Christianish Quotes

“After all, the Beatitudes don’t tend to look a lot like modern Christianity. We choose a political team. We select a denominational preference. We hitch our cart to a branch of philosophy. Anyone that disagrees is quickly and succinctly judged, and simultaneously disregarded as worthless. Big problem with that approach. We are supposed to be loving those who don’t agree with us to Jesus—and you can’t love those whom you deem worthless.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“But the truth is, we have done more damage to the world’s impression of Jesus by feigning inaccurate perfection than we could ever cause by allowing those who don’t follow Christ to see us wrestling our sins and flaws to the ground.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“Grace is the greatest gift anyone could have ever given us. It should humble us, prompt us to make our lives right.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“Real life doesn’t skip the rough stuff.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“How did we take this life picture and somehow misconstrue it to mean that if we just believed in Jesus, our lives would be wealthy, prosperous, and happy? Jesus doesn’t promise that. Jesus says that many great things will come to those who follow Him, but He also promises a whole lot of lousy. And here’s the key: The lousy isn’t rotten. The lousy isn’t sin. The focus of your life is not supposed to be dodging lousy. Because lousy is life. And lousy is important.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“We still worship what we want our lives to feel like more than we worship Jesus.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“I pursued Christian success instead of pursuing Christ.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“I stopped being a little Christ and instead began filling out the application that I had labeled Christian. It was not a definition based on the actual namesake, but rather on those who frequent the clubhouse. And in the midst of being an American Christian among all the other American Christians, I stopped truly searching the nuances of who Christ was and is in order to fully grasp what a little Christ might, indeed, act like.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“This is how planet Earth earned its shameful reputation of undervaluing people by ethnicity, religion, gender, and whatnot. At some point man’s impression was labeled the voice of God. But man’s impression always contained the blind flaw of humanness.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“In modern faith our certainty has replaced love. A healthy faith walk is a collision of both. Enough certainty and conviction to walk out life pursuing Christ and holiness—but enough love to draw others (even those who do not agree with our conviction) to Christ. Conviction without love is just an angry opinion.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“We must give up that with which we are protecting ourselves. We must humble ourselves and surrender our precious opinion. This does not mean that we stop standing up for the truth. It means simply that we stand up in truth while we simultaneously stand up in love. That we bridge the gap between those we would inaccurately call our enemies. That instead we would allow the reality of the truth to drive us to sacrifice, to be willing to not be proven right.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“The natural act of tangible gratitude to God’s grace is to love Him back—to receive His love in the form of forgiveness of our sins—but to choose diligence in overcoming those sins as a loving statement of gratefulness.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“that is what is tremendously missing from modern Christianity: Tangible gratitude for God’s grace.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“Everything we were grabbing for, we are to instead give. It is the only way to truly seize it.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“We have a bad habit of presenting ourselves in a manner that seems to believe that righteousness is a change agent. It is not. Righteousness is the goal. Jesus is the only change agent.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“I have been the Pharisee tsk-tsking those who don’t do things my/God’s way. Not serving Jesus, but rather standing on His back to reach the high cookie jar so that I can serve myself.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“We look at Scriptures such as Matthew 4 and we instantly claim, “When I am in the wilderness, I will do what Jesus did.” But we ARE in the wilderness. Right now: this daily life on planet Earth where aspects of our spirit man starve and suffer from drought. We are smack-dab in the middle of our forty days and forty nights—but we don’t realize it because we’ve gotten used to starving and we can’t tell it’s the Devil who is luring us into disobedience.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“It freaks me out a little bit. In my humanness, if I had been challenged in such a manner, with Satan saying, “If you believe your God is strong enough to save you, why don’t you just jump,” I would have felt an obligation to prove God accurate. But that is not what Christ did. Because Christ did not lean on a few choice Scriptures that supported His life perception.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“As a church culture we don’t tend to stumble obviously. This is what we chastise and shake our heads at. No, we only sin in public when it is acceptable to those who stare at us. We sin when it seems, well, sensible. When our greed to have the biggest church building in town overtakes any thought of the poverty-stricken in our community. When our yearning for bigger book sales causes us to skew more seeker-friendly than the message we know we are called to share. When our gifts shine and our ear is ever so slightly turned toward those who urge to us that we “have earned more” and “deserve better.” When our anecdotes from the pulpit cease to be interesting enough—so we invent better ones.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“Life following Christ is not supposed to be a ride. It’s supposed to be a fight because there is a very specific villain—and if we don’t fight, he wins. If our Christianity aims only for pretty and pleasant and happy and rich, the Enemy becomes the victor.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“I allowed Jesus to seep into my church world—but not my relational world, my romance world, my business world, my creative world, my habits, my mouth. I read His words. I learned His words. But I did not fully belong to Him. Because of this I became a sort of half-breed. I segregated myself—splitting my soul into two segments: one that would openly serve Jesus and one that would secretly protect myself. I became like people I deemed my-kind-of-godly instead of becoming like Jesus. I pursued Christian success instead of pursuing Christ. I spoke witty insults as commonly as profound prayers. And in the process I called myself a Christian without ever becoming a little Christ at all. I became something else. Not truly Christian—but rather, merely Christianish. As a church community it is time we asked ourselves a startling question: What if we’re not really following Jesus at all?”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“In a crude analogy, we’re advertising Coca-Cola by saying it tastes like turpentine and then growing antagonistic towards those unwilling to take a swig.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“I never really liked the name Christian. I was told it meant “little Christ,” and as a thirteen-year-old, that sounded (at best) presumptuous and (at its basest) freakishly cocky beyond all measure. In all honesty I didn’t want to be a little Christ. It seemed both insulting to God and too much pressure for me. I didn’t want to be a souvenir of Jesus. I didn’t want to be His homeboy—a bobblehead version you buy at the gas station that cheapens the real deal. I wanted instead to be a follower of Christ. I’d heard that phrase bandied about and I thought it sounded accurate. And cool. I would vastly prefer to be an arrow pointing to the Great Question, rather than have someone mistake me for the answer.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“We think, “Hey. The Bible is holy, so quoting it must make my choices correct.” But someone else tried that tactic before. Yeah. His name was Satan.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“Not-so-fun-fact: If the people who work most closely with your ministry end up wanting nothing to do with Jesus, it is no longer a ministry.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“I knew that I loved Jesus and that the Pharisees betrayed Jesus. Therefore a Pharisee must be anyone who has betrayed me. Also—beards.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“The largest problem is that we are so focused on what we deem the bigger temptations, that we are doing nothing at all about our response to the smaller ones. And it is these smaller temptations that eventually become devastating.”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?

“But the truth is, we have done more damage to the world’s impression of Jesus by feigning inaccurate perfection than we could ever cause”
― Mark Steele, Christianish: What If We're Not Really Following Jesus at All?