REVIVAL: NOT JUST INTENSITY OF PRAYER

Another great quote from A W Tozer from his book: "The Size of the Soul"

"Intensity of prayer is no criterion of its effectiveness. A man may throw himself on his face and sob out his troubles to the Lord and yet have no intention to obey the commandments of Christ.
Strong emotion and tears may be no more than the outcropping of a vexed spirit, evidence of stubborn resistance to God's known will . . .

No matter what I write here, thousands of pastors will continue to call their people to prayer in the forlorn hope that God will finally relent and send revival if only His people wear themselves out in intercession. To such people God must indeed appear to be a hard taskmaster, for the years pass and the young get old and the aged die and still no help comes. The prayer meeting room becomes a wailing wall and the lights burn long, and still the rains tarry.

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Let any reader begin to obey and he will have the answer. "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him" (John 14:21).

Isn't that what we want after all?"

REVIVAL: NOT JUST INTENSITY OF PRAYER

Intensity of prayer is no criterion of its effectiveness. A man may throw himself on his face and sob out his troubles to the Lord and yet have no intention to obey the commandments of Christ.
Another great quote from A W Tozer in "The Size of The Soul"
"Strong emotion and tears may be no more than the outcropping of a vexed spirit, evidence of stubborn resistance to God's known will . . .

No matter what I write here, thousands of pastors will continue to call their people to prayer in the forlorn hope that God will finally relent and send revival if only His people wear themselves out in intercession. To such people God must indeed appear to be a hard taskmaster, for the years pass and the young get old and the aged die and still no help comes. The prayer meeting room becomes a wailing wall and the lights burn long, and still the rains tarry.

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Let any reader begin to obey and he will have the answer. "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him" (John 14:21).

Isn't that what we want after all?"

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z97620004
Originally uploaded by re-Verse.

We're in the last days of Summer (great Blue Rodeo song!) here in NI and just starting to think about Autumn, and I came across this beautiful, evocative photo from a guy called re-Verse. Thought I'd share it. No spiritual significance other than the sense of pride I feel, once again, that my Father can create such awesome colours and blend them together so well. I defy anyone to suggest an improvement.

REVIVAL: A PURIFIED CHURCH

Our International Prayer Co-Ordinator just put out this terrific quotation from AW Tozer in his book, "The Set of The Sail". This should make us evaluate every aspect of what we do as church and as YFC.

"Our most pressing obligation today is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church. It is of far greater importance that we have better Christians than that we have more of them. Each generation of Christians is the seed of the next, and degenerate seed is sure to produce a degenerate harvest not a little better than but a little worse than the seed from which it sprang. Thus the direction will be down until vigorous, effective means are taken to improve the seed . . .

To carry on these activities [evangelism, missions] scripturally the church should be walking in fullness of power, separated, purified and ready at any moment to give up everything, even life itself, for the greater glory of Christ. For a worldly, weak, decadent church to make converts is but to bring forth after her own kind and extend her weakness and decadence a bit further out...

So vitally important is spiritual quality that it is hardly too much to suggest that attempts to grow larger might well be suspended until we have become better."

Is he right??