Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean freedom from mistakes. We are personalities in the read more

Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean freedom from mistakes. We are personalities in the making, limited, and grappling with things too high for us. Obviously we, at very best, will make many mistakes, but these mistakes need not be sins. Our actions are the results of our intentions and our intelligence. Our intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake -- a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention. And therefore the action carries a sense of incompleteness and frustration, but not of guilt. Victorious living does not mean perfect living in the sense of living without flaw, but it does mean adequate living, and that can be consistent with many mistakes.

When you face the perils of weariness, carelessness, and confusion, don't pray for an easier life. Pray instead to be read more

When you face the perils of weariness, carelessness, and confusion, don't pray for an easier life. Pray instead to be a stronger man or woman of God.

Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 Continuing a short series on prayer: read more

Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 Continuing a short series on prayer: Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Christopher Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question... I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any.

Whoever has Christ in his heart, so that no earthly or temporal things -- not even those that are legitimate read more

Whoever has Christ in his heart, so that no earthly or temporal things -- not even those that are legitimate and allowed -- are preferred to Him, has Christ as a foundation. But if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have faith in Christ, yet Christ is not the foundation to that man.

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 A student may easily exhaust read more

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

Feast of Alban, first Martyr of Britain, c.209 Jesus... did not finish all the urgent tasks in Palestine or read more

Feast of Alban, first Martyr of Britain, c.209 Jesus... did not finish all the urgent tasks in Palestine or all the things He would have liked to do, but He did finish the work which God gave Him to do. The only alternative to frustration is to be sure that we are doing what God wants. Nothing substitutes for knowing that this day, this hour, in this place, we are doing the will of the Father. Then and only then can we think of all the other unfinished tasks with equanimity, and leave them with God.

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way read more

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which Whitfield set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church.

The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our read more

The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, "Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home". Such a faith will not lead to presumption. The man who can pray such a prayer will know better than another that God is not mocked; that He is not a man that He should repent; that tears and entreaties will not work on Him to the breach of one of His laws; that for God to give a man, because he asked for it, that which was not in harmony with His laws of truth and right, would be to damn him -- to cast him into the outer darkness.

Honor and glory are indeed due to God and to Him alone, but He will accept neither of them if read more

Honor and glory are indeed due to God and to Him alone, but He will accept neither of them if they be not preserved in the honey of love. Love is sufficient of itself; it pleases by itself and on its own account. Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit. It is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love that I may love. Love is a great thing provided it recurs to its beginning, returns to its origin, and draws always from that Fountain which is perpetually in flood. Of all the feelings and affections of the soul, love is the only one by which the creature, though not on equal terms, is able to respond to the Creator and to repay what it has received from Him. For when God loves us He desires nothing but to be loved. He loves for no other reason, indeed, than that He may be loved, knowing that by their love itself those who love Him are blessed.