51 Inspirational Discipleship Quotes

In the journey of faith, finding inspiration and guidance can often come from the words of those who have walked the path before us. Discipleship is not just about following; it's about deepening our understanding, strengthening our commitment, and being shaped by the teachings that inspire us to lead a life of purpose. Whether you're a mentor, a mentee, or simply someone seeking spiritual growth, these quotes offer profound insights and motivation to keep the flame of faith alive. Join us as we explore a carefully curated collection of the top 51 inspirational discipleship quotes that will encourage and inspire you on your path.

1. “It is important not only to read God's Word but to interpret God's world in the light of the Word.” - Cindy Jacobs

2. “When in situations of stress, we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capabilities perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and were found equal to our tasks; and therefore, let us continue but with a more determined discipleship." (Ensign, Feb. 1979, 73.)” - Neal Maxwell

3. “The one indispensable requirement for producing godly, mature Christians is godly, mature Christians.” - Kevin DeYoung

4. “The "show business," which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from Our Lord's conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we have not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners. That is not learned in five minutes.” - Oswald Chambersd Chambers

5. “Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.” - Charles Spurgeon

6. “Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers.” - Robert A. Heinlein

7. “For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened," He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love.” - Brennan Manning

8. “A Christian understanding of the world sees a child's character not as genetically determined but as shaped to a significant degree by parental discipleship and discipline.” - Russell D. Moore

9. “We should be more concerned with reaching the lost than pampering the saved.” - David McGee

10. “We are not meant to die merely in order to be dead. God could not want that for the creatures to whom He has given the breath of life. We die in order to live.” - Elisabeth Elliot

11. “Jesus calls us to his rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.” - A. W. Tozer

12. “God in His sovereign goodness often uses the painful and at times debilitating injury of a spear thrower to make us readier for His service. ... One thing you discover about spear throwers is that though it’s not necessary for them to be good, it’s essential for them to appear good.” - Erwin W. Lutzer

13. “Never go into venture capital if you want a peaceful life.” - Georges F. Doriot

14. “The only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignficances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us.” - Andrew Murray

15. “Unless a person can give reasons, there is, literally, no reason why anyone else should take that person seriously. But without reasons, all we are left with is emotional blackmail. We sometimes call it 'moral blackmail,' but it has nothing to do with morals, only with the implied juvenile threat of having a tantrum unless everyone else gives in.” - N.T. Wright

16. “We need to shed our unearthly and nonsocial and idealistic and romantic and uber-spiritual visions of kingdom and get back to what Jesus meant. By kingdom, Jesus means: God's Dream Society on earth, spreading out from the land of Israel to encompass the whole world.” - Scot McKnight

17. “Most people in America, when they are exposed to the Christian faith, are not being transformed. They take one step into the door, and the journey ends. They are not being allowed, encouraged, or equipped to love or to think like Christ. Yet in many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is really seeking. Transformation is a process, a journey, not a one-time decision.” - David Kinnaman

18. “The choice we face is not, as many imagine, between heaven and hell. Rather, the choice is between heaven and this world. Even a fool would exchange hell for heaven; but only the wise will exchange this world for heaven.” - Dave Hunt

19. “By giving us control, our new technologies tend to enhance existing idols in our lives. Instead of becoming more like Christ through the forming and shaping influence of the church community, we form, and shape, and personalize our community to make it more like us. We take control of things that are not ours to control. Could it be that our desire for control is short-circuiting the process of change and transformation God wants us to experience through the mess of real world, flesh and blood, face-to-face relationships?” - Tim Challies

20. “‎Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.” - Scot McKnight

21. “Why do so many today want to wander off to South Africa or Kenya or India or Russia or Honduras or Costa Rica or Peru to help with justice issues but not spend the same effort in their own neighborhood or community or state? Why do young suburbanites, say in Chicago, want to go to Kentucky or Tennessee to help people but not want to spend that same time to go to the inner city in their own area to help with justice issues? I asked this question to a mature student in my office one day, and he thought he had a partial explanation: 'Because my generation is searching for experiences, and the more exotic and extreme the better. Going down the street to help at a food shelter is good and it is just and some of us are doing that, but it's not an experience. We want experiences.” - Scot McKnight

22. “Many pastors have been reduced to secular "mentors" and "coaches" in exchange for authentic disciplers of men.” - John Paul warren

23. “Fortunately, God made all varieties of people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. He has called people of every race and color who have been hurt by life in every manner imaginable. Even the scars of past abuse and injury can be the means of bringing healing to another. What wonderful opportunities to make disciples!” - Swindoll Charles R.

24. “[Jesus] plan called for action, and how He expressed it predicted its success. He didn't say "you *might* be my witnesses," or "you *could* be my witnesses," or even "you *should* be my witnesses." He said "you *will* be my witnesses.” - Swindoll Charles R.

25. “It takes a while for revelry to turn to reverence, and much repetition of truth to eventual turn young zeal into habitual channels for good.” - Elisabeth Elliot

26. “Let not him who accepts light in an instant despise him who gropes months in shadows.” - Elisabeth Elliot

27. “So many people come to church with a genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we are making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

28. “2 Timothy 3:16 says the speaker, instructs us, to draw from the Word of God for doctrine – what is right. He instructs us to draw from the Bible for reproof – pointing out what is wrong – as well as correction that will tell people how to get right. Last, the Word also gives us instruction in how to stay right.” - John Pereira

29. “I'm of the opinion and quite certain that our 'personal histories' with God are meant to be well informed by the Scriptures” - R. Alan Woods 2007

30. “There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

31. “Giving up everything must mean giving over everything to kingdom purposes, surrendering everything to further the one central cause, loosening our grip on everything. For some of us, this may mean ridding ourselves of most of our possessions. But for all of us it should mean dedicating everything we retain to further the kingdom. (For true disciples, however, it cannot mean hoarding or using kingdom assets self-indulgently.)” - Randy Alcorn

32. “Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside, and disrespected hands ungratefully toss aside what has so disappointed them.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

33. “Spiritual maturity is not reached by the passing of the years, but by obedience to the will of God. Some people mature into an understanding of God’s will more quickly than others because they obey more readily; they more readily sacrifice the life of nature to the will of God.” - Oswald Chambers

34. “God is not preparing you for anything; obedience is its own end in the purpose of God; be faithful to Him.” - Oswald Chambers

35. “Discipling our children is not about teaching them to behave in a way that won’t embarrass us. We’re working toward something much more important than that. We’re actually raising our children with a view toward leading them to trust and to follow Christ.” - Voddie T. Baucham Jr.

36. “Because I am not yet living up to what Jesus expects me to be in those red letters in the Bible, I always define myself as somebody who is saved by God's grace and is on his way to becoming a Christian. (...) Being saved is trusting in what Christ did for us, but being Christian is dependent on the way we respond to what he did for us.” - Tony Campolo

37. “If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

38. “Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

39. “What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots and wandered into a far county. Yet, they kept coming back to Jesus.” - Brennan Manning

40. “The one single use of things which we call our own is that they might be his who hath need of them.” - Thomas Hughes

41. “(Bonhoeffer's) change was not an ungainly, embarrassing leap from which he would have to retreat slightly when he gained more maturity and perspective. It was by all accounts a deepening consistent with what had gone before.” - Eric Metaxas

42. “You will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice.” - Eric Liddell

43. “The test of mountain-top experiences, of mysticism, of visions of God and of solitariness is when you are “in the soup” of actual circumstances.” - Oswald Chambers

44. “You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to “clear the numberless ascensions”* in about two minutes.” - Oswald Chambers

45. “You can either be god of certain areas of your life, or let Me be God of your whole life.” - The Skit Guys

46. “Everything in Scripture is either preparation for the Gospel, presentation of the Gospel, or participation in the Gospel.” - Dave Harvey

47. “It never cost a disciple anything to follow Jesus; to talk about cost when you are in love with anyone is an insult.” - Oswald Chambers

48. “We are not built for mountains and dawns and artistic affinities; they are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff of life, and this is where we have to prove our mettle. A false Christianity takes us up on the mount and we want to stay there. But what about the devil-possessed world? Oh, let it go to hell! We are having a great time up here.” - Oswald Chambers

49. “If we are cut loose from the anchor of God's Word, we will not be free. We will be slaves of personal passions and popular trends.” - John Piper

50. “I do not politicize Christianity nor my discipleship as Jesus did not politicize either His divinity nor his humanity.” - R. Alan Woods

51. “God's way leads always into trial, so far as sight and sense are concerned. Nature always will be tried in God's ways.” - George Mueller