 Soulish believers relish using high-sounding spectacular words and phrases. Author: Watchman Nee |
| It varies with different personalities. Some will keep quiet. They have not yet attained freedom from natural shyness and fear. They may sit next to those talkative believers and criticize them in heart, but their silence does not make them any less soulish. Because they are not rooted in God and have not therefore learned how to be hidden in Him, carnal people long to be seen. They experience unspeakable joy whenever recognized and respected. Author: Watchman Nee |
| Because the carnal are greatly talented - active in thought, rich in emotion - they readily arouse people's interest and stir the latter's hearts. Consequently, soulish Christians usually possess magnetic personalities. They can quickly win the acclamation of the common people. Yet the fact remains that they actually are lacking in spiritual power. They do not contain the living flow of the power of the Holy Spirit. Author: Watchman Nee |
| Emotion is what believers mistake most for spirituality. Carnal Christians whose tendency is emotional in character habitually crave sensation in their lives. They desire to sense the presence of God in their hearts or their sensory organs; they yearn to feel a love-fire burning. They want to feel elated, to be uplifted in spiritual life, to be prosperous in work. True, spiritual believers sometimes do have such sensations, yet their progress and joy are not contingent upon these. The soulish are quite different in this respect: with such sensations, they can serve the Lord; without them, they can scarcely move a step. Author: Watchman Nee |
| They simply do what as as they feel like doing. Author: Watchman Nee |
| Their quest for the presence of God, for the consciousness of His mercy and nearness, is not for God's sake but for their happiness. By so doing they are not loving the Lord; rather, they are loving the feeling which refreshes them and affords them the glory of the third heaven. Their total life and labor elevate self as the center. They wish to enjoy themselves. Author: Watchman Nee |
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| The house built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher, have more fair parapets and battlements, windows and ornaments, than that which is built upon the rock; yet all gifts and privileges equal not one grace. Author: John Owen |
| Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given. Author: Thomas Carlyle |
| While the Christian commits a sin he hates it; whereas the hypocrite loves it while he forbears it. Author: William Gurnall |
| There is no grace that the spirit of self can counterfeit with more success than a religious zeal. Author: William Cowper |
| Take heed, therefore, wicked prelates, blind leaders of the blind; indurate and obstinate hypocrites, take heed. Author: William Tyndale |
| There is a place deep inside where the real person guards his secret thoughts and true intentions. Solomon warns his son that what a man says is often a deceit to hide what he really is inside. Author: Dave Hunt |
