salvation, directed by our wise and totally involved God.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“The North American church at present is conspicuous for replacing the Jesus way with the American way.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“The devil does some of his best work behind stained glass.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“To live only for some future goals is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow. But of course, without the top you can't have the sides. It's the top that defines the sides."8”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“If God is in charge, then I am not. I live in confidence that God is either doing or allowing whatever is going on, and also in the confidence that I am included in his rule.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“Everything that goes on us under God's rule, is penetrated by God's rule, is judged by God's rule, is included in God's rule - every one of my personal thoughts and feelings and actions, yes; but also the stock market in New York, the famine in Sudan , your first grandchild born last night in Atlanta, the poverty in Calcutta, the suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and New York and Baghdad, the abortions in Dallas, the Wednesday-night prayer meetings in Syracuse, the bank mergers being negotiated in Chicago, Mexican migrants picking avocados in California - everything, absolutely everything, large and small: the kingdom of God in which Jesus is king.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“When we follow Jesus, it means that we don't know exactly what it means, at least in detail. We follow him, letting him pick the roads, set the timetables, tell us what we need to know but only when we need to know it... When Jesus says "Follow me" and we follow, we don't know where we will go next or what we will do next. That is why we follow the one who does know.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“We don't live very long before we find that we would rather be our own gods. We like to have God in the background, a kind of safety net for the times when we fall off our self-made god-tightrope, but when things are going well and the sun is shining and all our other needs are being met we are not really inclined to deal with God.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“Revelation" is a meaningless word to those who think they are in control of all seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“It is both possible and common to embrace the one God, the God revealed in Scripture and in Jesus, and then go off and make an image of him that cuts him down to a size that fits what we want in God. Making an image of God, even the God who is speaking to us from Sinai or the cross, reduces God to our idea of him, or who we want him to be, or a way that we can use him. Once we have an image of God we don't have to deal with God. An image is impersonal, and we don't have to have any relationship with what is impersonal.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“If we have a choice, which we do, of dealing with God or an image of God, we much prefer the image. An image of God is God customized to our requirements. We not only have the pleasure of making the image, using our wonderful imagination and skills in creative ways, but also of controlling it. The image is a god with all the God taken out of it so that we can continue to be our own gods.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“Lots of people more or less believe in God. But most of us do our best to customize God to suit our convenience by adapting and modifying, making him "relevant to our situation." Prophets insist that God is the living center or nothing. Our task is to become relevant to his situation. They insist that we deal with God as God reveals himself, not as we imagine him to be.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“It is both common and easy to develop a concept of faith in which God is pledged to give us whatever we want whenever we ask; that faith means being a consumer of gospel goods and services; that faith means that we are baptismally certified to administer the test on God, to calculate and evaluate God's performance in our lives; that faith qualifies us to explain God and call him to account when he doesn't make sense. And many are the leaders and friends who encourage us along this line.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“Sacrifice exposes spiritual fantasy as a masquerade of faith... Sacrifice is readiness to interrupt whatever we are doing and build an altar, bind whatever we happen to be carrying with us at the moment, place it on the altar, and see what God wills to do with is.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“The way of Jesus is not a sequence of exceptions to the ordinary, but a way of living deeply and fully with the people here and now, in the place we find ourselves.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“It is far easier to decide on a desired end, a goal, than it is to acquire adequate means. "What do you want to do [to be] when you grow up?" evokes a kaleidoscope of answers for the first twenty or so years of our lives. Setting the goal requires little effort, no commitment, and no skill. But finding the means for reaching the goal, achieving that identity, is a matter of diligent concentration, responsible perseverance, and keen discernment.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“The person that we follow is the primary shaping influence on the person that we become.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“More often than not I find my Christian brothers and sisters uncritically embracing the ways and means practiced by the high-profile men and women who lead large corporations, congregations, nations, and causes, people who show us how to make money, win wars, manage people, sell products, manipulate emotions, and who then write books or give lectures telling us how we can do what they are doing.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“Many who understand themselves to be followers of Jesus, without hesitation, and apparently without thinking, embrace the ways and means of the culture as they go about their daily living "in Jesus' name.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“To follow Jesus means that we can't separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing and the way that he is doing it. To follow Jesus is as much, or maybe even more, about feet as it is about ears and eyes.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“biblical leadership always means a process of being-led.
MARTIN BUBER, Israel and the world”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. We Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting more, requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn't even know we had. We are insatiable.
It didn't take long for some of our Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them, satisfy their fantasies, promise them the moon, recast the gospel in consumer terms: entertainment, satisfaction, excitement, adventure, problem-solving, whatever. This is the language we Americans grow up on, the language we understand. We are the world's champion consumers, so why shouldn't we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?
Given the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way that has ever been devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: this is not the way in which God brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and sets us on the way of Jesus' salvation. This is not the way in which we become less and Jesus becomes more. This is not the way in which our sacrificed lives become available to others in justice and service. The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, "deny yourself" congregation. A consumer church is an antichrist church.
We can't gather a God-fearing, God-worshiping congregation by cultivating a consumer-pleasing, commodity-oriented congregation. When we do, the wheels start falling off the wagon. And they are falling off the wagon. We can't suppress the Jesus way in order to sell the Jesus
truth. The Jesus way and the Jesus truth must be congruent. Only when the Jesus way is organically joined with the Jesus truth do we get the Jesus life.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“relinquishment is prerequisite to fulfillment,”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way