Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire Quotes

“No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

“Jesus called fishermen, not graduates of rabbinical schools. The main requirement was to be natural and sincere.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

“I discovered an astonishing truth: God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need him. Our weakness, in fact, makes room for his power.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“I despaired at the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

“The old saying is true: If you have only the Word, you dry up. If you have only the Spirit, you blow up. But if you have both, you grow up.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Am I the only one who gets embarrassed when religious leaders in America talk about having prayer in public schools? We don’t have even that much prayer in many churches! Out of humility, you would think we would keep quiet on that particular subject until we practice what we preach in our own congregations.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Instead of trying to bring men and women to Christ in the biblical way, we are consumed with the unbiblical concept of “church growth.” The Bible does not say we should aim at numbers but rather urges us faithfully to proclaim God’s message in the boldness of the Holy Spirit. This will build God’s church God’s way.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British pulpiteer, had said in a sermon almost exactly a hundred years before: The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.1”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Can you imagine someone handing Peter a microphone on Sunday morning and whispering, “Okay, now, you’ve got twenty minutes. We have to get the people out of here promptly because the chariot races start at one o’clock”?”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Why do the greatest miracle stories seem to come from mission fields, either overseas or among the destitute here at home (the Teen Challenge outreach to drug addicts, for example)? Because the need is there. Christians are taking their sound doctrine and extending it to lives in chaos, which is what God has called us all to do. Without this extension of compassion it is all too easy for Bible teachers and authors to grow haughty. We become proud of what we know. We are so impressed with our doctrinal orderliness that we become intellectually arrogant. We have the rules and theories all figured out while the rest of the world is befuddled and confused about God’s truth … poor souls.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“The Scriptures are not so much the goal as they are an arrow that points us to the life-changing Christ”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“In the church today, we are falling prey to the appeal of “New!” The old truths of the gospel don’t seem spectacular enough. We’re restless for the latest, greatest, newest teaching or technique. We pastors in particular seem to search for a shortcut or some dynamic new strategy that will fire up our churches.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Carol and I have found that unless God baptizes us with fresh outpourings of love, we would leave New York City yesterday! We don’t live in this crowded, ill-mannered, violent city because we like it. Whenever I meet or read about a guy who has sexually abused a little girl, I’m tempted in my flesh to throw him out a fifth-story window. This isn’t an easy place for love to flourish. But Christ died for that man. What could ever change him? What could ever replace the lust and violence in his heart? He isn’t likely to read the theological commentaries on my bookshelves. He desperately needs to be surprised by the power of a loving, almighty God. If the Spirit is not keeping my heart in line with my doctrine, something crucial is missing. I can affirm the existence of Jesus Christ all I want, but in order to be effective, he must come alive in my life in a way that even the pedophile, the prostitute, and the pusher can see.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“In too many churches today, people don’t see manifestations of God’s power in answer to fervent praying. Instead, they hear arguments about theological issues that few people care about. On Christian radio and television we are often merely talking to ourselves.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“According to 1 Corinthians 14, if meetings are governed by the Holy Spirit, the result for the visitor will be that “the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’” (v. 25). This should be our goal. When a visitor comes in, there should be such a mixture of God’s truth and God’s presence that the person’s heart is x-rayed, the futility of his life is exposed, and he crumbles in repentance.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“The message of the cross will always be foolishness to some, a stumbling block to others. But if our attention is on the market reaction, we move away from the power of the gospel. This fearfulness to talk about the blood of Christ is an overreaction. Worse than that, it borders on heresy, distorting and deflating the power of the Good News.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“The more we pray, the more we sense our need to pray. And the more we sense a need to pray, the more we want to pray. C”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“I’m not qualified,” I protested. “Me, a minister? I have no idea how to be a pastor.” He said, “When God calls someone, that’s all that really matters. Don’t let yourself be afraid.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Does anyone really think that America today is lacking preachers, books, Bible translations, and neat doctrinal statements? What we really lack is the passion to call upon the Lord until he opens the heavens and shows himself powerful.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“The British Bible translator J. B. Phillips, after completing his work on this section of Scripture, could not help reflecting on what he had observed. In the 1955 preface to his first edition of Acts, he wrote: It is impossible to spend several months in close study of the remarkable short book … without being profoundly stirred and, to be honest, disturbed. The reader is stirred because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history. The newborn Church, as vulnerable as any human child, having neither money, influence nor power in the ordinary sense, is setting forth joyfully and courageously to win the pagan world for God through Christ…. Yet we cannot help feeling disturbed as well as moved, for this surely is the Church as it was meant to be. It is vigorous and flexible, for these are the days before it ever became fat and short of breath through prosperity, or muscle-bound by overorganization. These men did not make ‘acts of faith,’ they believed; they did not ‘say their prayers,’ they really prayed. They did not hold conferences on psychosomatic medicine, they simply healed the sick. But if they were uncomplicated and naive by modern standards, we have ruefully to admit that they were open on the God-ward side in a way that is almost unknown today.1”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“I am sure that the Roman emperors didn’t have prayer to God in their schools. But then, the early Christians didn’t seem to care what Caligula or Claudius or Nero did. How could any emperor stop God? How, in fact, could the demons of hell make headway when God’s people prayed and called upon his name? Impossible! In the New Testament we don’t see Peter or John wringing their hands and saying, “Oh, what are we going to do? Caligula’s bisexual … he wants to appoint his horse to the Roman Senate … what a terrible model of leadership! How are we going to respond to this outrage?” Let’s not play games with ourselves. Let’s not divert attention away from the weak prayer life of our own churches. In Acts 4, when the apostles were unjustly arrested, imprisoned, and threatened, they didn’t call for a protest; they didn’t reach for some political leverage. Instead, they headed to a prayer meeting. Soon the place was vibrating with the power of the Holy Spirit (vv. 23–31).”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“How is it that Christians today will pay $20 to hear the latest Christian artist in concert, but Jesus can’t draw a crowd?”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Prayer cannot truly be taught by principles and seminars and symposiums. It has to be born out of a whole environment of felt need. If I say, “I ought to pray,” I will soon run out of motivation and quit; the flesh is too strong. I have to be driven to pray.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Our forebears back in the camp meeting days used to say that if people left a meeting talking about what a wonderful sermon the preacher gave or how beautifully the singers sang, the meeting had failed. But if people went home saying things like “Isn’t God good? He met me tonight in such a wonderful way,” it was a good meeting. There was to be no sharing the stage with the Lord.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“THE ABSENT ELEMENT IS what is expressed in the final sentence of the prayer recorded in Acts 4: “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders” (v. 30). What gains unbelievers’ attention and stirs the heart is seeing the gospel expressed in power. It takes more than academic rigor to win the world for Christ. Correct doctrine alone isn’t enough. Proclamation and teaching aren’t enough. God must be invited to “confirm the word with signs following” (see Heb. 2:4). In other words, the gospel must be preached with the involvement of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“There are relatively few churches that have a heart for the lost and for the inner city; Jim Cymbala and the Brooklyn Tabernacle are one of the few. They have allowed the Holy Spirit to use them to breathe fresh life into seemingly hopeless lives. Nicky Cruz”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“God will manifest himself in direct proportion to our passion for him. The principle he laid down long ago is still true: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). O God, split the heavens and come down! Manifest yourself somehow. Do what only you can do.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People

“Paul’s doctrine was immediately reinforced by God’s overwhelming power. “When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord” (Acts 13:12). Amazed at the teaching? Yes, for this was a teaching with power. People must not only hear but feel, see, and experience the grace of God we speak about. Such an event was certainly unpredictable. As we open up our church meetings to God’s power, they will not always follow a predetermined schedule or order. Who can outline what God might have in mind?”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People

“God says to us, “Pray, because I have all kinds of things for you; and when you ask, you will receive. I have all this grace, and you live with scarcity. Come unto me, all you who labor. Why are you so rushed? Where are you running now? Everything you need, I have.” If the times are indeed as bad as we say they are . . . if the darkness in our world is growing heavier by the moment . . . if we are facing spiritual battles right in our own homes and churches . . . then we are foolish not to turn to the One who supplies unlimited grace and power. He is our only source. We are crazy to ignore him.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People

“Andrew Bonar wrote in his diary on December 13, 1880, “I long more and more to be filled with the Spirit, and to see my congregation moved and melted under the Word, as in great revival times, ‘the place shaken where they are assembled together,’ because the Lord has come in power.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People