Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: I have come to see that I do not limit my mind simply enough to prayer that I always want to do something myself in it, wherein I do very wrong and wish most definitely to cut off and separate my mind from all that, and to hold it with all my strength, as much as I can, to the sole regard and simple unity. By allowing the fear of being ineffectual to enter into the state of prayer, and by wishing to accomplish something myself, I spoilt it all.
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The experiencing of divine sonship, of adoption, is the act of the Spirit in our hearts crying Abba, Father (Gal. read more
The experiencing of divine sonship, of adoption, is the act of the Spirit in our hearts crying Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15,16)... Liberty, peace, and joy are correlative factors in the same moment of experience, and they are all attributed to the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:2,6; 14:17; Gal. 5:22,23; 1 Thess. 1:6). In the allegory of Abraham's two sons, Paul contrasts the state of bondage under the Law with that of liberty under grace, and defines the one as being after the flesh, but the other after the Spirit (Gal. 4:21-29)... The first great moment of the new life, whether it be called justification by faith, the realization of sonship, or peace with God, is a work of the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the Word. But [Paul] does not indicate... the exact logical or historical sequence of the various elements in the experience, and it may be doubted whether he would have entertained any idea of sequence within the complex experience of justification. (Continued tomorrow).
Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: The primary object of prayer is to know God better; we and our read more
Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: The primary object of prayer is to know God better; we and our needs should come second. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn March 16, 2000 Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: I have called my material surroundings a stage set. In this I can act. And you may well say "act". For what I call "myself" (for all practical, everyday purposes) is also a dramatic construction; memories, glimpses in the shavinglass, and snatches of the very fallible activity called "introspection", are the principal ingredients. Normally I call this construction "me"' and the stage set "the real world". Now the moment of prayer is for me -- or involves for me as its condition -- the awareness, the reawakened awareness, that this "real world" and "real self" are very far from being rock-bottom realities. I cannot, in the flesh, leave the stage, either to go behind the scenes or to take my seat in the pit; but I can remember that these regions exist. And I also remember that my apparent self -- this clown or hero or super -- under his grease-paint is a real person with an off-stage life. The dramatic person could not tread the stage unless he concealed a real person: unless the real and unknown I existed, I would not even make mistakes about the imagined me. And in prayer this real I struggles to speak, for once, from his real being, and to address, for once, not the other actors, but -- what shall I call Him? The Author, for He invented us all? The Producer, for He controls all? Or the Audience, for He watches, and will judge, the performance?
Feast of All Saints What changed these very ordinary men (who were such cowards that they did not dare read more
Feast of All Saints What changed these very ordinary men (who were such cowards that they did not dare stand too near the cross in case they got involved) into heroes who would stop at nothing? A swindle? Hallucination? Spooky nonsense in a darkened room? Or Somebody quietly doing what He said He'd do -- walk right through death? What do YOU think?
Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 After saying our prayers, read more
Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 After saying our prayers, we ought to do something to make them come true.
Nothing shall be lost that is done for God or in obedience to Him.
Nothing shall be lost that is done for God or in obedience to Him.
Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 These things I did not see by the help of man, nor read more
Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the letter; but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate Spirit and power, as did the Holy men of God, by whom the Holy Scriptures were written. Yet I had no slight esteem of the Holy Scriptures; they were very precious to me, for I was in that spirit by which they were given forth; and what the Lord opened in me, I afterwards found was agreeable to them.
If we think that Jesus did not rise, but "lives" and "reigns" only in his memories and imaginations, and is read more
If we think that Jesus did not rise, but "lives" and "reigns" only in his memories and imaginations, and is not actively and objectively "there" in the place of power, irrespective of whether he is acknowledged or not, we should give up hope of our own rising, and of Jesus' public return, and admit that the idea of churches and Christians being sustained by the Spirit-giving energy of a living Lord was never more than a pleasing illusion. And, in that case, we ought frankly to affirm that, though the New Testament is an amazing witness to the religious creativity of the human spirit, its actual message is more wrong than right, more misleading than helpful; and we must reconstruct our gospel accordingly. Only a weak, muddled, or cowardly mind will hesitate to do this.
Commemoration of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator of the Scriptures, 1922 The truth is neither mine nor his nor another's; read more
Commemoration of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator of the Scriptures, 1922 The truth is neither mine nor his nor another's; but belongs to us all whom Thou callest to partake of it, warning us terribly, not to account it private to ourselves, lest we be deprived of it.
True prayer is something more than desire. It is no mere subjective instinct, ... no blind outreach. If it met read more
True prayer is something more than desire. It is no mere subjective instinct, ... no blind outreach. If it met no response, no answer, it would soon be weeded out of the race. Prayer has stood the test of experience. In fact, the very desire to pray is in itself prophetic of a heavenly Friend. So this native need of the soul rose out of the divine origin of the soul, and it has steadily verified itself as a safe guide to reality. In the first instance it is not asking for anything, it is not petition; all it seeks is God Himself: Let me find Thee, let me know Thee, then I will ask of Thee.
