Following on from my “old books; Fresh Truths’ post and my quote from David Watson’s book Discipleship, I thought I’d share another extract, this time David is drawing from an image of the church spoken by Cardinal Newman.
Cardinal Newman once said that the church is like an equestrian statue: the front legs are lifted up ready to leap forward, every muscle of the back legs is standing out and throbbing with life. As you look at the statue you expect it to spring forward at any moment. Unfortunately, when you come back twenty years later, it has not moved a fraction of an inch. Yet look at the early church twenty years after the outpouring of the Spirit; they had moved forward by astonishing leaps and bounds. There was one simple reason: the power of the Spirit was with them.
How can we know this inward power? The answer, said Jesus, is that we must ask our heavenly Father for it. ‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
Rev John James 