Quotes about Church

It is evident everywhere that Paul felt he was a member of a body - a body on which he was dependent for sympathy and cooperation. He counted on the prayers of these churches to gain for himself what otherwise might not be given. To him the prayers of the church were as real a factor in the work of the kingdom as the power of God.

Who can say what power a church could develop and exercise if it gave itself to the work of prayer day and night for the coming of the kingdom, for God's power on His servants, and to His Word for the glorifying of God in the salvation of souls?

In the early church their first love was forsaken after a time, and they placed their confidence in all the activities of service. And they were told in no uncertain terms, "You have forsaken your first love" (Revelation 2:4). And this is the tragedy: We keep ourselves busy with the things of the Lord and not with the Lord of the things.

God has called the church of Christ to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the church is living for the most part in the power of the human flesh and of Willard energy and effort apart from the Spirit of God. If the Churchill acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is her strength and her help, will give up everything and wait upon God to be filled with the Spirit, her days of beauty and gladness will return, and we will see the glory of God revealed among us.

All that the Church and its members need for the manifestation of the mighty power of God in the world, is the return to our true place, the place that belongs to us, both in creation and redemption, the place of absolute and unceasing dependence upon God.

Unfaithful in prayer, weak in the working of the Spirit, its witness to Christ a mere formality, and unfaithful to its worldwide mission—such are the marks of a powerless church.

Let us never be afraid to be still before God; we shall then carry that stillness into our work; and when we go to church on Sunday, or to the prayer-meeting on week-days, it will be with the one desire that nothing may stand betwixt us and God, and that we may never be so occupied with hearing and listening as to forget the presence of God.

One of the old Church fathers said that we cannot better understand the Trinity than as a revelation of divine love—the Father, the loving One, the Fountain of love; the Son, the beloved one, the Reservoir of love, in whom the love was poured out; and the Spirit, the living love that united both and then overflowed into this world. The Spirit of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son, is love.

It is the very essence of true religion, the channel of all blessings, the secret of power and life. Not only for ourselves, but for others, for the Church, for the world, it is to prayer that God has given the right to take hold of Him and His strength.

The relationship among the members of the church depends on united and unceasing prayer. This relationship is spiritual and can only be maintained by unceasing prayer.

No question to the church is of more intense and pressing importance than this: What can be done to waken believers to a sense of their holy calling and make them see that to work for God and offer themselves as instruments through whom God can do His work ought to be the one purpose of their life?

The power of the church truly to bless, rests on intercession — asking and receiving heavenly gifts to carry to other men. Because this is so, it is no wonder that where — owing to lack of teaching or spiritual insight, trust in our own diligence and effort, the influence of the world and the flesh, and that we work more than we pray — the presence and power of God are not seen in our work as we would wish.