D. L. Moody

When Dwight L. Moody was in London during one of his famous evangelistic tours, several British clergymen visited him. They wanted to know how and why this poorly educated American was so effective in winning throngs of people to Christ. Moody took the three men to the window of his hotel room and asked each in turn what he saw. One by one, the men described the people in the park below. Then Moody looked out the window with tears rolling down his cheeks. “What do you see, Mr. Moody?” asked one of the men.

“I see countless thousands of souls that will one day spend eternity in hell if they do not find the Savior.”

Obviously, D. L. Moody saw people differently than the average observer does. And because he saw eternal souls where others saw only people strolling in a park, Moody approached life with a different agenda.

Today in the Word, February 1, 1997, p. 6

Jonathan Edwards

In 1746 Jonathan Edwards published a book, The Religious Affections, in which he argued that “true religion must consist very much in the affections,” Edwards saw that one of the chief works of Satan was

“to propagate and establish a persuasion that all affections and sensible emotions of the mind, in things of religion, are nothing at all to be regarded, but are rather to be avoided and carefully guarded against, as things of a pernicious tendency. This he knows is the way to bring all religion to a mere lifeless formality, and effectually shut out the power of godliness, and everything which is spiritual and to have all true Christianity turned out of doors.”

Edwards went on to say,

“As there is no true religion where there is nothing else but affection, so there is no true religion where there is no religious affection….If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart….This manner of slighting all religious affections is the way exceedingly to harden the hearts of men, and to encourage them in their stupidity and senselessness, and to keep them in a state of spiritual death as long as they live and bring them at last to death eternal.”

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Jack Deere (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993, pp. 185-186.

Something to Cling To

The heart must have something to cling to—and never, by its voluntary consent, will the heart so detach itself from all its attachments that there shall not be one remaining object that can draw its attention or solicit its affections. The love of the world cannot be removed by a mere demonstration of the world’s worthlessness. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new affection. We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our hearts than to keep in our hearts the love of God.
- Thomas Chalmers

Source unknown

Quotes

• The core problem is not that we are too passionate about bad things, but that we are not passionate enough about good things. - Larry Crabb in Finding God
• I have but one passion; it is He, He only. - Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

Truth or Fiction?

There is a tale told of that great English actor Macready. An eminent preacher once said to him: “I wish you would explain to me something.” “Well, what is it? I don’t know that I can explain anything to a preacher.” “What is the reason for the difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all.”

Macready’s answer was this: “This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction.”

G. Campbell Morgan, Preaching, p. 36

The Firey Nature of Passion

Passion is many times alluded to as a raging fire. Fire accurately describes the nature of Passion. On one hand, the fire of passion can be used constructively; if contained, it can help ignite other fires. On the other hand it can be used destructively to put out fires. During Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein lit many oil wells on fire. Water could be used to no avail to put these fires out, nor did anything else work. These massive fires were consumed by the another fire created by dynamite. The dynamite literally licked up all the oxygen, suffocating and ultimately destroying the once thriving fire.