grace abounded more

The rain hasn't stopped all day here in Kyle, and for me it's been a day of praying and asking God to give me more of Himself. I'm interviewing a little girl tonight who has been healed from leukemia, and really wanting His Spirit to fall during our time. But mostly I'm asking God to give me more of Himself. To give me more love for Him. To give me more love for others.

I wanted to share a couple of quotes that ministered to me today as I was jumping around in some reading. I pray they will minister to you, encourage you, challenge you, bring you to tears as they did for me. I pray you hear the Father's heartbeat in them.

But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, ... Romans 5:20b

"The institutional church has become a wounder of the healers rather than a healer of the wounded. "

"Yet if we were truly men and women of prayer, our faces set like flint and our hearts laid waste by passion, we would discard our excuses. We would be done with blaming others. We must go out into a desert of some kind (your backyard will do) and come into a personal experience of the awesome love of God. ...We shall understand why...the apostle John wrote, and wrote with magnificent monotony, of the love of Jesus Christ." Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

"He's proud of us for fighting overwhelming human emotions to do His will. God isn't interested in our stellar performance but in our hearts. He loves our willingness and obedience despite our insecurities." Beth Moore, Esther study

"While the place of prayer is a place of immunity, it is also one of Satan's favorite places to attack the devout. When seeking to destroy Daniel, the only chink his enemies could find in his armor was his prayer life. So they attacked him in his place of prayer. The only way Judas knew to hand Jesus over to the chief priests was by betraying Him in the place of prayer. So the secret place is both a place of sanctuary and also of the enemy's strategic attacks. The assurance to the believer, however, is that when he is attacked in the place of prayer the Father is exercising sovereign jurisdiction over the entire affair. You are totally immune from anything outside of His will." Bob Sorge, Secrets of the Secret Place

"We do not have authority; Christ has authority. What we have is revelation and submission. But as we submit to the Word, and persevere in prayer, we can see the future conformed to God's will." Francis Frangipane, Prayer Warriors