O. Hallesby

I just finished reading Prayer by O. Hallesby. I devoured it, actually. So I should probably go back and read it again. I'd love to post quotes, and bits of the book on here..but I'm afraid it would take pages and pages. I might sit down and sift through it to choose a few to post later on.

I started reading his book "Why I Am A Christian" before I started the one on prayer, but I stopped halfway through it to start this other one, so I began to read it again this morning. I'm a bit of a book hopper anyhow :o)

Here's a quote from the book..

Have you life in God?
You may answer perhaps: "I was baptized as a child. I was instructed in the Christian faith. I pray and I read the word of God. I go to church and do church work as well as I can in my humble way."
All of which is good and well. But that is not what I am asking you. I am asking you if you have life in God, that is, if it is love which brings you to God, if you are living free, joyous, and blessed life of a child of God? Or is it the onerous, unwilling life of the regenerate heart that you are living with God?
Examine yourself. Be earnest. Your eternal destiny hinges upon the answer you give to this question.
Remember the plain words of Jesus: "Except one be born anew, he can not see the kingdom of God." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh."
Have you experienced what the apostle speaks of when he says: "Wherefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new?"
Does your moral and religious life consist of what Scripture calls "dead works," that is, works which are good and proper, outwardly considered, but which do not spring naturally and vitally from a saved and grateful heart?
At this point many deceive themselves.
Today this form of self-deception lies closer at hand than has been the case for the last two generations. True, there has been awakened again a wide-spread interest in things religious after the religiously lean years of materialism. But there are too many who are satisfied with religiousity, being unwilling to press on through the narrow gate to real Christianity. They are content with seeking after God instead of persevering until they find and experience Him.
The temptation to do this is very great for many, because up to this time they have lived very far away even from religiousity. They think that because there has been somewhat of a change in their inner as well as in their outward life, therefore they have become Christians. The religious longings which they now experience and the religious activity to which they now feel impelled, such as prayer, reading, meditation, and Christian work, seem to them to constitute such a great change of heat that they think they have experienced Christian conversion.
For many it is very easy to make this mistake, because they are ignorant of what true Christianity is. This ignorance is quite general and very profound, especially among the higher classes of society. In very recent times this ignorance seems to have spread rapidly also among large numbers of the laboring classes.
I ask, therefore, again: Have you experienced the miracle of the new life? Have you been lifted by God Himself into a new relationship with Him? Or does your religion consist in worshipping and serving God with your old, obdurate and unwilling heart? Is your ethical life a requirement forced upon you by your conscience, a demand wihich you would prefer to ignore and to which you submit unwillingly at best; or has it by the divine miracle of regeneration become your life and your delight. ~O. Hallesby "Why I Am A Christian"