D.A. Carson

  So what we need, then, is a prayer life that thanks God for the people of God, and then tells the people of God what we thank God for.
  This obvious lesson may have a bearing on the rising incidence of applause in many Western churches.  Applause used to be unknown.  Then it came to be deployed after special music.  Now it is sometimes heard punctuating sermons.  This is, I think a regressive step.  True, some might consider this to be a kind of cultural equivalent to a voiced "Amen!"  I take the point, and would not want to introduce new legalism by banning applause outright.  But the fundamental difference between "Amen!" and applause must be noted: the "Amen!" is directed to God, even if it serves to encourage the person who is ministering, while applause in our culture signals approval of the performer.  God is left out, and the "performer" may the more easily be seduced into pride.  This is one of the several ways by which the rules of entertainment world have subtly slipped into corporate worship and are in danger of destroying it from within.

D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, pg. 88

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

"What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more."

Robert Murray M'Cheyne, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p.16

D.A. Carson

"When it comes to knowing God, we are a culture of the spiritually stunted.  So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs—and these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own happiness and fulfillment.  God simply becomes the Great Being who, potentially at least, meets our needs and fulfills our aspirations.  We think rather little of what he is like, what he expects of us, what he seeks in us.  We are not captured by his holiness and his love; his thoughts and words capture too little of our imagination, too little of our discourse, too few of our priorities."

D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p.15-16

D.A. Carson

"Here then is a practical test as to whether the excellence I pursue is really for the glory and praise of God or for my own self-image.  If the things I value are taken away, is my joy in the Lord undiminished?  Or am I so tied to my dreams that the destruction of my dreams means I am destroyed as well?"

D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p.142

D.A. Carson

"The church is to see itself as an outpost of heaven.  It is a microcosm of the new heaven and the new earth, brought back, as it were, into our temporal sphere.  We are still contaminated by failures, sin, relapses, rebellion, self-centeredness; we are not yest what we ought to be.  But by the grace of God, we are not what we were.  For as long as we are left here, we are to struggle against sin, and anticipate, so far as we are able, what it will be like to live in the untarnished bliss of perfect righteousness.  We are to live with a view to the day of Christ."

D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p.137

D.A. Carson

"If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent us an economist.  If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist.  If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician.  If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor.  But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior."

D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p.109

D.A. Carson

"I know pagans who find satisfaction and fulfillment by teaching nuclear physics.  In any Christian view of life, self-fulfillment must never be permitted to become the controlling issue.  The issue is service, the service of real people.  The question is, How can I be most useful?, not, How can I feel most useful?  The goal is, How can I best glorify God by serving his people?, not, How can I feel most comfortable and appreciated while engaging in some acceptable form of Christian ministry?  The assumption is, How shall the Christian service to which God calls me be enhanced by my daily breath, by my principled commitment to take up my cross daily and die?, not, How shall the form of service I am considering enhance my career?  This is not to deny that Christians may derive joy from work honestly offered to God, whether that work is vocational ministry or research into the properties of quarks.  But it is one thing to find joy in the work to which we are called, and another to make joy the goal of life, the fundamental criterion that controls our choices.  It is one thing to weigh a Christian leader's evaluation of our gifts, and another so to focus on our perception of our gifts that self-worship has crept in through the back door.  It is one thing to think of people as a live audience that will appreciate our displays of homiletical prowess, and another that passionately shapes each sermon to convey the truth to God's people for their good."

D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p.83

J. I. Packer

"I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face"

J. I. Packer, My Path of Prayer, p. 56

D. A. Carson

"Much praying is not done because we do not plan to pray.  We do not drift into spiritual life; we do not drift into disciplined prayer.  We will not grow in prayer unless we plan to pray.  That means we must self-consciously set aside time to do nothing but pray...What we actually do reflects our highest priorities.  That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words."

D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p. 19