“To pray successfully is the first lesson the preacher must learn if he is to preach fruitfully; yet prayer is the hardest thing he will ever be called upon to do and, being human, it is the one act he will be tempted to do less frequently than any other. He must set his heart to conquer by prayer, and that will mean that he must first conquer his own flesh, for it is the flesh that hinders prayer always. Almost anything associated with the ministry may be learned with an average amount of intelligent application. It is not hard to preach or manage church affairs or pay a social call; weddings and funerals may be conducted smoothly with a little help from Emily Post and the Minister’s Manual. Sermon making can be learned as easily as shoemaking—introduction, conclusion and all. And so with the whole work of the ministry as it is carried on in the average church today. But prayer—that is another matter. There Mrs. Post is helpless and the Minister’s Manual can offer no assistance. There the lonely man of God must wrestle it out alone, sometimes in fasting and tears and weariness untold. There every man must be an original, for true prayer cannot be imitated nor can it be learned from someone else.” —A.W. Tozer
Pray To Preach Fruitfully
April 25, 2014 — Craig T. OwensLinks & Quotes
April 24, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading I found today.
A good reminder for pastors … “Let your preaching and teaching be motivated by love—for God and for those you instruct; and let your preaching and teaching equip others to love. The goal of preaching and teaching is not merely information transfer—learning more, or gaining more head knowledge about this or that passage or doctrine. The goal is love.” —T.M. Moore
“According to the Bible, we have because we ask, or we have not because we ask not. It does not take much wisdom to discover our next move. Is it not to pray, and pray again and again till the answer comes? God waits to be invited to display His power on behalf of His people. The world situation is such that nothing less than God can straighten it out. Let us not fail the world and disappoint God by failing to pray.” —A.W. Tozer
A story about a young man with autism that made me mad, and then made me laugh with joy: Movies With Max.
“Eternal life is worth a life’s battle. To escape the hurt of the second death is a thing worth struggling for throughout a lifetime.” —Charles Spurgeon
“The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.” —C.S. Lewis
A great mini-biographical sketch on J.C. Ryle: Fighting For Truth Decay.
Links & Quotes
April 22, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading I found today.
Dr. James Dobson won a big lawsuit against ObamaCare. Read more here.
“People are always saying it’s the other person’s fault, the other one who needs to change. That is why I believe no amount of counseling will have an impact until God’s people resolve something. We all have to make this our sincere, daily prayer: ‘O God, change me.’ We spend far too much time praying, ‘God, change my circumstances; change my coworkers; change my family situation; change the conditions in my life.’ Yet we seldom pray this most important prayer: ‘Change me, Lord. The real trouble isn’t my spouse, my sibling, my friend. I’m the one who stands in need of prayer.’” —David Wilkerson
[VIDEO] Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood on film saying women should stop having babies.
[INFOGRAPHIC] How creative people in history used their time.
Links & Quotes
April 21, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading I found today.
“God has sought us out: let us have good hope for those who are laid upon our hearts in prayer, for He will find them out also. … It is a point of honor with Jesus to seek and to save all the flock, without a single exception. What a promise to plead!” —Charles Spurgeon
Where is the outrage?! Christian Girls Abducted & Raped In Egypt.
[INFOGRAPHI] Right on the heels of Easter, Bible Overview has a great infographic of everyone in the Bible who was raised from the dead.
“The apostles had this instinct: When in trouble, pray. When intimidated, pray. When challenged, pray. When persecuted, pray!” —Jim Cymbala. Read more from Pastor Cymbala’s great post on prayer.
“Throughout our history Americans have put their faith in God and no one can doubt that we have been blessed for it. The earliest settlers of this land came in search of religious freedom. Landing on a desolate shoreline, they established a spiritual foundation that has served us ever since.” —Ronald Reagan
“Nobody ever got anything from God on the grounds that he deserved it. Having fallen, man deserves only punishment and death. So if God answers prayer it’s because God is good.” —A.W. Tozer
“Sacrifice is not giving up things, but giving to God with joy the best we have.” —Oswald Chambers
Links & Quotes
April 18, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading (and watching) from the past couple of days.
“This generation has yet to prove all that prayer can do for believing men and women.” —A.W. Tozer
“Come, my heart, be calm and hopeful today. Clouds together, but the Lord can blow them away. Since God will not fail me, my faith shall not fail; and as He will not forsake me, neither will I forsake Him.” —Charles Spurgeon
[VIDEO] This is priceless! Watch as a young man with Down Syndrome reads a special letter.
John Piper shares The Greatest Prayer In The World.
Tim Elmore discussing Generation Y: The Inverse Relationship Between Empathy And Narcissism.
This is why I love loving on our missionaries: Home Without A Home.
Some powerful Good Friday quotes compiled by Chilly Chilton in his post Cross Walk.
“Right now you may feel abused and unloved. The devil would have you believe that God has left you to your own devices—that you deserve to suffer, that it’s all over for you, that there is no hope. Beloved, those are lies from hell. God wants more than anything else to rid you of your perverted concept of Him.” —David Wilkerson
Links & Quotes
April 15, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading I came across today.
I am so blessed to work at the En Gedi Youth Center every day. Here’s a great article on the youth center in Mlive.
[INFOGRAPHIC] Where Did Your Tax Money Go?
“Are you becoming more sweet-spirited, more like Jesus? Are you looking soberly in the mirror each day and praying, ‘Lord, I want to conform to Your image in every area of my life’? Or has your bitterness taken root, turning into rebellion and hardness of heart? Have you learned to shield yourself from the convicting voice of God’s Spirit?” —David Wilkerson
“Prayer at its holiest moment is the entering into God to a place of such blessed union as makes miracles seem tame and remarkable answers to prayer appear something very far short of wonderful by comparison.” —A.W. Tozer
“I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking Him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.” —C.S. Lewis
Links & Quotes
April 14, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading I came across today.
“If your household is not the better for your Christianity—if men cannot say, ‘This is a better house than others,’ then be not deceived—ye have nothing of the grace of God.” —Charles Spurgeon
The pain of Christ’s crucifixion: A Medical Account Of Jesus’ death.
How do we know Jesus was the Messiah? A Look At Old Testament Prophesies.
“Nothing is too great and nothing is too small to commit into the hands of the Lord.” —Arthur Pink
“God is having a difficult time getting through to us because we are a fast-paced generation. We seem to have no time for contemplation. We have no time to answer God when He calls.” —A.W. Tozer
“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.” —Isaac Newton
Passion Week Infographic
April 13, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Josh Byers produced a great resource for the Passion Week. It lists chronologically all of the events recorded in the Gospels for the week from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Day, along with each of the Scripture references for those events. This would be meaningful way to read your Bible this week.
You can click the image to the left to view it magnified on your screen, or you can download a PDF version by clicking here → Passion week infographic.
If you really love Josh’s work, click here to go to his site to purchase a physical print.
But whatever you do, let’s observe this Passion Week with Bible reading and prayer.
Links & Quotes
April 10, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading from today.
“All of the advertising we can do will never equal the interest and participation in the things of God resulting from the gracious answers to the prayers of faith generated by the Holy Spirit.” —A.W. Tozer
“The state of the times extremely requires a fullness of the divine Spirit in ministers, and we ought to give ourselves no rest till we have obtained it. And in order to [do] this, I should think ministers, above all persons, ought to be much in secret prayer and fasting, and also much in praying and fasting one with another. It seems to me it would be becoming the circumstances of the present day, if ministers in a neighborhood would often meet together and spend days in fasting and fervent prayer among themselves, earnestly seeking for those extraordinary supplies of divine grace from heaven, that we need at this day.” —Jonathan Edwards
Why is the media not in an uproar over this?! Pakistani Girls Forced to Renounce Christianity And Marry Muslims
“There is a bond: He takes it and crosses it all out and hands it back to you, and says, ‘There is a full discharge, I have blotted it all out.’ So does the Lord deal with penitents. He has a book in which all your debts are written; but with the blood of Christ He crosses out the handwriting of ordinances which is there written against you. The bond is destroyed, and He will not demand payment for it again. The devil will sometimes insinuate to the contrary, as he did to Martin Luther. ‘Bring me the catalogue of my sins,’ said Luther; and he brought a scroll black and long. ‘Is that all?’ said Luther. ‘No,’ said the devil; and he brought yet another. ‘And now,’ said the heroic saint of God, ‘write at the foot of the scroll: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin.”’ That is a full discharge.” —Charles Spurgeon
Funny, but instructional, from Ken Davis: Five Super Powers Of Effective Leaders!
Links & Quotes
April 9, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some great reading from today.
“What satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” —C.S. Lewis
“Leadership requires vision, and whence will vision come except from hours spent in the presence of God in humble and fervent prayer?” —A.W. Tozer
[INFOGRAPHIC] Christ’s activities during the Passion Week.
I am proud of my heritage in the Assemblies of God, which is celebrating its centennial this year. Read the history of the fellowship’s creation here and here.
[VIDEO] Logan finds out he’s going to be a big brother.
Astronomers may have found some dark matter at the center of our galaxy. That’s cool, but if we can accept this science by faith, why can’t we accept the biblical version by faith?
Research says forgiving yourself makes you healthier physically.
“When should a Christian, then, be like Jesus Christ? Is there a time when he may strip off his regimentals—when the warrior may unbuckle his armor, and become like other men? Oh! no; at all times, and in every place let the Christian be what he professes to be.” —Charles Spurgeon
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