To pray is to change. This is a great grace. How good of God to provide a path whereby our lives can be taken over by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.
Interpretation
Prayer transforms lives by connecting us to divine virtues.
This quote by Richard J. Foster emphasizes that prayer has the power to bring about personal transformation, aligning our lives with positive virtues such as love, joy, and kindness. It reflects the belief that through prayer, one can experience grace and the guidance of God, leading to the development of a more virtuous and fulfilling life.
In practice
This quote can be used in a church sermon to illustrate the transformative power of prayer.
Go another step. Try to live one entire day without words at all. Do it not as a law, but as an experiment. Note your feelings of helplessness and excessive dependence upon words to communicate. Try to find new ways to relate to tohers that are not dependent upon words. Enjoy, savor the day. Learn from it.
Jesus Christ and all the writers of the New Testament call us to break free of mammon lust and live in joyous trust...They point us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good. This reality frames the heart of Christian simplicity. It is the means of liberation and power to do what is right and to overcome the forces of fear and avarice.
Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God's great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.
Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don't.
When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems.
The Spiritual Disciplines are things that we do. We must never lose sight of this fact. It is one thing to talk piously about 'the solitude of the heart,' but if that does not somehow work its way into our experience, then we have missed the point of the Disciplines. We are dealing with actions, not merely states of mind.
I believe in the literal rising of the body of Christ. It's the cornerstone of my Christian faith.
And although I see few results, future missionaries will see conversions following every sermon. May they not forget the pioneers who worked in the thick gloom with few rays to cheer, except such as flow from faith in the precious promises of God's Word.
I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you will trust God.
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; _x000D_ Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing: _x000D_ For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; _x000D_ His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate, _x000D_ On earth is not his equal.
Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say.
Even when things are getting worse instead of better - I believe God!
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