Human beings seem to have a perpetual tendency to have somebody else talk to God for them. We are content to have the message second-hand. One of Israel's fatal mistakes was their insistence on having a human king rather than resting on the theocratic rule of God over them. We can detect a note of sadness in the word of the Lord, 'they have rejected me from being king over them' (1 Sam. 8:7). The history of religion is the story of an almost desperate scramble to have a king, a mediator, a priest, a pastor, a go-between. In this way we do not need to go to God ourselves. Such an approach saves us from the need to change, for to be in the presence of God is to change. Richard J. Foster
Some Similar Quotes
  1. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - Anonymous

  2. Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves. - Joni Eareckson Tada

  3. No woman wants to be in submission to a man who isn't in submission to God! - T.d. Jakes

  4. His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think, " he says, "my heart is going to explode, " and I wish, more than ever, that I... - Tahereh Mafi

  5. Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best? - Jacqueline Carey

More Quotes By Richard J. Foster
  1. A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up...

  2. Conversion does not make us perfect, but it does catapult us into a total experience of discipleship that affects - and infects - every sphere of our living.

  3. We do not have to have the correct answers to listen well. In fact, often the correct answers are a hindrance to listening well, for we become more anxious to give the correct answer than to hear.

  4. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.

  5. To conform to a sick society is to become sick.

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