Listen, this isn’t just a story; this isn’t just a parable. Men and women, I’m talking about you. Some of you men and women have been converted ten, twenty, thirty, some of you may even have been preachers for fifty years, and you’ve never yet discovered the principle of life that was buried within you in the day that you were spiritually regenerate. It’s possible for you and for me in our pigheaded self-esteem, in our very sincerity and zeal in serving God to endungeon and to imprison the Son of God within our souls, and we become the dried up, withered, useless things we are, on the shelf, remaining living. We’ll get to heaven, for the life has been imparted by the divine Spirit – but we are quenching and frustrating and grieving the Spirit of God, busy being ourselves when the one thing that the Father wants is the opportunity for His Son to be Himself.
– Ian Thomas –