"...The joy of the Lord is your strength." Nehemiah 8:10

When we speak of the quickening or the deepening or the strengthening of the spiritual life, we are thinking of something that is feeble and wrong and sinful; and it is a great thing to take our place before God will the confession: O God, our spiritual life is not what it should be! May God work that in every heart.

As we look around about on the Church we see so many indications of feebleness, and of failure, and of sin, and of shortcoming, that we are compelled to ask, Why is it? Is there any necessity for the Church of Christ to be living in such a low state? Or is it actually possible that God's peoople should be living always in the joy and strength of their God? Every believing heart must answer, It is possible.

--"Is it actually possible that God's people should be living always in the joy and strength of their God?"