Prayer
can no more be divorced from worship than life can be divorced from breathing.
If we follow his impulse, the Holy Spirit will always lead us to pray.
When we allow him to work freely, he will always bring the Church to extensive
praying. Conversely, when the Spirit is absent, we will find excuses not to
pray. We may say, "God understands. He knows I love him. But I’m tired...
I’m so busy... It’s just not convenient now..." When the Spirit is absent, our
excuses always seem right, but in the presence of the Spirit our excuses fade
away - R. T. Kendall
Trying
to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting,
and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the
ministry of Jesus just flows out of you. - Corrie ten Boom
Lord,
I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and
accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to
be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt.
Send me where Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and
forever. - Betty Scott Stam
Would
it not be the height of folly if Tasmania were to resolve to cut the supply of
power from that mountain lake and to substitute hand power? Would not the
factories soon close down, and the incipient harvest of prosperity suddenly
wither? Yet it often seems as though the modern Church were in danger of making
a similar mistake. In scores of cases she [the Church] is disconnecting herself
from the dynamic of Pentecost, and is endeavoring to find compensation for her
loss of spiritual power in brilliance of intellect in the pulpit, in highly
organized and expensive machinery, and by calling to her aid incidental
accessories, which are borrowed from the world; and which, even where they may
be comparatively innocent, are totally unfit to secure the great ends for which
she was called into being, according to the purpose and plan of her great
Architect. - F. B. Meyer
If
we think of the Holy Spirit only as an impersonal power or influence, then our
thought will constantly be, how can I get hold of and use the Holy Spirit; but
if we think of Him in the biblical way as a divine Person, infinitely wise,
infinitely holy, infinitely tender, then our thought will constantly be, "How
can the Holy Spirit get hold of and use me? - R. A. Torrey
Breath
in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy
Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I
love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. - Augustine
Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking
for better men. What the church needs today is not more machinery or
better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men who the Holy
Spirit can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit
does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men
-- men of prayer. - E. M. Bounds
You
look back on your life. You may be disappointed in many ways with your part in
the business. You may be able to see many falterings and blunderings and
mistakes that you on your side made. You may have sometimes felt that you were
not the person for that job; God had made a mistake. Some of us have felt like
that. And yet, as we look more deeply into God's ways with us and know God's
principles, we see a wonderful logic in it all. You and I are called for
something, laid hold of by God for something, put by God into something, and we
feel, God has made a mistake: I am not the person for this, I ought never to
have come into this, I have no qualifications for this, I am altogether the
wrong peg here! And yet, somehow or other, God does it. He enables you, He
carries you through, He accomplishes the work to your own surprise and wonder As
you lay hold of the Holy Spirit, it is done that is, if you do not sink down
into yourself and give up and draw out because of what you are but you lay
hold of the Holy Spirit and you get through and marvel that you have got
through, that the Lord has done this thing through you, through me. - T.
Austin Sparks
I
should as soon attempt to raise flowers if there were no atmosphere, or produce
fruits if there were neither light nor heat, as to regenerate men if I did not
believe there was a Holy Ghost. - Henry Ward Beecher
Prayer
can no more be divorced from worship than life can be divorced from breathing.
If we follow his impulse, the Holy Spirit will always lead us to pray.
When we allow him to work freely, he will always bring the Church to extensive
praying. Conversely, when the Spirit is absent, we will find excuses not to
pray. We may say, "God understands. He knows I love him. But I’m tired...
I’m so busy... It’s just not convenient now..." When the Spirit is absent, our
excuses always seem right, but in the presence of the Spirit our excuses fade
away - R. T. Kendall
Trying
to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting,
and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the
ministry of Jesus just flows out of you. - Corrie ten Boom
Lord,
I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and
accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to
be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt.
Send me where Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and
forever. - Betty Scott Stam
Would
it not be the height of folly if Tasmania were to resolve to cut the supply of
power from that mountain lake and to substitute hand power? Would not the
factories soon close down, and the incipient harvest of prosperity suddenly
wither? Yet it often seems as though the modern Church were in danger of making
a similar mistake. In scores of cases she [the Church] is disconnecting herself
from the dynamic of Pentecost, and is endeavoring to find compensation for her
loss of spiritual power in brilliance of intellect in the pulpit, in highly
organized and expensive machinery, and by calling to her aid incidental
accessories, which are borrowed from the world; and which, even where they may
be comparatively innocent, are totally unfit to secure the great ends for which
she was called into being, according to the purpose and plan of her great
Architect. - F. B. Meyer
If
we think of the Holy Spirit only as an impersonal power or influence, then our
thought will constantly be, how can I get hold of and use the Holy Spirit; but
if we think of Him in the biblical way as a divine Person, infinitely wise,
infinitely holy, infinitely tender, then our thought will constantly be, "How
can the Holy Spirit get hold of and use me? - R. A. Torrey
Breath
in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy
Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I
love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. - Augustine
Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking
for better men. What the church needs today is not more machinery or
better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men who the Holy
Spirit can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit
does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men
-- men of prayer. - E. M. Bounds
You
look back on your life. You may be disappointed in many ways with your part in
the business. You may be able to see many falterings and blunderings and
mistakes that you on your side made. You may have sometimes felt that you were
not the person for that job; God had made a mistake. Some of us have felt like
that. And yet, as we look more deeply into God's ways with us and know God's
principles, we see a wonderful logic in it all. You and I are called for
something, laid hold of by God for something, put by God into something, and we
feel, God has made a mistake: I am not the person for this, I ought never to
have come into this, I have no qualifications for this, I am altogether the
wrong peg here! And yet, somehow or other, God does it. He enables you, He
carries you through, He accomplishes the work to your own surprise and wonder As
you lay hold of the Holy Spirit, it is done that is, if you do not sink down
into yourself and give up and draw out because of what you are but you lay
hold of the Holy Spirit and you get through and marvel that you have got
through, that the Lord has done this thing through you, through me. - T.
Austin Sparks
I
should as soon attempt to raise flowers if there were no atmosphere, or produce
fruits if there were neither light nor heat, as to regenerate men if I did not
believe there was a Holy Ghost. - Henry Ward Beecher