Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.

Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.

God is present by love alone. By love alone He is great and glorious. By love alone He liveth and read more

God is present by love alone. By love alone He is great and glorious. By love alone He liveth and feeleth in other persons. By love alone He enjoyeth all the creatures, by love alone He is pleasing to Himself, by love alone He is rich and blessed. O, why dost not thou by love alone seek to achieve all these, by love alone attain another self, by love alone live in others, by love attain thy glory? The same is shriveled up and buried in a grave that does not love. But that which does love wisely and truly is the joy and end of all the world, the King of Heaven and the friend of God, the shining light and temple of eternity, the brother of Jesus Christ, and one spirit with the Holy Ghost.

We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not read more

We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is "of him". If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects that he might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 It is sometimes said that even if no rules were laid read more

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 It is sometimes said that even if no rules were laid down for the conduct of its affairs, the Church, being created by Jesus to "further the work of the Kingdom of God", can be judged by the extent to which it is successful in continuing his work. This supposition rests upon a misunderstanding of what is meant by "the Kingdom of God"... The Kingdom itself is not something to be "furthered" or "built" by men's efforts. It is something which we are invited to recognize as already present, after a manner, in the life and work of Jesus. It is something to be inherited or entered into by those who believe. The task of the Church, in other words, is not to set the stage for a better world than this one but to draw the curtain from it, to reveal something that is already there.

Something terrible happens, and you might say, "God help us!", or "Jesus Christ!" -- the poor, crippled prayers that are read more

Something terrible happens, and you might say, "God help us!", or "Jesus Christ!" -- the poor, crippled prayers that are hidden in the minor blasphemies of people for whom in every sense God is dead, except that they still have to speak to him, if only through clenched teeth.

In the days of His earthly ministry, only those could speak to him who came where He was: if He read more

In the days of His earthly ministry, only those could speak to him who came where He was: if He was in Galilee, men could not find Him in Jerusalem; if He was in Jerusalem, men could not find Him in Galilee. His Ascension means that He is perfectly united with God; we are with Him wherever we are present to God; and that is everywhere and always. Because He is "in Heaven" He is everywhere on earth: because He is ascended, He is here now. Our devotion is not to hold us by the empty tomb; it must lift up our hearts to heaven so that we too "in heart and mind thither ascend and with Him continually dwell": it must also send us forth into the world to do His will; and these are not two things, but one.

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 read more

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890 Bernard [of Clairvaux] did not stop with love for God or Christ, he insisted also that the Christian must love his neighbors, including even his enemies. Not necessarily that he must feel affection for them -- that is not always possible in this life, though it will be in heaven -- but that he must treat them as love dictates, doing always for others what he would that they should do for him. ... A. C. McGiffert, A History of Christian Thought August 21, 2000 At the very moment when the pulpit has fallen strangely silent about sin, fiction can talk of little except evil, not indeed viewed as sin, but apparently as the invariable ways of a peculiarly repulsive insect, which it can't help, poor thing; and there is no manner of use expecting anything from it, except the nastiness natural to it.

Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 We come to Jesus Christ: and read more

Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 We come to Jesus Christ: and He does for us what He promised; and the thing works out. To our amazement, it works out. And then we settle down. We have had our own first-hand and irrefutable experience. But, instead of opening the windows to the glory of the sunshine so evidently there, instead of being incited to a hugeness of faith by what Christ has already done for us, we can't believe that there can be anything more, or that even He can work, for us, anything better. That first foretaste satisfies us. And so we camp for life out on the confines of the Kingdom, and never press on to inherit what is there and meant for us.

The Word of God is the informing power of the revelation of God in the finite world. It is not, read more

The Word of God is the informing power of the revelation of God in the finite world. It is not, by any figure, to be identified with a book, or a temple, or a minister, or a shrine.