DEDICATION;
REVIVAL: CONDITIONS FOR; APATHY

Persistence of the spiritual yearning is often ruined by side interests. God wants His people to talk Christ and to think Christ and to dream Christ and to love His Word and His ways and to be so dedicated to it that the conversation normally swings around to it when they’re together. And I do not believe that God can continue to bless nor send anything like a life-giving revival to a church until we are absorbed in it. To get anything done, you’ve go to be absorbed in it.

Nobody ever did anything when he only did it halfway. Men who have done great things have always had to be dedicated men. To make the electric light and the talking machine, Edison slept only four or five hours a night and worked constantly. To compose great musical scores, men have sat up all through the night. Tchaikovsky used to stay awake hours upon hours; when others were sleeping, he would be working. My opinion of Tchaikovsky’s music is such that I wonder why he didn’t just take a nap. But anyway, what I’m saying is that in order to get it done, he had to stay awake and do it. Byron, one of the great English poets, said, “I shut myself in my room and work as much as 18 hours at a stretch, never even get out to take a drink of tea.” And that’s something for an Englishman. So you have to be interested in something.…

I recently read the words of a great Christian leader who has been around the world several times. He said, “The only religion that I have found in the world that people don’t take seriously is Christianity. The Buddhists take themselves seriously. The Mohammedans take themselves seriously.” But Christians play at it too much. We have the truth that would save the world and we’re the ones who play like children in the marketplace (Luke 7:32). We’ve got to be absorbed in the Lord’s doings.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9; Luke 7:32; Colossians 3:23

Success and the Christian, 97, 98.