What changes need to happen in your life to enjoy Jesus more thoroughly, worship him more passionately, follow him more closely, serve him more diligently, trust him more fully, and proclaim him more boldly?

It may be a procession of faithful failures that enriches the soil of godly success. Faithful actions are not religious acts. They are not even necessary actions undertaken by people of faith. Faithful actions, whether they are marked by success or they end in failure, are actions that are compelled by goodness.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ~ Aristotle Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. ~ Aristotle

You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his.

Banish professionalism from our midst, Oh God, an din its place put passionate prayer, poverty of spirit, hunger for God, rigorous study of holy things, white-hot devotion to Jesus Christ, utter indifference to all material gain, and unremitting labor to rescue the perishing, perfect the saints, and glorify our sovreign Lord. Humble us, O God, under your mighty hand, and let us rise, not as professionals, but as witnesses and partakers of the sufferings of Christ.

No man," Wilberforce wrote, "has a right to be idle." "Where is it," he asked, "that in such a world as this, health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?

My experience is that the absence of firm prior resolve results in regular rationalization.

This was Andrew Murray's judgment a hundred years ago: As we seek to find out why, with such millions of Christians, the real army of God that is fighting the hosts of darkness is so small, the only answer is—lack of heart. The enthusiasm of the kingdom is missing. And that is because there is so little enthusiasm for the King.18

Lord, let me make a difference for You that is utterly disproportionate to who I am.

You're not all that God has called you to be, as a follower of Jesus, if you're missions-minded but not engaged in God's mission here and now.

Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.

Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!