In 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 JonesIn conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs, nor a code of action - you are attached primarily to a Person, and secondarily to these other things.
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 JonesRecognize negativism and inferiority attitudes as enemies - do not try to dress them as your friends. you will be tempted to look upon negativism as prudence and inferiorities as humility. Strip off those false cloaks and see these attitudes in their nakedness - as enemies of you and of your possibilities.
E. Stanley JonesSpiritual power comes out of inward fellowship with God and abandonment to his purposes.
E. Stanley JonesPrayer is surrender--surr ender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.
E. Stanley Jones