The Big Diehl

I’m stealing this from Corey Russel’s book, “Pursuit of the Holy”:

I believe one of the most common reasons many people do not embrace personal or corporate prayer is because it doesn’t make sense. It’s not logical. It seems to us that we are much more productive, that our time is much better spent and that those around us are much better served when we are busy — when we’re not praying, in other words. That’s totally wrong. We actually do more to affect the earth when we pray than when we do anything else. … If we really knew how powerful prayer is, we would prioritize our lives and operate our ministries and businesses very differently.

One of my friends tells a story about an old Chinese evangelist who spent decades in China winning thousands of souls for the Lord. He was crippled because of his age, unable to walk. Someone asked him “How do you feel now that you are not able to go and evangelize China and win souls for Christ?” The man smiled and said, “You don’t understand. When i pray on my bed in this little room, all of China shakes.”

What is it about us and trying to fit it? Who said Christians are supposed to fit in?

In Acts 17:32, it says that some people flat out SNEERED at Paul and those who talked about Christ. But others of them said, “Hey dude tell me some more.”

The way I see it: This scenario wouldn’t occur very often in our own lives because we’re too scared to have somebody “sneer” at us. We’re too worried about what other people think.

Now I’m not saying for one minute that we should AIM to get people to sneer at us. But I’m saying we have to make sure that we are more concerned about pleasing God than we are about pleasing man. Kinda like this guy…