“It is almost unbelievable how far we will go to avoid obeying God. We call Jesus “Lord” and beg him to rejuvenate our souls, but we are careful to do not the things He says. When faced with a sin, a confession or a moral alteration in our life, we find it much easier to pray half a night than to obey God.

Intensity of prayer is no criterion of its effectiveness. A man may throw himself on his face and sob out his troubles to the Lord and yet have no intention to obey the commandments of Christ. Strong emotion and tears maybe no more than the outcropping of a vexed spirit, evidence of stubborn resistance to God’s known will.”

A.W. Tozer,The Size of the Soul, pp. 19-20