When compassion
for the common man was born on Christmas Day, with it was born new hope
among the multitudes. They feel a great, ever-rising determination to lift
themselves and their children our of hunger and disease and misery, up
to a higher level. Jesus started a fire upon the earth, and it is burning
hot today, the fire of a new hope in the hearts of the hungry multitudes.
... Frank
C. Laubach, The World is Learning
Compassion
Only one thing
is quite certain: he too has his time and not more than his time. One day
others will come who will do the same things better. And some day he will
have been completely forgotten--even if he should have built the pyramids
or the St. Gotthard tunnel or invented atomic fission. And one thing is
even more certain: whether the achievement of a man's life is great or
small, significant or insignificant, he will one day stand before his eternal
judge, and everything that he has done and performed will be no more than
a mole hill, and then he will have nothing better to do than hope for something
he has not earned: not for a crown, but quite simply for gracious judgment
which he has not deserved. That is the only thing that will count then,
achievement or not. "My kindness shall not depart from you." By this man
lives. By this alone can he live.
... Karl
Barth, Call for God
In the Bible, faith
is a mixture of trust and trustworthiness. To have complete confidence
in God makes a man reliable. And, when someone never lets you down, you
look instinctively for a deeper relationship.
... Robert
Mackie
[Christ] is the
breathing forth of the heart, life and spirit of God into all the dead
race of Adam. He is the seeker, the finder, the restorer of all that, from
Cain to the end of time, was lost and dead to the life of God. He is the
love that prays for all its murderers; the love that willingly suffers
and dies among thieves, that thieves may have a life with him in Paradise;
the love that visits publicans, harlots and sinners, and wants and seeks
to forgive where most is to be forgiven.
... William
Law, The Spirit of Prayer
We do not very
often come across opportunities for exercising strength, magnanimity, or
magnificence; but gentleness, temperance, modesty, and humility, are graces
which ought to color everything we do. There may be virtues of a more exalted
mold, but... these are the most continually called for in daily life.
... François
de Sales
[In a] natural
fear of lowering the Divine dignity of Christ, we often forget His true
humanity. We think of His earthly life as moving on a plane so different
from ours that no parallel can be drawn between them. What we forget is,
that He too needed to walk by faith, needed to be filled with the Holy
Spirit, needed the sympathy of loving friends, needed the strengthening
that is gained by private prayer. His strong and beautiful, serene and
holy life so fills the eye that we lose sight of His secret intercourse
with the Father, out of which came all its beauty, all its power.
... G.
H. Knight, In the Secret of His Presence
I clearly recognize
that all good is in God alone, and that in me, without Divine Grace, there
is nothing but deficiency... The one sole thing in myself in which I glory,
is that I see in myself nothing in which I can glory.
... Catherine
of Genoa
Verily, if thou
desirest to have the Creator of all creatures, thou must renounce all creatures;
for it cannot be otherwise, but only insomuch as thy soul is emptied and
bared; the less of the creature, the more of God: this is but a fair bargain.
... Johannes
Tauler, The Inner Way
Thou knowest well
how to excuse and color thine own deeds; but thou art not willing to receive
the excuses of others. It were more just that thou shouldest accuse thyself,
and excuse thy brother.
... Thomas
à Kempis
Unless we look
upon ourselves as called to unity, we shall never be united. If God does
not will that we should be united, what can our devices for producing it
avail? Whereas, if we believe that it is His will, and that we are fighting
against His will by our divisions, we have a right confidently to hope
that He will at last bring us to repentance, or, if we do not repent, will
accomplish His purposes in spite of us.
... F.
D. Maurice, Hope for Mankind
One secret act
of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to duty, is worth all the
mere good thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers, in which idle people
indulge themselves.
... John
Henry Newman
Sometimes truth
is lost first in a church, and then holiness and sometimes the decay or
hatred of holiness is the cause of the loss of truth. But if either is
rejected, the other will not abide.
... John
Owen
Let us not inquire
into the affairs of others that concern us not, but be busied within ourselves
and our own spheres; ever remembering that to pry into the actions or interests
of other men not under our charge may minister to pride, to tyranny, to
uncharitableness, to trouble, but can never consist with modesty; unless
where duty or the mere intentions of charity and relation do warrant it...
Knock, therefore, at the door before you enter upon your neighbor's privacy:
and remember, that there is no difference between entering his house and
looking into it.
... Jeremy
Taylor, Holy Living
Paul does not forbid
you to use rites and ceremonies, but it is not his wish that he who is
free in Christ should be bound by them. He does not condemn the law of
works if only one uses it lawfully. Without these things perhaps you will
not be pious; but they do not make you pious.
... Desiderius
Erasmus
With our heads,
we believe that the church ought to be one truly "classless society" with
all men standing on a plane of perfect equality at the foot of the Cross.
But if in our hearts we do not genuinely want it, the unwanted know it
well enough, count us as their enemies, and turn to other faiths. [Continued
tomorrow]
... Lewis
J. Sherrill, Lift Up Your Eyes
We know with our
heads that the Bible and the Gospel have a bearing -- sooner or later --
upon every issue in life, every problem, every relationship, every practice.
But is it not true that in our hearts we are afraid that the full-orbed,
unfiltered revelation of God will disturb some custom, some privilege,
some status by which we benefit in society, occupation, or government?
And knowing that we are profiting by the blood, sweat, and tears of the
many, we feel wrath rising in us whenever it is proposed that religion
touches the thing in question.
... Lewis
J. Sherrill, Lift Up Your Eyes
He said: that it
was a Great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ
from other times; that we are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action
in the time of action, as by prayer in its season.
... Brother
Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence
of God
Does not the public
repudiation of the whole Christian scheme of life in a large part of what
was once known as Christendom force one to confront the question whether
the path of Wisdom is not rather to attempt to work out a Christian doctrine
of modern society and to order our national life in accordance with it?
Those who would give a quick, easy or confident answer to this question
have failed to understand it. It cannot even be seriously considered without
a profound awareness of the extent to which Christian ideas have lost their
hold over, or faded from the consciousness of, large sections of the population;
of the far-reaching changes that would be called for in the structure,
institutions and activities of existing society, which is in many of its
features a complete denial of the Christian understanding of the meaning
and end of man's existence; and of the stupendous and costly spiritual,
moral, and intellectual effort that any genuine attempt to order national
life in accordance with the Christian understanding of life would demand.
... J.
H. Oldham
The test of worship
is how far it makes us more sensitive to the "beyond in our midst", to
the Christ in the hungry, the naked, the homeless, and the prisoner. Only
if we are more likely to recognize him there after attending an act of
worship is that worship Christian rather than a piece of religiosity in
Christian dress.
... John
A. T. Robinson, Honest to God
... Also see comments
on this book in Bookworms
Be careful to be
found a wise and faithful servant, and communicate the heavenly to your
fellow servants without envy or idleness. Do not take up the vain excuse
of your rawness of inexperience which you may imagine or assume. For sterile
modesty is never pleasing, not that humility laudable which passes the
bounds of reason. Attend to your work; drive out bashfulness by a sense
of duty, and act as a master. But I am not sufficient for these things,
you say. As if your offering were not accepted from what you have, and
not from what you have not. Be prepared to answer for the single talent
committed to your charge, and take no thought for the test. For he that
is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Give all, as assuredly you
shall pay to the uttermost farthing; but of a truth out of what you have,
not what you have not.
... Bernard
of Clairvaux
Next to the wicked
lives of men, nothing is so great a disparagement and weakening to religion
as the divisions of Christians.
... John
Tillotson
God's redemptive
revelation in Scripture is necessary to saving faith and peace with God.
Faith in a risen Savior is necessary if the vague stirrings toward immortality
are to bring us to restful and satisfying communion with God.
... A.
W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
For the saints
in the world to come, there can be no change in the object of their faith
and hope and love. They have Christ, they have God, and they are satisfied.
There can be no monotony in the contemplation and worship of the Infinite.
Their great possession is unchangeable, but also inexhaustible; no change
is possible where all is love and truth. The centre of the heavenly life
is fixed and immovable, but the circumference may ever be advancing towards
the centre, the saints may ever be drawing nearer and nearer to the goal
which they can never reach. There may be progress in knowledge, progress
in enjoyment, progress in service -- a progress which at every point will
open up new wonders, new opportunities, new outlooks into a greater future,
and as that future unfolds itself, new and unexpected scopes for the energies
of redeemed men, new ways of fellowship with God in Christ, new companionships
with the good and great of past generations, and with angelic beings who
have watched and guarded us in life, and rejoiced over our repentance,
and are ready to welcome us into the eternal mansions, and will share our
worship and our work, our service and our joy, in the ages to come.
... Henry
Barclay Swete
It is impossible
for a man to be a Christian without having Christ; and if he has Christ
he has at the same time all that is in Christ.
... Martin
Luther
This concern for
the rights and liberties and welfare of the backward peoples is rooted
in the Christian ethic of justice and of the duty to help and protect the
weak, upon the Christian valuation of man as of spiritual dignity and worth,
as made for freedom, as a potential child of God. These principles have
no validity unless the Christian view of man be true.
... Nathaniel
Micklem, The Theology of Politics
The Church on earth
is a cross-eyed church, with one eye on God in His heavenly benediction,
and one eye on the needy world of men.
... David
Head
Nothing could better
illustrate this authentic spirit of Christian monasticism, stemming from
Johannite monasticism, than one of its most recent examples, Father de
Foucauld. If he went out to the Ahaggar plateau, it was not only to find
but also to proclaim God, thereby teaching the gospel in a way which desert
people could understand. After his death, the example set by this hermit
was followed by others who, far from settling in the desert places of the
Sahara, set out to mingle with the peopled deserts of the great cities,
there to preach the gospel by their example and their very presence.
... Jean
Steinmann, Saint John the Baptist
Great art Thou,
O Lord, and highly to be praised; great is Thy power, yea, and Thy wisdom
is infinite. And man would praise Thee, because he is one of Thy creatures;
yea, man, though he bears about with him his mortality, the proof of his
sin, the proof that Thou, O God, dost resist the proud, yet would man praise
Thee, because he is one of Thy creatures. Thou dost prompt us thereto,
making it a joy to praise Thee; for Thou hast created us unto Thyself,
and our heart finds no rest until it rests in Thee. Grant me, O Lord, to
know and understand which comes first, to call upon Thee, or to praise
Thee, and which comes first, to know Thee or to call upon Thee.
... The Confessions
of St. Augustine
Instead of pursuing
her appointed path of separation, persecution, world-hatred, poverty, and
non-resistance, [the Church] has used... Scripture to justify her in lowering
her purpose to the civilization of the world, the acquisition of wealth,
the use of an imposing ritual, the erection of magnificent churches, the
invocation of God's blessing upon the conflicts of armies, and the division
of an equal brotherhood into "clergy" and "laity".
... C.
I. Scofield, Rightly Dividing the
Word of Truth
He who has learned
to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life.
... William
Law
Here in Pilgrim's
Progress there is the ultimate human nostalgia for the City of God, which
is the restless heart's true home. And even the cynical, the unbelieving
and half-believing reader who goes with Christian to the end of the road
must be a little shaken, may tremble to see something like a gate and also
some of the glory of the place, and, glimpsing something of the company
within the golden gates, may wish himself among them.
... Gordon
Rupp, John Bunyan
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2008, by Robert McAnally Adams,
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