We have control over our prayer life, our relationship with Jesus.
Francis ChanRead
It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.
Interpretation
The quote warns against the dangers of complacency and materialism that can overshadow spiritual truth.
Francis Chan highlights that the greatest threat to the gospel message is not outright disbelief or alternative beliefs, but rather a comfortable, selfish lifestyle that prioritizes luxury and superficial faith. This sense of prosperity can lead individuals to become indifferent to deeper spiritual truths, resulting in a hollow experience of faith.
In practice
During a sermon about the importance of genuine faith, this quote could serve as a powerful reminder.
We have control over our prayer life, our relationship with Jesus.
A disciple is a disciple maker.
Don't fall into the trap of studying the Bible without doing what it says.
Our God listens to us. Our God is a living God. He's not a block of wood you made up that's not going to answer you. My God listens to me. He answers me.
...I don't have to worry about not meeting His expectations. God will ensure my success in accordance with His plan, not mine.
People who are obsessed with Jesus aren't consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God's kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress.
It is our work to cast care, and it is God's work to take care.
Death smells like homemade apple sauce as it cooks on the stove. It is not the strangling sense of illness. It is not fear. It is freedom.
No individual rain drop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.
It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.
It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.
One is almost tempted to say that the language itself is a mythology deprived of its vitality, a bloodless mythology so to speak, which has only preserved in a formal and abstract form what mythology contains in living and concrete form.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.