You need to be in fellowship of a church…If you separate a live coal from the others, it will soon die out. However, if you put a live coal in with other live coals, it will be a glow that will last for hours.
Fire
Samuel M. Zwemer
A man set on fire is an apostle of his age. And the only one who can kindle the spark of light and fire on the hearth where it has died down is He who has revealed Himself as the God of fire, our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘Our God is a consuming fire’…Tell me, is your ministry a burning and shining light, or a smoking wick, slowly dying out to ashes?…It is a strange custom that we should supply a minister with a glass of water; if only we could supply him with a bonfire in the pulpit, a spiritual bonfire. We need the dynamic of a flaming ministry that will set the Church on fire.
Edward McKendree (E. M.) Bounds
No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame.
Samuel Chadwick
Spirit filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They serve with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the fire of God.
Seraphim of Sarov
God is a fire that warms and kindles the heart and inward parts. And so, if we feel in our hearts coldness, which is from the devil, – for the devil is cold – then let us call upon the Lord, and He will come and warm our hearts with perfect love not only for Him, but for our neighbour as well. And from the presence of warmth the coldness of the hater of good will be driven away.
John Of The Cross
The divine awakening produces in the soul of the perfect a flame of love which is a participate of that living flame which is the Holy Spirit Himself…this is the operation of the Holy Spirit in the soul that is transformed in love, that His interior actions cause it to send out flames…This flame wounds the soul as it is given, but the wound is tender, and, instead of causing death, it increases life; for the soul is holiest that is most wounded by love.
Sadhu Sundar Singh
Look at the candle. What is it used for? It is not for giving light? If it is to give light, it must burn and make itself less and less. But if the candle were to protest and say, “I will not burn an become less and less; I cannot suffer hurt, neither can my form be changed,” then what would be its value? In the same way, those who determine not to put self to death will never see the will of God fulfilled in their lives. Those who ought to become the light of the world must necessarily burn and become less and less. By denying self, we are able to win others.
William Law
Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are good; but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in us the fruits of intemperance. But the spirit of prayer is for all times and occasions; it is a lamp that is to be always burning, a light to be ever shining: everything calls for it; everything is to be done in it and governed by it, because it is and means and wills nothing else but the totality of the soul — not doing this or that, but wholly…given up to God to be where and what and how He pleases.
John Owen
Common experience declares how momentary and how useless are those violent fits and gusts of endeavours which proceed from fear and uncertainty, both in things spiritual and things temporal, or civil. Whilst men are under the power of actual impressions from such fears, they will convert to God, yea, they will turn in a moment, and perfect their holiness in an instant; but so soon as that impression wears off (as it will do on every occasion, and upon none at all) such persons are as dead and cold towards God as the lead or iron, which but now ran in a fiery stream, is now when the heat is departed from it.