Our deepest insight into the nature of God is expressed with a family analogy. He is both Father and Son read more

Our deepest insight into the nature of God is expressed with a family analogy. He is both Father and Son bound together in one Spirit. We are created to be brothers under God, the Father. The human family is our best illustration of how each person grows in his unique potentialities by sharing in the loving care of a society of other persons. Yet each member of the family discovers what it is to give of himself for the sake of the others. The human family is only an analogy both for our thought about God and about society; but no Christian thought gets very far away from it.

Such is our dependence upon God that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also read more

Such is our dependence upon God that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also to seek from Him the very power. This happy necessity of having recourse to Him in all our wants, instead of being grievous to us, should be our greatest consolation. What a happiness is it that we are allowed to speak to Him with confidence; to open our hearts and hold familiar conversation with him, by prayer! He Himself invites us to it.

In all our criticism and near-despair of the institutional Church, it should never be forgotten that many powers and possibilities read more

In all our criticism and near-despair of the institutional Church, it should never be forgotten that many powers and possibilities really exist in it, but often in captivity; they exist as frozen credits and dead capital.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Belief in God through Christ is the most important of read more

Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Belief in God through Christ is the most important of all aids to the following of Christ, but (let us never forget) the following is the great thing. To those who, by whatever means they are attracted to Him, really seek to do God's will as He revealed it, Christ will prove a Saviour -- a Saviour from sin, a Saviour from the power of sin here, and from the misery which sin brings with it here and hereafter.

Feast of the Conversion of Paul O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise, The read more

Feast of the Conversion of Paul O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise, The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of his grace! My gracious Master and my God, Assist me to proclaim, To spread through all the earth abroad The honours of thy name. Jesus! the name that charms our fears, That bids our sorrows cease; 'Tis music in the sinner's ears, 'Tis life, and health, and peace. He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me. He speaks, and, listening to his voice, New life the dead receive, The mournful, broken hearts rejoice, The humble poor believe. Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb, Your loosened tongues employ; Ye blind, behold your Saviour come, And leap, ye lame, for joy. Look unto him, ye nations, own Your God, ye fallen race; Look, and be saved through faith alone, Be justified by grace. See all your sins on Jesus laid: The Lamb of God was slain, His soul was once an offering made For every soul of man. Awake from guilty nature's sleep, And Christ shall give you light, Cast all your sins into the deep, And wash you purest white. With me, your chief, ye then shall know, Shall feel your sins forgiven; Anticipate your heaven below, And own that love is heaven.

Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 In the pure soul, whether it sing or pray, The Christ read more

Feast of Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 In the pure soul, whether it sing or pray, The Christ is born anew from day to day. The life that knoweth Him shall bide apart And keep eternal Christmas in the heart.

All Christians believe in divine sovereignty but some are not aware that they do, and mistakenly imagine and insist that read more

All Christians believe in divine sovereignty but some are not aware that they do, and mistakenly imagine and insist that they reject it. What causes this odd state of affairs? The root cause is the same as in most cases of error in the Church--the intruding of rationalistic speculations, the passion for systematic consistency, a reluctance to recognize the existence of mystery and to let God be wiser than men, and a consequent subjecting of Scripture to the supposed demands of human logic. People see that the Bible teaches man's responsibility for his actions; they do not see how this is consistent with the sovereign Lordship of God over those actions. They are not content to let the two truths live side by side, as they do in the Scriptures, but jump to the conclusion that, in order to uphold the biblical truth of human responsibility, they are bound to reject the equally biblical and equally true doctrine of divine sovereignty, and to explain away the great number of texts that teach it. The desire to over-simplify the Bible by cutting out the mysteries is natural to our perverse minds, and it is not surprising, that even good men should fall victims to it.