Until self-effacing men return again to spiritual leadership, we may expect a progressive deterioration in the quality of popular Christianity year after year till we reach the point where the grieved Holy Spirit withdraws - like the Shekinah from the temple.

In every Christian's Heart, there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross, he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among Gospel believers today. We want to be saved, but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of man's soul and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.

The spiritual man habitually makes eternity-judgments instead of time-judgments. By faith he rises above the tug of earth and the flow of time and learns to think and feel as one who has already left the world and gone to join the innumerable company of angels and the general assembly and Church of the First-born which are written in heaven. Such a man would rather be useful than famous and would rather serve than be served. And all this must be by the operation of the Holy Spirit within him. No man can become spiritual by himself. Only the free Spirit can make a man spiritual.

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.

One of the greatest foes of the Christian is religious complacency.. Orthodox Christianity has fallen to its present low estate from lack of spiritual desire. Among the many who profess the Christian faith, scarcely one in a thousand reveals any passionate thirst for God.

Nothing that comes from God will minister to my pride of self-congratulation. If I am tempted to be complacent and to feel superior because I have had a remarkable vision or an advanced spiritual experience, I should go at once to my knees and repent of the whole thing. I have fallen victim to the enemy.

In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short, easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists. God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: The man who would know God must give time to Him.

May not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the Kingdom like children in the market place, chattering about everything, but pausing to learn the value of nothing.

Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting.

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction.

I believe that the imperative need of the day is not simply revival, but a radical reformation that will go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with causes rather than with consequences, with the disease rather than with symptoms.

We have full confidence in Jesus Christ. Our confidence rises as the character of God becomes greater and more trustworthy to our spiritual comprehension. The One with whom we deal is the One who embodies faithfulness and truth-the One who cannot lie.

Complacency is easy...and it is a deadly foe of spiritual growth.

A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here awaiting our response to His presence. This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality.

The poor quality of Christian that grows out of our modern evangelistic meeting may be accounted for by the absence of real repentance accompanying the initial spiritual experience of the converts. And the absence of repentance is the result of an inadequate view of sin and sinfulness held by those who present themselves in the inquiry room.

We go astray when we think that we can do spiritual work without spiritual power.

Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God's dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.

What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them...we must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly.

I believe in Christian charity, but I don't believe in Christian tolerance... When we become so tolerate that we lead people into mental fog and spiritual darkness, we are not acting like Christians; we are acting like cowards!

God is looking for those with whom He can do the impossible - what a pity that we plan only the things that we can do by ourselves.

To square the records, however, it should be said that if the Calvinist does not rise as high, he usually stays up longer. He places more emphasis on the Holy Scriptures which never change, while his opposite number (as the newspapers say) tends to judge his spiritual condition by the state of his feelings, which change constantly. This may be the reason that so many Calvinistic churches remain orthodox for centuries, at least in doctrine, while many churches of the Arminian persuasion often go liberal in one generation.

Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret.

Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.

The natural man must know in order to believe; The spiritual man must believe in order to know

What God declares the believing heart confesses without the need of further proof. Indeed, to seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous.

I believe that entertainment and amusements are the work of the Enemy to keep dying men from knowing they're dying; and to keep enemies of God from remembering that they're enemies.

A world of confusion and disappointment results from trying to believe without obeying.

Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything.

Pray; and as you pray, surrender; and as you surrender, believe.

I do not recall another period when ‘faith’ was as popular as it is today. ‘If only we believe hard enough we'll make it somehow.’ So goes the popular chant. What you believe is not important. Only believe... What is overlooked in all this is that faith is good only when it engages truth; when it is made to rest upon falsehood it can and often does lead to eternal tragedy. For it is not enough that we believe; we must believe the right thing about the right One.

When a person, yielding to God and believing the truth of God, is filled with the Spirit of God, even his faintest whisper will be worship.

Until we believe that we are as bad as God says we are, we can never believe that He will do for us what He says He will do. Right here is where popular religion breaks down.

I think my best friends are my team-mates in Davis Cup. We have been growing up together since we were 11 or 12.

I love being able to pass from a feeling of euphoria to one of calm and serenity.

Stupidity cannot be controlled, only contained.

Yes, there are moments when it's frustrating where you can't put the ball where you want it and you make mistakes.

Having a child changes your priorities. I am convinced, for me, it will be something very positive and give me even more motivation.

Whether at the Olympic Games or during a Davis Cup tie I am extremely proud and honored to represent my country.

I have been regularly confronted with racism, very regularly, and since my earliest childhood.

When you play against Roger, it's always special. First, because you play in a big area, in a big stadium anyway. And every time the crowd is for him, so it's quite a good sensation.

My parents taught me not to complain, to always go forward. They taught me to always finish what I had on my plate. It seems ridiculous but these are little things that in the end make you stronger.

I've had good results on clay during my junior years and I enjoy playing on clay to the opposite of what many media can say.

When you get on to fresh grass courts you always know that they might be a bit slippery but you have to adjust accordingly.

My favourite dish is from Congo, the native country of my father. It's called Poulet a la Dakatine and is made from chicken, peanut butter and spinach.

When you play a big server, you are under enormous pressure on your own serve because you cannot afford to be broken. That causes a lot of players to panic: you see double faults or tentative serves. It's all in the mind, but it still happens.

You can't really hit on grass. There are lots of bad bounces, so when the guy plays deep into the spot where the grass has been worn down and he doesn't leave you the time to play, you don't have time to play fast yourself.

I get some letters from a lot of people. Sometimes it's nice, with letters from kids or from parents of kids who want to be tennis players, but I also get racist letters. It's really painful to receive something like that because you're not ready for that. You think to yourself, 'That's really bad.' But I realise that there are people like that.

Facing a great server makes a match so much more difficult, even for the best players in the world.

Everybody's expecting a lot from me.