God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.
William BoothRead
Before we go to our knees to receive the Baptism of Fire, let me beg of you to see to it that your souls are in harmony with the will and purpose of the Holy Spirit whom you seek.
Interpretation
Prepare your soul to align with the Holy Spirit before seeking spiritual enlightenment.
In this quote, William Booth emphasizes the importance of inner harmony with the Holy Spirit prior to profound spiritual experiences, represented metaphorically as the 'Baptism of Fire'. This suggests that true spiritual growth or enlightenment requires an authentic and sincere preparation of one's soul, ensuring it aligns with divine purpose and guidance.
In practice
During a religious service, to inspire the congregation to prepare their hearts for prayer.
God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.
Why should the devil have all the best tunes?
Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again--until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.
To get a man soundly saved it is not enough to put on him a pair of new breeches, to give him regular work, or even to give him a University education. These things are all outside a man, and if the inside remains unchanged you have wasted your labor. You must in some way or other graft upon the man's nature a new nature, which has in it the element of the Divine.
Look! Don't be deceived by appearances - men and things are not what they seem. All who are not on the rock are in the sea!
If I thought I could win one more soul to the Lord by walking on my head and playing the tambourine with my toes, I'd learn how!
To pray is to accept that we are, and always will be, wholly dependent on God for everything.
Of all things, guard against neglecting God in the secret place of prayer.
Prayer should not be merely an act, but an attitude of life.
Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. We must always remember this. The actual words matter less.
The spiritual rest, which God particularly intends in this Commandment, is this: that we not only cease from our labor and trade, but much more, that we let God alone work in us and that we do nothing of our own with all our powers.
O Holy Spirit of God, abide with us; inspire all our thoughts; pervade our imaginations; suggest all our decisions; order all our doings. Be with us in our silence and in our speech, in our haste and in our leisure, in company and in solitude, in the freshness of the morning and in the weariness of the evening; and give us grace at all times humbly to rejoice in Thy mysterious companionship.
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