Pray for the field. If God calls, then prepare for the field. When it is time, go to the field. A life lost for Christ is a life well spent.
We deal five minutes with a person and their conversion and then we spend the next fifty years trying to disciple a goat into a sheep. I'm not saying this because I'm angry. I'm saying this because countless people are being deceived.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques the futility of trying to change someone's fundamental nature.
In this quote, Paul Washer emphasizes the challenge of transforming individuals who are inherently different from what we wish them to be, illustrating the frustration of spending excessive time attempting to guide those who do not genuinely seek the change. It serves as a cautionary statement about the limitations of our influence over others, highlighting the importance of recognizing the differences in people's inherent characteristics and motivations.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a workshop on effective leadership to illustrate the importance of understanding people's natural inclinations.
More from Paul Washer
All quotes →There is no such thing as a great man of God, only weak, pitiful, faithless men of a great and merciful God.
Those who would send out thousands of questionnaires asking the unconverted what they would desire most in a worship service should realize that ten thousand unanimous opinions of carnal men do not carry the authority of one jot or tittle of God's Word.
The evidence of conversion is not a decision card filled out, it's a life being lived out.
Repentance is simply giving up to stop fighting against God and to stop attempting to gain your own salvation through your own works; to literally give up and fall upon Christ. That is salvation.
When we realize what we were before Christ and what we deserved in that state, it further magnifies the enormity of the gospel for us.
Similar quotes
Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them.
I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours.
All Americans believe that they are born fishermen. For a man to admit a distaste for fishing would be like denouncing mother-love or hating moonlight.
Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?
There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.
It's important that we elevate and primarily focus on the rights of American citizens, but it's also important that we don't forget, 95 percent of the world's population lives beyond our own borders.