Amanda Cox

“Most of the time we’re persecuted not because we love Jesus, but because we’re prideful, arrogant jerks who don’t love the real Jesus. We’re often judgmental, hypocritical, and legalistic while claiming to follow a Jesus who is forgiving, authentic, and loving. Sometimes people will hate us because we preach the same gospel Jesus preached, and sometimes people will hate us because we’re jerks. Let’s not do the second one and blame it on the first.”
― Jefferson Bethke, Jesus > Religion: Why He Is So Much Better Than Trying Harder, Doing More, and Being Good Enough

“He actually does the opposite. He says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”1 If Jesus wanted to grow a church, didn’t he know telling people they need to daily pick up an instrument of torture, death, and shame wasn’t the way to do it? Jesus opposed the pharisaical legalism of his time, but he also opposed the watered-down, flimsy, cultural religion. He was essentially saying, “I know my miracles are awesome. I know I have immense power. But don’t follow me for the wrong reason. The cost is high. The road to follow me is tough, it’s painful, it hurts, and you might even face death, but I promise there is joy on the other side. Do you want in?”
― Jefferson Bethke, Jesus > Religion: Why He Is So Much Better Than Trying Harder, Doing More, and Being Good Enough

“Sometimes I crack myself up; but laughter is biblical, so I feel almost holy laughing at my own jokes.”
― Judah Smith, Jesus Is ______: Find a New Way to Be Human

“I think He wants us to see things the way He does, and it’s not going to happen from the top floor of our castles. It will happen at the ground level of grace.”
― Bob Goff, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People