'Holy desire is much helped by devout contemplation. Meditation on our spiritual need, and on God's readiness and ability to correct it, aids desire to grow. Serious thought engaged in before praying, increases desire, makes it more insistent, and tends to save us from the menace of private prayer -- wandering thought.
We fail much more in desire, than in its outward expression. We retain the form, while the inner life fades and almost dies.
One might well ask, whether the feebleness of our desires for God, the Holy Spirit, and for all the fulness of Christ, is not the cause of our so little praying, and of our languishing in the exercise of prayer?
Do we really feel these inward pantings of desire after heavenly treasures? Do the inbred groanings of desire stir our souls to mighty wrestlings?
Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low.
The flaming heat of soul has been tempered down to a tepid lukewarmness.
This, it should be remembered, was the central cause of the sad and desperate condition of the Laodicean Christians, of whom the awful condemnation is written that they were "rich, and increased in goods and had need of nothing," and knew not that they "were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind."
Again: we might well inquire -- have we that desire which presses us to close
communion with God, which is filled with unutterable burnings, and holds us there
through the agony of an intense and soul-stirred supplication?
Our hearts need much to be worked over, not only to get the evil out of them, but to get the good into them.
And the foundation and inspiration to the incoming good, is strong, propelling desire. This holy and fervid flame in the soul awakens the interest of heaven, attracts the attention of God, and places at the disposal of those who exercise it, the exhaustless riches of Divine grace.'
Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 14)
We fail much more in desire, than in its outward expression. We retain the form, while the inner life fades and almost dies.
One might well ask, whether the feebleness of our desires for God, the Holy Spirit, and for all the fulness of Christ, is not the cause of our so little praying, and of our languishing in the exercise of prayer?
Do we really feel these inward pantings of desire after heavenly treasures? Do the inbred groanings of desire stir our souls to mighty wrestlings?
Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low.
The flaming heat of soul has been tempered down to a tepid lukewarmness.
This, it should be remembered, was the central cause of the sad and desperate condition of the Laodicean Christians, of whom the awful condemnation is written that they were "rich, and increased in goods and had need of nothing," and knew not that they "were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind."
Again: we might well inquire -- have we that desire which presses us to close
communion with God, which is filled with unutterable burnings, and holds us there
through the agony of an intense and soul-stirred supplication?
Our hearts need much to be worked over, not only to get the evil out of them, but to get the good into them.
And the foundation and inspiration to the incoming good, is strong, propelling desire. This holy and fervid flame in the soul awakens the interest of heaven, attracts the attention of God, and places at the disposal of those who exercise it, the exhaustless riches of Divine grace.'
Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 14)
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