“Similarly, one of my missionary friends in Italy sent me detailed notes from a sermon by a hyper-grace preacher there who proclaimed that there are some prayers that do not have to be prayed in the light of the finished work of the cross, including: • “Lord, forgive me for I am sorry.” • “Lord, bless Jimmy today.” • “Lord, save Auntie Jean.” • “Lord, heal Uncle Bob.” Yes, these hyper-grace teachers believe that God has already saved, forgiven, and healed the whole world, since Jesus already paid for our complete redemption. The only thing lacking is our faith, and once we believe, then we are saved, forgiven, and healed. As for Jesus, He hasn’t done any saving or healing or prospering of anyone in two thousand years. He finished the work on the cross. This, of course, is absolutely untrue, but it’s just another indication of how far off the deep end we can go when we misunderstand grace and misrepresent the finished work of the cross. (For those needing proof that this teaching is untrue, here are a few verses that speak of God saving or healing or forgiving after the cross: Acts 9:34; Titus 3:5–7; Hebrews 7:25; Jacob [James] 5:15; 1 John 5:16.)”

“Expressed in theological terms, “In justification our own works have no place at all, and simple faith in Christ is the one thing needful. In sanctification our own works are of vast importance and God bids us fight, and watch, and pray, and strive, and take pains, and labour.”34”

“It would not be difficult to point out at least twenty-five or thirty distinct passages in the Epistles where believers are plainly taught to use active personal exertion, and are addressed as responsible for doing energetically what Christ would have them do, and are not told to “yield themselves” up as passive agents and sit still, but to arise and work. A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian.33”

“The old-fashioned method of evangelism was to make people weep, but the modern “Hollywood” way is to make people laugh. Everybody has to have a jolly good time. . . . We must have plenty of jokes or it would not be a good meeting. That is why there is such a woeful lack of conviction of sin in modern evangelism. The Holy Spirit cannot work in a frivolous atmosphere.”

“Doesn’t your heart just burst with a holy desire to bring Him joy and to walk worthy of your high calling as a child of the Father, seated with Jesus in heavenly places? With Paul, I desire to say at the end of my life, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). And I can’t wait to hear Him say on that day, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. . . . Let’s celebrate together!” (Matt. 25:21, NLT). I am driven and carried and captured by love. Are you?”

“We are accepted because of Jesus, and that’s the ground of our security. Now it is our holy privilege to walk worthy of that high calling, drawing near to God in confidence, “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).”

“There are Christians and churches that boast of being mature when really they are spiritually frostbitten. We have developed a prejudice against feeling and emotion until amens would be no scarcer if they cost a hundred dollars apiece -- and the real truth is, we have lost our first love. . . . This accounts for a lot of church troubles. When we love the Lord we love the brethren. When we break up the fallow ground of our hearts we uncover roots of bitterness. . . . There is a reckless enthusiasm about first love. It is not cold and calculating.”

“The trouble has generally been . . . that people have emphasized either experience or doctrine at the expense of the other. . . . This is something that has been happening in the church from almost the very beginning. . . . When the whole emphasis is placed upon one or the other, you either have a tendency to fanaticism and excess or a tendency toward a barren intellectualism and a mechanical and a dead kind of orthodoxy.”

“The word “enough” has no relevance for us.”

“Any behavior we resort to in order to avoid feeling what we are really feeling in any given moment is an addiction.”

“As England moves toward redefining marriage,” the Daily Telegraph reports, “the word ‘husband’ will in future be applied to women and the word ‘wife’ will refer to men, the Government has decided.” According to John Bingham, “Civil servants have overruled the Oxford English Dictionary and hundreds years of common usage, effectively abolishing the traditional meaning of the words for spouses.” In the government’s proposed guidelines, “‘Husband’ here will include a man or a woman in a same-sex marriage, as well as a man married to a woman. In a similar way, ‘wife’ will include a woman married to another woman or a man married to a man.” So, a man could be a wife if married to another man (or not), while a woman could be a husband if married to another woman (or not), all of which begs the question: Why use words at all if they have utterly lost their meaning? It’s like saying that up is down (or up) and down is up (or down), while north is south (or north) and south is north (or south). But this is what happens when marriage is redefined.16”

“According to the Barna Research Group, a majority of people who attend Christian worship services leave without feeling that they experienced God’s presence. Less than one-third of the adults feel as though they truly interacted with God. Stunningly, one-third of the adults who regularly attend worship services say that they have never experienced God’s presence at any time during their life. According to George Barna, “The research shows that while most people attend church services with a desire to connect with God, most of them leave the church disappointed, week after week. Eventually people cease to expect a real encounter with God and simply settle for a pleasant experience.”1”

“the world can fascinate us so much as being near to God.… You cannot buy or wear or sell except that which is pleasing to the Lord. Jesus becomes Lord over your wants and desires. You love that which God loves and hate that which God hates…. If you can be fascinated”

“The more automated our experience becomes, the less involved we are in the art of living.”

“A decisive cleansing of the conscience is a prerequisite for unhindered access to God”

“It’s easier to cool down a fanatic than to warm up a corpse.”

“If Christians were afraid of worldliness as much as they are of holiness, they would set the world on fire for Christ. ANONYMOUS”

“Consciously connected breathing is one of the most efficient and accessible means for deliberate re-entry into the physical body.”

“WE have little idea of just how dependent we have become on human means. If we don’t spend thousands of dollars advertising our special rallies and activities we can hardly draw a crowd. Without extensive mailings, only a handful of people will be interested in our Gospel activities and products. In our media-soaked society, we have found it necessary to resort to full-color magazine displays, catchy marketing phrases, massive bumper sticker campaigns, and special celebrity guests at our meetings. And while none of this is necessarily sinful or wrong, it is surely symptomatic of one thing: We don’t have revival fire in our midst! The Holy Spirit is not drawing the crowds.”

“The reality of our situation is that if we are an adult living upon the earth as it is now, we have fully entered the experience of addiction.”