Excerpts from "Heart Breathings"
By Leonard Ravenhill

Strings for Your Harp

     Part III. The Church

        A. The Bride of Christ

           The only imperishable thing on this earth is
           the Church of the living God.
           Stand up and cheer!

           A holy God in a holy place
           demands worship from a holy people.

           It seems to me that we can get back
           to Apostolic Christianity if we want to;
                or is the road too steep
                     the reproach too great
                     the price too high
                     the sacrifice too involved
                and the stigma too unbearable
           to get up the hill of blessing?

           Save us, Lord, from
                Misapplied Energy
                Misused Money
                Misdirected effort.

           "We are compassed about with so great a cloud
           of witnesses,"
           and witnessed about with so great a crowd of
           promises!

           When did you or I last tip-toe out of the
           sanctuary saying,
           "Surely God is in this place"?

           In the darkness He holds my hand (Isa. 41:13);
           therefore, I can stand and withstand even
           when I cannot understand.

           There is no New Testament evidence that
           people in those days went to church to get
           saved. They went to church because they were
           saved - through the power of the testimony of
           Spirit-inflamed witnesses.

           Apologetics for Christianity are one thing-
           reasonable;
           apologies for Christianity, something else-
           insufferable.

           Preaching is proclaiming the Word of God.
           Teaching is explaining It.

           Revival is an explosion in the Church.
           Evangelism is an expression of the Church.

           What kind of a church would my church be
           if all its members were just like me?

           Like a lily on a polluted pond,
           the Christian is to display God-likeness
           in a world hostile to virtue and holiness.

           If we abide in Him, we shall abound in Him.

           "The wise man built his house upon the Rock,"
           but notice that he went through the storm
           also.
           The difference was in the foundation, not in
           the storm.

           God is not interested in making straw men,
           He is interested in making strong men.

           The Christian life is not a party
           but a pilgrimage.

           We need a mighty, cleansing revival in the
           Church to prepare the way of the Lord.

           What is missing from our churches?
           To use an Old Testament term, it is the burden
           of the Lord.

           The burden of the Lord in the Old Testament
           was not for the Amalekites, Hittites, Perizzites
           or Jebusites, God's chief concern was Israel.
           In the same way, not a single epistle in the
           New Testament was addressed to the lost;
           every letter was addressed to Christians!

           We have taught Christians to witness and to
           work,
           but we have not taught them to worship.

           What, then, is the burden of the Lord for
           today?
           He is concerned for sinners who are rebels,
           who have their fist up against God. He is
           concerned for preachers, that they should
           preach His judgment. And He is concerned
           for His Church, the Bride for whom He is coming.
           He longs to baptize His blood-bought church
           with a baptism of fire and power - that the
           world might know!

           The gates of hell will not prevail against the
           living Church of the living, exalted Christ. "I
           will build my church."
           He can do it, He is doing it, and He will
          continue to do it.

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