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So Often We Have A Kind Of Vague, Wistful Longing That The Promises Of Jesus Should Be True. The Only Way Really To Enter Into Them Is To Believe Them With The Clutching Intensity Of A Drowning Man.

-William Barclay

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So Often We Have

William Barclay

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So Often We Have A Kind Of Vague, Wistful Longing That The Promises Of Jesus Should Be True. The Only Way Really To Enter Into Them Is To Believe Them With The Clutching Intensity Of A Drowning Man.

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Instead Of Our Petulant, Fretful, Irritable Human Hastiness We Should Cultivate In Our Souls The Patience Which Has Learned To Wait On God.

When We Accept Christ We Enter Into Three New Relationships: (1) We Enter Into A New Relationship With God. The Judge Becomes The Father; The Distant Becomes The Near; Strangeness Becomes Intimacy And Fear Becomes Love. (2) We Enter Into A New Relationship With Our Fellow Men. Hatred Becomes Love; Selfishness Becomes Service; And Bitterness Becomes Forgiveness. (3) We Enter Into A New Relationship With Ourselves. Weakness Becomes Strength; Frustration Becomes Achievement; And Tension Becomes Peace.

New Relationship

Here Is An Eternal Truth. Life Cannot Be Divided Into Compartments In Some Which God Is Involved And In Others Of Which He Is Not Involved... The Fact Is That God Does Not Need To Be Invited Into Certain Departments Of Life, And Kept Out Of Others. He Is Everywhere, All Through Life And In Every Activity Of Life. He Hears Not Only The Words That Are Spoken In His Name; He Hears All Words; And There Cannot Be Any Such Thing As A Form Of Words Which Evades Bringing God Into Any Transaction. We Will Regard All Promises As Sacred If We Remember That All Promises Are Made In The Presence Of God.

Every Discouraging Sermon Is A Wicked Sermon... There Could Hardly Be A More Un-christian Way Of Living Than To Go About In Such A Way As To Depress And To Discourage Other People.

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The Danger Of Prosperity Is That It Encourages A False Independence.

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Prayer Is Not Flight, Prayer Is Power. Prayer Does Not Deliver A Man From Some Terrible Situation; Prayer Enables A Man To Face And To Master The Situation.

More People Have Been Brought Into The Church By The Kindness Of Real Christian Love Than By All The Theological Arguments In The World.

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It Is The Simple Truth To Say That The New Testament Books Became Canonical Because No One Could Stop Them Doing So.

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True Worship Is When The Spirit, The Immortal And Invisible Part Of Man, Speaks To And Meets With God, Who Is Immortal And Invisible.

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Inspirational Life

It May Well Be That The World Is Denied Miracle After Miracle And Triumph After Triumph Because We Will Not Bring To Christ What We Have And What We Are. If, Just As We Are, We Would Lay Ourselves On The Altar Of Service Of Jesus Christ, There Is No Saying What Christ Could Do With Us And Through Us.

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We Will Often Find Compensation If We Think More Of What Life Has Given Us And Less About What Life Has Taken Away.

...for Paul Faith Is Always Faith In A Person. Faith Is Not The Intellectual Acceptance Of A Body Of Doctrine; Faith Is Faith In A Person.

When We Believe That God Is Father, We Also Believe That Such A Father's Hand Will Never Cause His Child A Needless Tear. We May Not Understand Life Any Better, But We Will Not Resent Life Any Longer.

Endurance Is Not Just The Ability To Bear A Hard Thing, But To Turn It Into Glory.

Prayer Is Not A Way Of Making Use Of God; Prayer Is A Way Of Offering Ourselves To God In Order That He Should Be Able To Make Use Of Us.

In The Time We Have It Is Surely Our Duty To Do All The Good We Can To All The People We Can In All The Ways We Can.

If We Are To Accept The Teaching Of Jesus At All, Then The Only Test Of The Reality Of A Man's Religion Is His Attitude To His Fellow Men. The Only Possible Proof That A Man Loves God Is The Demonstrated Fact That He Loves His Fellow Men.

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The Simple Fact Is That The World Is Too Busy To Give The Holy Spirit A Chance To Enter In.

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The Greatest Thing Is A Life Of Obedience In The Routine Things Of Everyday Life. No Amount Of Fine Feeling Can Take The Place Of Faithful Doing.

There Is Only One Way To Bring Peace To The Heart, Joy To The Mind, And Beauty To The Life; It Is To Accept And Do The Will Of God.

Religion Fails If It Cannot Speak To Men As They Are.

The Christian Man Must Aim At That Complete Obedience To God In Which Life Finds Its Highest Happiness, Its Greatest Good, Its Perfect Consummation, Its Peace.

Faith In God Is The Instrument Which Enables Men And Women To Remove The Hills Of Difficulty Which Block Their Path.

Prayer Will Never Do Our Work For Us; What It Will Do Is To Strengthen Us For Work Which Must Be Done.

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