To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
One might pray and not be a Christian, but one cannot be a Christian and not pray.
Interpretation
Prayer is an essential aspect of Christianity; a true Christian must pray.
This quote emphasizes the critical role of prayer within the Christian faith. It suggests that while someone may engage in prayer without identifying as a Christian, genuine Christianity inherently involves a commitment to prayer as a fundamental practice that reflects oneβs relationship with God.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the importance of spiritual practices.
To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
Iβve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
Without God man has no reference point to define himself.
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
What is clear is that the Gospel of Judas has joined the other spectacular discoveries that are exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity and showing how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was.
Revival is a divinely initiated work in which Godβs people pray, repent of their sin, and return to a holy, Spirit-filled, obedient, love-relationship with God.
Faith, and hope, and patience and all the strong, beautiful, vital forces of piety are withered and dead in a prayerless life. The life of the individual believer, his personal salvation, and personal Christian graces have their being, bloom, and fruitage in prayer.
My chief desire in all my writings, is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and make Him beautiful and glorious in the eyes of people; and to promote the increase of repentance, faith, and holiness upon earth.
God's hearing of our prayers doth not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ's intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what' we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are acceptable in the beloved [Eph 1.6].
With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.
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