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So Week After Week, I Kept Encouraging the People to Pray

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So Week After Week, I Kept Encouraging the People to Pray So week after week, I kept encouraging the people to pray. And of course, as Samuel Chadwick said long ago, the greatest answer to prayer is more prayer. We were not there to hear one another give voice to eloquent prayers; we were too desperate for that. We focused vertically, on God, rather than horizontally on one another. ―God is more powerful than anybody's past, no matter how wretched. He can make us forget - not by erasing the memory but by taking the sting and paralyzing effect out of it‖ ― Jim Cymbala ―It may not seem obvious at first glance, but the way we make decisions in life tells a lot about the kind of faith we have in Jesus Christ. ‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People ―No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―I have since learned that the most mature believer is the one who is bent over, leaning most heavily on the Lord, and admitting his total inability to do anything without Christ. The greatest Christian is not the one who has achieved the most but rather the one who has received the most.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People ―Jesus called fishermen, not graduates of rabbinical schools. The main requirement was to be natural and sincere.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―I despaired at the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―Faith never denies reality but leaves room for God to grant a new reality.‖ ― Jim Cymbala ―The old saying is true: If you have only the Word, you dry up. If you have only the Spirit, you blow up. But if you have both, you grow up.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―The Scriptures are not so much the goal as they are an arrow that points us to the life-changing Christ‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―Why do the greatest miracle stories seem to come from mission fields, either overseas or among the destitute here at home (the Teen Challenge outreach to drug addicts, for example)? Because the need is there. Christians are taking their sound doctrine and extending it to lives in chaos, which is what God has called us all to do. Without this extension of compassion it is all too easy for Bible teachers and authors to grow haughty. We become proud of what we know. We are so impressed with our doctrinal orderliness that we become intellectually arrogant. We have the rules and theories all figured out while the rest of the world is befuddled and confused about God‘s truth … poor souls.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―In fact, Carol and I have told each other more than once that if the spirit of brokenness and calling on God ever slacks off in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, we‘ll know we‘re in trouble, even if we have 10,000 in attendance.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―There are relatively few churches that have a heart for the lost and for the inner city; Jim Cymbala and the Brooklyn Tabernacle are one of the few. They have allowed the Holy Spirit to use them to breathe fresh life into seemingly hopeless lives. Nicky Cruz‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―Carol and I have found that unless God baptizes us with fresh outpourings of love, we would leave New York City yesterday! We don‘t live in this crowded, ill-mannered, violent city because we like it. Whenever I meet or read about a guy who has sexually abused a little girl, I‘m tempted in my flesh to throw him out a fifth-story window. This isn‘t an easy place for love to flourish. But Christ died for that man. What could ever change him? What could ever replace the lust and violence in his heart? He isn‘t likely to read the theological commentaries on my bookshelves. He desperately needs to be surprised by the power of a loving, almighty God. If the Spirit is not keeping my heart in line with my doctrine, something crucial is missing. I can affirm the existence of Jesus Christ all I want, but in order to be effective, he must come alive in my life in a way that even the pedophile, the prostitute, and the pusher can see.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―IN THE WORLD OF advertising, every copywriter knows the power of two magic words: ―Free!‖ and ―New!‖ We see them in the supermarket, in the newspaper, on billboards. And consumers respond. In the church today, we are falling prey to the appeal of ―New!‖ The old truths of the gospel don‘t seem spectacular enough. We‘re restless for the latest, greatest, newest teaching or technique. We pastors in particular seem to search for a shortcut or some dynamic new strategy that will fire up our churches.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British pulpiteer, had said in a sermon almost exactly a hundred years before: The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.1‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―The message of the cross will always be foolishness to some, a stumbling block to others. But if our attention is on the market reaction, we move away from the power of the gospel. This fearfulness to talk about the blood of Christ is an overreaction. Worse than that, it borders on heresy, distorting and deflating the power of the Good News.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―the fact that we were created to enjoy God and to worship him forever is etched upon our souls.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, The Life God Blesses: The Secret of Enjoying God's Favor ―the Creator of all things is looking throughout the whole earth for a certain kind of heart.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, The Life God Blesses: The Secret of Enjoying God's Favor ―According to 1 Corinthians 14, if meetings are governed by the Holy Spirit, the result for the visitor will be that ―the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‗God is really among you!‘‖ (v. 25). This should be our goal. When a visitor comes in, there should be such a mixture of God‘s truth and God‘s presence that the person‘s heart is x-rayed, the futility of his life is exposed, and he crumbles in repentance.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―Some have said, ―The miracles, signs, and wonders of the book of Acts were temporary. They served to authenticate the apostles until such time as the New Testament could be written. Now we have the completed Word of God, which erases the need for supernatural happenings.‖ My response is this: If we have a completed revelation in written form, are we seeing at least as much advance for God‘s kingdom, as many people coming to Christ, as many victories over Satan as those poor fellows who had to get along with just the Old Testament? If not, why not? Are we missing something valuable that they felt was essential?‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―Does anyone really think that America today is lacking preachers, books, Bible translations, and neat doctrinal statements? What we really lack is the passion to call upon the Lord until he opens the heavens and shows himself powerful.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire0 ―THE ABSENT ELEMENT IS what is expressed in the final sentence of the prayer recorded in Acts 4: ―Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders‖ (v. 30). What gains unbelievers‘ attention and stirs the heart is seeing the gospel expressed in power. It takes more than academic rigor to win the world for Christ. Correct doctrine alone isn‘t enough. Proclamation and teaching aren‘t enough. God must be invited to ―confirm the word with signs following‖ (see Heb. 2:4). In other words, the gospel must be preached with the involvement of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―The Jewish faith in Jesus‘ day was dominated by rabbis—teachers of the law. Their doctrine was thorough. Jesus told them, ―You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life‖ (John 5:39–40, italics added). They knew the written word of God very well, but not the living Word, even as he stood before them.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―As a preacher myself, let me be blunt here. Preaching itself can easily become just a subtle form of entertainment. When I stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ, he is not going to ask me if I was a clever orator. He is not going to ask me how many books I wrote. He is only going to ask whether I continued in the line of men and women, starting way back in the time of Adam‘s grandchildren, who led others to call upon God.‖ ― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire ―The British Bible translator J.
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