One encounter with Jesus Christ is enough to change you, instantly, forever.

One encounter with Jesus Christ is enough to change you, instantly, forever.

Feast of Richard of Chichester, Bishop, 1253 Commemoration of Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, Moral Philosopher, 1752 The read more

Feast of Richard of Chichester, Bishop, 1253 Commemoration of Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, Moral Philosopher, 1752 The Christian should be a conscience in his group. His presence must never be used to provide a Christian justification for evil. To stand as a co-belligerent and not an ally will be to rally the middle ground for a genuine Third Way without mediocre compromise. The Third Way will not be easy. It will be lonely. Sometimes the Christian must have the courage to stand with the establishment, speaking boldly to the radicals and pointing out the destructive and counter-productive nature of their violence. At other times, he will stand as a co-belligerent with the radicals in their outrage and just demands for redress. The Christian is a co-belligerent with either or both when either or both are right, but... fearless in his opposition to either or both when they are wrong.

When Jesus takes possession of our life, it is not only that the past is forgotten and forgiven; if that read more

When Jesus takes possession of our life, it is not only that the past is forgotten and forgiven; if that were all, we might well proceed to make the same mess of life all over again; but into life there enters this new power which enables us to be what by ourselves we could never be, and to do what by ourselves we could never do. Water and the Spirit stand for the cleansing and the strengthening power of Christ, which wipes out the past and which gives us victory in the future.

If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... read more

If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... they are bound by the command of Christ to suffer opposition to their doctrine with meekness and gentleness, and to be so far from striving to subdue their opposites with the civil sword, that they are bound with patience and meekness to wait if God peradventure will please to grant repentance unto their opposites... The sword may make a whole nation of hypocrites. But to recover a soul from Satan by repentance, and to bring them from anti-Christian doctrine or worship to the Christian doctrine and worship, in the least true internal or external submission, is only worked by the all-powerful God through the sword of the Spirit in the hand of His spiritual officers.

Commemoration of Bridget of Sweden, Abbess of Vadstena, 1373 "In pastures green"? Not always; sometimes He, Who knoweth best, in read more

Commemoration of Bridget of Sweden, Abbess of Vadstena, 1373 "In pastures green"? Not always; sometimes He, Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me In weary ways, where heavy shadows be. And "by still waters" ? No, not always so; Ofttimes the heavy tempests round me blow, And o'er my soul the waves and billows go. But when the storm beats loudest, and I cry Aloud for help, the Master standeth by, And whispers to my soul, "Lo, it is I." So, where He leads me, I can safely go, And in the blest hereafter I shall know Why, in His wisdom, He hath led me so. ... Anonymous July 24, 1998 Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, priest, spiritual writer, 1471 If thou shalt remain faithful and zealous in labour, doubt not that God shall be faithful and bountiful in rewarding thee. It is thy duty to have a good hope that thou wilt attain the victory: but thou must not fall into security lest thou become slothful or lifted up.

We love orthodoxy. It is good. It is the best. It is the clean, clear cut teaching of God's Word, read more

We love orthodoxy. It is good. It is the best. It is the clean, clear cut teaching of God's Word, the trophies won by truth in its conflict with error, the levees which faith has raised against the desolating floods of honest or reckless misbelief or unbelief; but orthodoxy, clear and hard as crystal, suspicious and militant, may be but the letter well shaped, well named, and well learned, the letter which kills. Nothing is so dead as a dead orthodoxy -- too dead to speculate, too dead to think, to study, or to pray.

If criticism has made such discoveries as to necessitate the abandonment of the doctrine of plenary inspiration, it is not read more

If criticism has made such discoveries as to necessitate the abandonment of the doctrine of plenary inspiration, it is not enough to say that we are compelled to abandon only a "particular theory of inspiration..." We must go on to say that that "particular theory of inspiration" is the theory of the apostles and of the Lord, and that in abandoning it we are abandoning them.

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, read more

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as he comprehends Jesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge of Him, is His servant -- the man who makes Christ a teacher of his intelligence and the guide of his soul -- the man who obeys Christ as far as he has been able to understand him... I would know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian; and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was and of what He could do.

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.