The less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray.
Interpretation
A lack of engagement with spiritual texts and practices leads to diminished desire for them.
George Muller's quote suggests a cyclical relationship between reading the Word of God and the desire to engage with it. When individuals neglect to read scripture, their interest in doing so wanes, which in turn affects their prayer life; this pattern illustrates the importance of maintaining spiritual habits to foster a deeper connection with faith.
In practice
During a sermon about the importance of prayer, this quote can highlight the necessity of consistent spiritual practice.
A child rightly trained may be a world-wide blessing, with an influence reaching onward to eternal years. But a neglected or misdirected directed child may live to blight and blast mankind, and leave influences of evil which shall roll on in increasing volume till they plunge into the gulf of eternal perdition.
The longer I live, the more I am enabled to realize that I have but one life to live on Earth, and that this one life is but a brief life, for sowing, in comparison with eternity, for reaping.
The Lord never lays more on us, in the way of chastisement, than our state of heart makes needful; so that whilst He smites with the one hand, He supports with the other.
I desire many things concerning myself; but I desire nothing so much, as to have a heart filled with love to the Lord. I long for a warm personal attachment to Him.
The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts.
If honest of heart and uprightness before God were lacking or if I did not patiently wait on God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow-men to the declarations of the Word of God, I made great mistakes.
Godβs grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior.
Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.
What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer.
Dear young people, the Church depends on you! She needs your lively faith, your creative charity and the energy of your hope. Your presence renews, rejuvenates and gives new energy to the Church.
Every Mass is a memorial of that one sacrifice and that passover which restored life to the world. Every Mass puts us into intimate communion with her, the mother, whose sacrifice 'becomes present' just as the sacrifice of her Son 'becomes present' at the words of consecration..... At the root of the Eucharist is the virginal and maternal life of Mary
Do not forget, read a passage from the Gospel every day. It is the power that changes us, that transforms us, it changes life and it changes the heart.
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