Spirit Stuff

I stole these two quotes from God's Artist in Residence. My wife and I both love Philip Yancey's stuff. We have been finding his stuff at thrift stores. We buy them up when we find them. My wife devours them slowly, taking meticulous notes in her journal. I really, really like these quotes and want to preserve them here so I don't forget them.

J.I. Packer chides the church: 'With a perversity as pathetic as it is impoverishing, we have become preoccupied today with the extraordinary, sporadic, non-universal ministries of the Spirit to the neglect of the ordinary, general ones. Thus, we show a great deal more interest in the gifts of healing and tongues- gifts which, as Paul pointed out, not all Christians are meant to partake anyway- than in the spirit's ordinary work of giving peace, joy, hope, and love, through the shedding abroad in our hearts of knowledge of the love of God.'

"The Spirit cannot be kept like a personal pet, living in a small compartment somewhere inside us to be brought out at will. The living presence of God inside us should permeate everything we see and do... The Spirit does not act on us so much as with us, as a part of us- a God of the process, not a God of the gaps."

Source: Reaching for the Invisibile God by Philip Yancey