Samuel D. James > Quotes

“In other words, becoming more like Jesus involves far more than intellectual recall. We become more like Jesus as we give ourselves over to practices that push our hearts closer to him in love and trust. As we pursue these Christian habits of virtue in our lives, the Spirit uses them to bring about genuine change in our hearts. This is one of the major reasons that Christians throughout the years have held out the practices of Scripture reading, private prayer, and corporate worship as essential for spiritual growth. Intellectually speaking, many of these practices are highly repetitive. We read the same passages and pray the same kind of prayers and hear the same kind of sermons over and over again. If the essence of becoming more like Christ was attaining novel information, these repetitive practices would make little sense. But new information is not the point. It's not merely an issue of knowing the right things, but of having our hearts positioned in the direction of holiness.”
― Samuel D. James