Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should
obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments
of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being
alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness to God.
--Romans 6:12-13
It is disheartening to those who care, and surely a great grief to
the Spirit, to see how many Christians are content to settle for
less than the best. Personally I have for years carried a burden of
sorrow as I have moved among evangelical Christians who somewhere
in their past have managed to strike a base compromise with their
heart's holier longings and have settled down to a lukewarm,
mediocre kind of Christianity utterly unworthy of themselves and of
the Lord they claim to serve. And such are found everywhere....
Every man is as close to God as he wants to be; he is as holy and
as full of the Spirit as he wills to be....
Yet we must distinguish wanting from wishing. By "want" I mean
wholehearted desire. Certainly there are many who wish they were
holy or victorious or joyful but are not willing to meet God's
conditions to obtain. That Incredible Christian, 64.
