When prayer fades out, power fades out. We are as spiritual as we are prayerful; no more, no less.
E. Stanley JonesRead
Prayer is commission. Out of the quietness with God, power is generated that turns the spiritual machinery of the world. When you pray, you begin to feel the sense of being sent, that the divine compulsion is upon you.
Interpretation
Prayer connects us with God and empowers us for action in the world.
This quote emphasizes the transformative power of prayer, suggesting that it is not merely a ritual but a commission that initiates a deeper connection with the divine. Through prayer, individuals are inspired and compelled to take action and fulfill their purpose, generating spiritual energy that influences the world around them.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of faith, this quote could illustrate the role of prayer in empowering believers.
When prayer fades out, power fades out. We are as spiritual as we are prayerful; no more, no less.
The purpose of religion is not so much to get us into heaven, or to keep us out of hell, but to put a little bit of heaven into us, and take the hell out of us. This has always been the greatest responsibility of religion.
A Johns Hopkins doctor says that 'we do not know why it is that the worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.' But I, who am simple of mind, think I know we are inwardly constructed, in nerve and tissue and brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. Therefore, the need of faith is not something imposed on us dogmatically, but it is written in us intrinsically. We cannot live without it. To live by worry is to live against Reality.
Worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil.
An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost, the other a corpse.
To implant fear in the minds of children is a crime. If parents try to rule the child by fear, then fear rules the child.
It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was.
Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice.
Oh, Creator! Can monsters exist in the sight of him who alone knows how they were invented, how they invented themselves, and how they might not have invented themselves?
The way you are with others every day, regardless of their status, is the true test of faith.
In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves, in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers - a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians - a Church that can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.
Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world. But a blank he cannot be: there are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters.
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