Disciples or Christians?

Have recently been very challenged reading THE GREAT OMISSION by Dallas Willard - here are some selected quotes....

The word ‘Disciple’ occurs 269 times in the New Testament. ‘Christian is found three times… (p3)

For at least several decades the churches of the Western world have not made discipleship a condition of being a Christian. One is not required to be, or to intend to be, a disciple in order to become a Christian, and one may remain a Christian without any signs of progress towards discipleship. (p4)

A mind cluttered by excuses may make a mystery of discipleship, or may see it as something to be dreaded. But there is no mystery about desiring and intending to be like someone – that is a very common thing. (p8)

Being unwilling to follow him [Jesus], our claim of trusting him must ring hollow. We could never credibly claim to trust a doctor, teacher or auto mechanic whose directions we would not follow. (p11)

…there is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself or his early followers taught that suggests you can decide just to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus’ expense and have nothing more to do with him. (p13)

Grace is opposed to earning not to effort. (p34)

The missing note in evangelical life today is not in the first instance spirituality but rather obedience. (p44)

And one of the greatest temptations that we face as evangelicals – for the moment I include what is sometimes called the charismatic stream of the church – is the idea that the personality and heart are going to be transformed by some sort of lightning strike of the Spirit. (p56)

Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. (p61)

Most statistical measures and anecdotal portraits of evangelical Christians, not to mention Christians in general, show a remarkable similarity in the life texture of Christians and non-Christians. (p69)

Spiritual formation in Christ is orientated toward explicit obedience to Christ. (p72)

...formation by the Spirit of God in Christ. This comes initially and mainly through immersion in and constant application of (John 8:31; 15:7) the Word of Christ, his gospel, and his commands that are inseparable from his person and his presence: ‘The words that I have spoken to you’, he said, ‘are spirit and life’ (John 6:63). (p75)

We must stop using the fact that we cannot earn grace as an excuse for not energetically seeking to receive grace. (p76)

It is a simple fact that nowadays the task of becoming Christ-like is rarely taken as a serious objective to be thoughtfully planned for… Indeed mortifying or putting to death doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing today’s Christians would be caught doing. (p84)

Spiritual formation… is the process by which the human spirit or will is given a definite form or character…
The most despicable as well as the most admirable of persons have had a spiritual formation. Their spirits or hearts have been formed. (p104)

Biblical religion is above all a religion of the heart and of the keeping of the heart. (p108)

In the battle over views of Christ the Saviour, Christ the teacher was lost on all sides. Discipleship as an essential issue disappeared from the churches… (p109)

One could now be Christian forever without actually changing in heart and life. Right profession, positive or negative, was all that was required. This has now produced a whole generation of professing Christians who, as a whole, do not differ in character, but only in ritual, from their non-professing neighbours… (p110)

If, now, one adds that forgiveness is strictly a matter of what one (professes to) believe, we have a recipe for the consumerist Christianity-without-discipleship that we have inherited at the present moment. (p111)

Conversely the gifts of the Spirit can only be rightly used if the one who receives and serves others by means of them is well formed in inner Christ-likeness….
Gifts by themselves do little to form the spirit and the character of those who exercise them. (p116)

The people to whom we minister and speak will not recall 99 percent of what we say to them. But they will never forget the kind of persons we are. (p124)

Someone has insightfully said, ‘The greatest threat to devotion to Christ is service for Christ’.
What a paradox! This is so easily a challenge for many ministers. Allowing service for Christ to steal our devotion to him is a radical failure in personal soul care. (p130)

Power without Christ’s character gives us our modern-day Sampsons and Sauls. (p131)

Many serious and thoughtful Christians are looking for ways into an intelligent and powerful Christ-likeness that can inform their entire existence and not just produce special religious moments. (p138)