We need to realize that the promises that overflow our Bibles will overflow into our own lives only as we appropriate them through prayer.

Trouble is one of God's great servants because it reminds us how much we continually need the Lord.

The old saying is true: If you have only the Word, you dry up. If you have only the Spirit, you blow up. But if you have both, you grow up.

I have since learned that the most mature believer is the one who is bent over, leaning most heavily on the Lord, and admitting his total inability to do anything without Christ. The greatest Christian is not the one who has achieved the most but rather the one who has received the most.

To be a Christian, you can’t go with the flow. You have to go by the Word of God.

Every time we open the Bible, let's stop and pray, whether for fifteen seconds or fifteen minutes, asking the Spirit to teach us. When I read the Bible, I want God to talk to my soul.

The Bible does say, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." Preaching, music, the reading of the Word-these things are fine-but they must never override prayer as the defining mark of God's dwelling.