Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us - an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions He had in mind in their creation.
E. Stanley JonesWhen Satan attacks you, command him in the Name of Jesus to bend his neck. On the back of it you'll find there's a nail scarred foot print!
E. Stanley JonesThe God I find in Christ is a God who overcomes evil with good, hate by love, and the world by a cross.
E. Stanley JonesA road that perhaps more than any other leads to self atrophy is undedicated money.
E. Stanley JonesI never said the way of Christ is easy. Are you prepared to let go of everything He would not approve?
E. Stanley JonesCharacter is supreme in life, hence Jesus stood supreme in the supreme thing - so supreme that, when we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code but a character.
E. Stanley JonesIf the Holy Spirit can take over the subconscious with our consent and cooperation, then we have almighty Power working at the basis of our lives, then we can do anything we ought to do, go anywhere we ought to go, and be anything we ought to be.
E. Stanley JonesGod, to redeem us at the deepest portion of our nature - the urge to love and be loved - must reveal His nature in an incredible and impossible way. He must reveal it at a cross.
E. Stanley JonesA Rattlesnake, if Cornered will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is -- a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves.
E. Stanley JonesNo person is free until he or she is free at the center. When we let go there, we are free indeed. When the self is renounced, then one stands utterly disillusioned, apart, asking for nothing. If anything comes to us, it is all sheer gain. Then life becomes one constant surprise.
E. Stanley JonesWe must continue to pursue the thought that we do not merely belong to the Kingdom - the Kingdom belongs to us.
E. Stanley JonesIn our Ashrams of East and West, places of spiritual retreat, we begin with what we call "The Morning of the Open Heart," in which we tell our needs. . . . We give four or five hours to this catharsis. The reaction of one member, who listened to it for the first time, was: "Good gracious, have we all the disrupted people in the country here?" My reply was: "No, you have a cross section of the church life honestly revealed." In the ordinary church, it is suppressed by respectability, by a desire to a appear better than we really are.
E. Stanley JonesYour powers are dead or dedicated. If they are dedicated, they are alive with God and tingle with surprising power. If they are saved up, taken care of for their own ends, they are dead.
E. Stanley JonesPrayer is commission. Out of the quietness with God, power is generated that turns the spiritual machinery of the world. When you pray, you begin to feel the sense of being sent, that the divine compulsion is upon you.
E. Stanley JonesMany live in dread of what is coming. Why should we? The unknown puts adventure into life. ... The unexpected around the corner gives a sense of anticipation and surprise. Thank God for the unknown future.
E. Stanley JonesThere are two ways to be rich - one in the abundance of your possessions and the other in the fewness of your wants.
E. Stanley JonesSome have said that the power of a Redeemer would depend upon two things: first, upon the richness of the self that was given; and second, upon the depths of the giving. Friend and foe alike are agreed on the question of the character of Jesus Christ.
E. Stanley JonesOur intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake - a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention.
E. Stanley JonesI have only to be true to the highest I know - success or failure is in the hand of God.
E. Stanley JonesThe early Christians did not say, in dismay, 'Look what the world has come to,' but, in delight, 'Look what has come to the world!”
E. Stanley JonesWhatever our creed, we stand with admiration before the sublime character of Jesus.
E. Stanley JonesIf you find something that gets hold of you in the Word, pass it on to somebody that very day.
E. Stanley JonesTo talk with God, no breath is lost. Talk on! To walk with God, no strength is lost. Walk on! To wait on God, no time is lost. Wait on!
E. Stanley JonesAll coming to Jesus has the feeling of homecoming upon it. All going away from Him has the sense of estrangement upon it. The rich young ruler went away from Jesus "sorrowful." Everybody does. Not only estrangement from God, but also estrangement from oneself. And the universe! And from life! You are not at home with life, unless you are at home with Life. And Jesus is Life!
E. Stanley JonesSuppose you should fail. Is that so terrible? Not to have tried is a worse failure.
E. Stanley JonesWhen the Church listens to the Holy Spirit, it becomes fruitful. New movements are born.
E. Stanley JonesWhen we talk about what we believe we divide. When we talk about who we believe in we unite.
E. Stanley JonesThe only thing you believe in is the thing you believe in enough to practice. Your creed is your deed.
E. Stanley JonesI see that I am inwardly fashioned for faith and not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear and doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry my being is gasping for breath - these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence I breath freely - these are my native air.
E. Stanley JonesA Johns Hopkins doctor says that 'we do not know why it is that the worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.' But I, who am simple of mind, think I know we are inwardly constructed, in nerve and tissue and brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. Therefore, the need of faith is not something imposed on us dogmatically, but it is written in us intrinsically. We cannot live without it. To live by worry is to live against Reality.
E. Stanley JonesThe conscious mind determines the actions, the unconscious mind determines the reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions.
E. Stanley JonesWhen man listens, God speaks; when man obeys, God acts; when man prays, God empowers.
E. Stanley Jones