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 handpower? 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 endeavouring 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.
Spiritual Coldness
Ed Silvoso
When I became aware of the immensity of God’s love for this world and I compared it to how little I cared for my nation, much less for other nations, I cried out to God in desperation to give me a new heart. He heard me, and I underwent heart surgery at the hands of the great physician, who implanted in my heart compassion for the nations.
Taken from: “Ekklesia: Rediscovering God’s Instrument for Global Transformation”
Evelyn Underhill
If we do not at least try to manifest something of Creative Charity in our dealings with life, whether by action, thought, or prayer, and do it at our own cost – if we roll up the talent of love in the nice white napkin of piety and put it safely out of the way, sorry that the world is so hungry and thirsty, so sick and so fettered, and leave it at that: even that little talent may be taken from us. We may discover at the crucial moment that we are spiritually bankrupt.
Jerry White
No one is so empty as the man who has stopped walking with God and doesn’t know it.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Rouse thee, O believer, from thy low condition! Cast away thy sloth, thy lethargy, thy coldness, or whatever interferes with thy chaste and pure love to Christ. Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of all thy soul’s range of delight. Rest no longer satisfied with thy dwarfish attainments. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life. Upward to heaven! Nearer to God!
Albert George Butzer
Some Christians are not only like salt that has lost its savour, but like pepper that has lost its pep.
Dan Hayes
Believers aren’t satisfied being on the fence for Jesus Christ because He has put in their hearts a desire to be totally involved for Him. A Christian life of mediocrity, selfishness and fruitlessness only produces frustration and dissipation.
Carlyle Fielding
Too many churches have become mausoleums for the dead rather than coliseums of praise for a living God. They have lost the spirit of Pentecost! They have lost their enthusiasm. They have lost their joy for Jesus and find themselves suffering from what William Willimon calls “Institutional and spiritual Dry Rot.” If the Church is to survive the next millennium it must recapture some of the praise and enthusiasm it had two millennia ago.
Darren Wilson
People often ask me why it seems like God isn’t moving in the West like He is elsewhere. Jesus said He is the Bread of Life, but in order to eat the Bread, you first have to be hungry. I think too many of us leave the Bread on the table because we’re full on everything else the world has to offer. It’s not that we don’t have the Bread, it’s just that we don’t eat it because we’re not hungry!
Jim Elliot
Our young men are going into the professional fields because they don’t ‘feel called’ to the mission field. We don’t need a call; we need a kick in the pants. We must begin thinking in terms of ‘going out’, and stop our weeping because ‘they won’t come in’. Who wants to step into an igloo? The tombs themselves are not colder than the churches. May God send us forth.