The Time Is Now - Developing A Lifestyle Of Prayer

burn more brightly. Put this goal on a card to cany with you, and read it each day for the next four weeks. Pray each day that God will help you reach that goal. Then watch what happens.

The Next Step Turn now to "Twenty Steps to Daily Prayer" (page 147) and free yourself to dream as you take the next step. Memory Passage "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the srnvassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." -Philippians 3:7-8 Killers of Passion A. Wrong desires. My clad died of cancer. There was a point, as the disease grew, when he lost his appetite for food. Mom begged him to eat, but the encl was clearly neat: For us spiritu­ ally, loss of appetite for the good things of God is a sign that some degree of spiritual death has set in. When we lose the desire for success, achievement, and fruit bearing, it is likely due to the inappropriate exercise of our passion toward greedydesires. Wrong desires kill good desires. When we want the wrong things-objects our passion was not designed to desire-our passion weakens. It atrophies and shrivels, like an unused muscle. When we want nothing, we stop praying. What is there worth asking for? We become apathetically satisfied with the mere sustenance of life. This happens even when we let permissible but lesser desires become central, pushing out true godly desires. Going Further and Deeper

16. Describe the dismal sequence ofevents leading to the loss of one's spiritual appetite (Mark 4:19; Ecclesiastes 2:10-11; Numbers 11:4-6).