“You don’t know what idol you worship until Jesus says, ‘I want it.'”

“It is, however, from Isaiah 53 that Jesus seems to have derived the clearest forecast not only of his sufferings, but also of his subsequent glory. For there the servant of Yahweh is first presented as ‘despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering’(v. 3), on whom the Lord laid our sins, so that ‘he was pierced for our transgressions’and ‘crushed for our iniquities’(vv. 5–6), and then, at the end of both chapters 52 and 53, is ‘raised and lifted up and highly exalted’(52:13) and receives ‘a portion among the great’(53:12), as a result of which he will ‘sprinkle many nations’(52:15) and ‘justify many’(53:11). The only straight quotation which is recorded from Jesus’lips is from verse 12, ‘he was numbered with the transgressors’. ‘I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me,’he said (Luke 22:37). Nevertheless, when he declared that he ‘must suffer many things’and had ‘not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’(Mark 8:31; 10:45), although these are not direct quotations from Isaiah 53, yet their combination of suffering, service and death for the salvation of others points straight in that direction.” p. 31

To aspire to leadership in God’s kingdom requires us to be willing to pay a price higher than others are willing to pay. The toll of true leadership is heavy, and the more effective the leadership, the greater the cost.

The loneliest preacher today is the person who has been entrusted with a prophetic message ahead of the times, a message that cuts across the temper of the age.

The spirit of the welfare state does not produce leaders. If a Christian is not willing to rise early and work late, to expend greater effort in diligent study and faithful work, that person will not change a generation. Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the result of never getting tired.