Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.
Oswald ChambersRead
Too often we treat prayer as the preparation for the work of the church. Do you not see? Prayer IS the work of the church.
Interpretation
Prayer is not just a preparatory step but a fundamental part of the church's mission.
In this quote, Oswald Chambers emphasizes the importance of prayer within the church, arguing that it should not be seen merely as a preliminary act or preparation for other activities. Instead, he insists that prayer itself constitutes the central and most vital work of the church, serving as a means of connection, strength, and guidance in fulfilling its mission.
In practice
During a sermon on community engagement, this quote can be highlighted to stress the importance of prayer in church activities.
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.
Never make the blunder of trying to forecast the way God is going to answer your prayer.
Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God.
When we preach the love of God there is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals not first the love of God but the intense, blazing holiness of God, with His love at the center of that holiness.
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we mistake panic for inspiration.
Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion.
The goal of prayer is the ear of God, a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and continuous waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him and permitting Him to speak to us. Only by so doing can we expect to know Him, and as we come to know Him better we shall spend more time in His presence and find that presence a constant and ever-increasing delight.
Prayer is where the action is.
To be used of God. Is there anything more encouraging, more fulfilling? Perhaps not, but there is something more basic: to meet with God. To linger in His presence, to shut out the noise of the city and, in quietness, give Him the praise He deserves. Before we engage ourselves in His work, let's meet Him in His Word... in prayer... in worship.
To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.
It is Godβs passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.
There is nothing more important to learn about Christian growth than this: Growing in grace means becoming like Christ.
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