We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’
And when enough churches are thriving, you can affect a region, a country, and eventually the entire world with the positive, life-changing power of Jesus Christ and the redeeming and restoring work of his people.
Most unmarried people have no idea what it takes to make a marriage work; they grossly underestimate the price people have to pay to build long-term, mutually satisfying relationships.
For a marriage relationship to flourish, there must be intimacy. It takes an enormous amount of courage to say to your spouse, ‘This is me. I’m not proud of it – in fact, I’m a little embarrassed by it – but this is who I am.
Authentic Christians are persons who stand apart from others. Their character seems deeper, their ideas fresher, their spirit softer, their courage greater, their leadership stronger, their concerns wider, their compassion more genuine and their convictions more concrete.
And they fail to understand that the only people with the strength to pay that price are those who have plumbed the depths of their relationship with God, and have dealt with their own brokenness.
I can write about prayer, you can read about prayer, but sooner or later you have to fall to your knees and just plain pray. Then, and only then, will you begin to operate in the vein of God’s miracle-working ways.
The Lord’s Prayer is an excellent model, but it was never intended to be a magical incantation to get God’s attention. Jesus gave this prayer as a pattern to suggest the variety of elements that should be included when we pray.
