To win men to acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord is the only reason Christians are left in this world.
How enormous and wonderful and glorious would be the result is all Christians should begin to be active personal workers to the extent of their ability.
How to Work for Christ.
All that God is, and all that God has, is at the disposal of prayer. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do everything, prayer is omnipotent.
A verse must be read often, and re-read and read again before the wondrous message of love and power that God has put into begins to appear. Words must be turned over and over in the mind before their full force and beauty takes possession of us. One must look a long time at the great masterpieces of art to appreciate their beauty and understand their meaning, and so one must look a long time at the great verses of the Bible to appreciate their beauty and understand their meaning.
I am ready to meet God face to face tonight and look into those eyes of infinite holiness, for all my sins are covered by the atoning blood.
When Jesus died, He died as my representative, and I died in Him; when He arose, He rose as my representative, and I arose in Him; when He ascended up on high and took His place at the right hand of the Father in the glory, He ascended as my representative and I ascended in Him, and today I am seated in Christ with God in the heavenlies. I look at the cross of Christ, and I know that atonement has been made for my sins; I look at the open sepulcher and the risen and ascended Lord, and I know the atonement has been accepted. There no longer remains a single sin on me, no matter how many or how great my sins may have been.
The Bible and Its Christ, Revell, n.d., p. 107-108.
Every type of destruction that human philosophy, human science, human reason, human art, human cunning, human force and human brutality could bring to bear against a book has been brought to bear against this Book, and yet the Bible stands absolutely unshaken today. At times almost all the wise and great of the earth have been pitted against the Bible, and only an obscure few for it. Yet it has stood.
We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services, but few conversions; much machinery, but few results.
When the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, he trembles as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end.
It is clear that there must be difficulties for us in a revelation such as the Bible. If someone were to hand me a book that was as simple to me as the multiplication table, and say, “This is the Word of God. In it He has revealed His whole will and wisdom,” I would shake my head and say, “I cannot believe it; that is too easy to be a perfect revelation of infinite wisdom.” There must be, in any complete revelation of God’s mind and will and character and being, things hard for the beginner to understand; and the wisest and best of us are but beginners.
The conception of the Holy Spirit as a divine influence or power that we are somehow to get hold of and use, leads to self-exaltation and self-sufficiency. One who so thinks of the Holy Spirit and who at the same time imagines that he has received the Holy Spirit will almost inevitably be full of spiritual pride and strut about as if he belonged to some superior order of Christians. One frequently hears such persons say, “I am a Holy Ghost man,” or “I am a Holy Ghost woman.” But if we once grasp the thought that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person of infinite majesty and glory and holiness and power, who in marvelous condescension has come into our hearts to make us His abode there and take possession of our lives and make use of them, it will put us in the dust and keep us in the dust. I can think of no thought more humbling or more overwhelming than the thought that a Person of divine majesty and glory dwells in my heart and is ready to use even me.
The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, 1910 reprint, Zondervan, 1970, p. 8-9.
Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power.
The Prayer of Power, Revell, 1924, p. 25.
Prayer that is born of meditation upon the Word of God is the prayer that soars upward most easily to God’s listening ears.
We hear much in our day of the rest of faith, but there is such a thing as the fight of faith in prayer as well as in effort. Those who would have us think that they have attained to some sublime height of faith and trust because they never know any agony of conflict or of prayer, have surely gotten beyond their Lord, and beyond the mightiest victors for God, both in effort and prayer, that the ages of Christian history have known. When we learn to come to God with an intensity of desire that wrings the soul, then shall we know a power in prayer that most of us do not know now.
Cultivate prompt, exact, unquestioning, joyous obedience to every command that it is evident from its context applies to you. Be on the lookout for new orders from your King. Blessing lies in the direction of obedience to them. God’s commands are but signboards that mark the road to present success and blessedness and to eternal glory.
How to Succeed in the Christian Life, Revell, 1975, p. 60.
The reason why many fail in battle is because they wait until the hour of battle. The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees long before the battle came… Anticipate your battles; fight them on your knees before temptation comes, and you will always have victory.