"After the show, after the set, after the music stops, what's next?
Will there be fellowship, prayer, disciples, will you open your Bibles after the music stops?
After it’s over, after it ends, after the music stops, what then?
Will you understand that Christ is King?
Or will you just like the words we sing after the music stops?"
- Lecrae, "After the Music Stops"
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"The fellowship of the church is part of God's good news to men. It imparts to the gospel one of its most thrilling notes—that when Christ saves a man He not only saves him from his sin, He saves him from his solitude."
- Frank Colquhoun, Total Christianity
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"[O]
- Andrew Murray
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20"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that You gave me, that they may be one as We are one: 23I in them and You in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. 24"Father, I want those You have given Me to be with me where I am, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because you loved Me before the creation of the world. 25"Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. 26I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them."
- John 17:20-26
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"In and of itself, your longing for acceptance isn't a bad thing; God, in fact, created you for acceptance. This longing, however, was meant to be satisfied by God alone. But because of sin, we look to things smaller than God for it - things incapable of providing this infinite approval we crave. Your deep longing for acceptance can only be satisfied when you're accepted by the One Who made you for Himself. If you embrace what Christ has done on the cross for sinners, you're in! Your infinite hunger for approval will be forever satisfied, because you'll be unchangeably accepted by the only One Who offers eternal acceptance. You'll no longer have to depend onfinite things like your size, your stuff, or your smarts to get you in so that your life will matter. Once you understand that in Christ you're accepted by God, you're free and empowered to live unfashionably, because you won't need the acceptance of the world around you. You won't care if you're in with them, because you'll already be in with Him."
- Tullian Tchividjian, Unfashionable.
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"O Lord, we honor you for the gifts you have given in our churches - all of these men and women of whom the world is not worthy. And if we could do just a small part in our small days to be another stone - another living stone - in Your building, we would be thrilled with that - as long as we are built on the cornerstone."
- Kevin DeYoung.
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"You know, I have talked to so many old missionaries - seen them in nursing homes, seen them buried.... I have never in my life heard a missionary that regretted that he gave so much or that he invested too much in eternal things! But I have met countless men who have regretted investing everything in this world. You want to live for that which is profitable. Listen: Every Bible study, every bit of prayer, every Godly fellowship, every sitting under Biblical preaching is an investment in eternity. ... Everything lost for the sake of Christ is not lost at all! Everything kept outside of His name is lost! We shouldn't live as fools but should live as wise. We should walk circumspectly, knowing that time is fleeting, strength is fleeting, physical beauty is fleeting, wealth is fleeting; it's all fleeting. But he who does the will of God abides forever."
- Paul Washer, “Things Applicable for God’s Servants”
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"We also tend to worry [too much] about being good examples to the outside world... We ought to also concern ourselves with being examples to our brothers and sisters in Christ. How my life has benefitted from examples! I have known men and women who glowed with Christ. What an example they have been to me! The greatest thing I could do for the world: if I could just somehow bring them all onto one platform and just let you look at them - the glory, the kindness, the love, the knowledge! And I need them! ... We ought to surround ourselves with godly men and women who are alive, and with godly men and women who are dead - because though they are dead, they still speak."
- Paul Washer, “Things Applicable for God’s Servants”
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“Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.”
- Jonathan Edwards.
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