A prayerless church member is a hindrance. He is in the body like a rotting bone or a decayed tooth. Before long, since he does not contribute to the benefit of his brethren, he will become a danger and a sorrow to them. Neglect of private prayer is the locust which devours the strength of the church.
Interpretation
Neglecting personal prayer weakens both the individual and the church community.
This quote emphasizes the critical role of personal prayer in the life of a church member. Charles Spurgeon suggests that a person who does not engage in private prayer is akin to a destructive element within the church, weakening the community and ultimately becoming a source of sorrow and danger to others. Prayer is portrayed as essential for spiritual health and communal strength, and its neglect can have dire consequences for the entire body of believers.
In practice
During a church service, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of prayer in our spiritual lives.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
Nothing is more beautiful in the eyes of God than a soul that loves to hear His Word.
Sunday morning, before we go to hear the Word of God preached...let us not rush into God’s presence careless, reckless, and unprepared, as if it mattered not in what way such work was done. Let us carry with us faith, reverence, and prayer. If these three are our companions, we will hear with profit, and return with praise.
United with the angels and saints of the heavenly Church, let us adore the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. Prostrate, we adore this great mystery that contains God's new and definitive covenant with humankind in Christ.
The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the raising of Lazarus, even the Old Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious propaganda, and they are very effective with an audience of unsophisticates and children
I am and always will be a Muslim. My religion is Islam.
I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts.
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