Making It Up

HT: The Poached Egg

Made For Another World

In Order That...

"Grace is given not because we have done good works, but in order that we may be able to do them. "

— Augustine

HT: Of First Importance

The Wind In My Sails

The chief service I owe you, O God,
is that every thought and word of mine should speak of You.
The power of speech which You have bestowed on me
can give me no greater pleasure
than to serve You by preaching Your gospel.

But in saying this,
I am merely expressing what I want to do.
If I am actually to use this gift,
I must ask You for Your help -
ask You to fill the sails I have hoisted for You
with the wind of Your Holy Spirit,
inspiring my mind and my voice.
I know that I am often heavy with stupor,
so that I am too lazy to speak of You.
And I do not spend sufficient time studying Your Scriptures,
to ensure that my words conform to Your Word.
Give me the energy and the courage to share the spirit of the apostles,
that like them I may truly be an ambassador of Your grace.

- Hilary of Poitiers, 310-367

HT:  Trevin Wax

The Way of Light

"Consider now the way of light. All who are intent upon reaching their appointed goal must be very careful in everything they do....

...Love your neighbor more than your own life. Do not kill an unborn child through abortion, nor destroy it after birth. Do not stop disciplining a son or daughter, but bring them up from childhood in the fear of the Lord. Do not set your heart on what belongs to your neighbor, and do not give in to greed. Do not associate with the arrogant, but cultivate those who are humble and virtuous......."

              - Epistle of Barnabas, 2nd Century AD

Awakening Faith, page 58

Enlarged Capacity

"It might perplex us that God asks us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, if we do not realize that our Lord does not want to know what we want - for he cannot fail to know it - but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers so that we can receive what he is preparing to give us. His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it. "

                  -St Augustine of Hippo (4th century AD)

Awakening Faith, page 9

More Sighs Than Words

"Excessive talking should be kept out of prayer, but that does not mean that one should not spend much time in prayer, as long as a fervent attitude continues to accompany the prayer. To talk at length in prayer is to perform a necessary action with an excess of words. To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy passion at the door of the one upon whom we call. But in our day-to-day life, the task is often accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech. He 'places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him' (Psalm 38:9), for he has established all things through his Word and does not need human words."

                   -St Augustine of Hippo (4th Century AD)

Awakening Faith, page 50

Death Extinguished By A Sea of Blessings

Christ has paid far more than we owed — as much more as a boundless ocean compared with a drop of water. Doubt not therefore, O man, when you see such a wealth of benefits; nor inquire how that spark of death and sin can be extinguished, when such a sea of blessings is let in upon it. 

— St. John Chrysostom, quoted by George Smeaton in The Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement

HT Of First Importance

Hope When Weak

“We have within us deeply rooted weaknesses, passions, and defects. This can not all be cut out with one sharp motion, but patience, persistence, care and attention. The path leading to perfection is long. Pray to God so that he will strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Do not despair if you keep falling into your old sins. Many of them are strong because they have received the force of habit. Only with the passage of time and with fervor will they be conquered. Don’t let anything deprive you of hope.”

                   – St. Nektarios of Aegina

Our Portion Among the Saints

May God the Father,
and the eternal High Priest Jesus Christ,
build us up in faith and truth and love,
and grant us our portion among the saints
with all those who believe on our Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray for all saints,
for kings and rulers,
for the enemies of the cross of Christ,
and for ourselves we pray that our fruit may abound
and we may be made perfect in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

    - Polycarp (Bishop & Martyr, 2nd Century AD)

HT: Trevin Wax

All Blemished in Your Eyes

                           With Empty Hands

After earth's  exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland,
but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven.
I want to work for your love alone.....In the evening of this life,
I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you,
Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your
eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own jusice and to receive
from your love the eternal possession of yourself.

         -St Therese of Lisieux, from The Story of a Soul

God Alone Suffices

Nothing disturbs thee,
Nothing frightens thee;
All things pass;
God never changes.
Patient endurance attains all things.
Nothing is wanting
in which God possesses.
God alone suffices.

- St. Teresa of Avila

Speak That I May Hear

Who will bring me to rest in You?

Who will send You into my heart
so to overwhelm it
that my sins will be blotted out
and I may embrace You, my only good?

What are You to me?
Have mercy that I may speak.

What am I to You
that You should command me to love You,
and if I do not,
are angry and threaten vast misery?

Is it, then, a trifling sorrow not to love You?
It is not so to me.

Tell me, by Your mercy, O Lord, my God,
what You are to me.
“Say to my soul, I am your salvation.”

So speak that I may hear.
Behold, the ears of my heart are before You, O Lord;
open them and “say to my soul, I am your salvation.”

I will hasten after that voice,
and I will lay hold upon You.
Hide not Your face from me.
Even if I die, let me see Your face lest I die.

- Augustine of Hippo

HT:  Kingdom People

Remember Two Things

“My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior.”

— John Newton, quoted by Jonathan Aitken in John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace  (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007), 347

HT: Of First Importance

Home Renovation

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

— C. S. Lewis  Mere Christianity(London: William Collins, 1970), 172

HT: Of First Importance

Do It Again

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

              -G. K. Chesterton

The Beautific Vision

“Because the face of God is so lovely, my brothers and sisters, so beautiful, once you have seen it, nothing else can give you pleasure. It will give insatiable satisfaction of which we will never tire. We shall always be hungry and always have our fill.” 

              – Augustine

Correctly Celebrating Christmas

Hat Tip: Peter Cockrell

He Is Our....

"He is our sanctification, as himself being purity, that the pure may be encompassed by his purity.

He is our redemption, because he sets us free who were held captive under sin, giving himself as a ransom for us, the sacrifice to make expiation for the world.

He is our resurrection, because he raises up, and brings to life again, those who were slain by sin."

      - Gregory of Nazianzus (4th Century)

Hat Tip:  Kingdom People -Trevin Wax

Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet!

There is a quote supposedly from C.S. Lewis currently circulating on Facebook, Twitter and some blogs that says ”You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

When I saw the quote, my first thought was that it did not sound like C.S. Lewis at all. My second thought was that it's not Biblically accurate, no matter who said it. The Bible looks at human beings as unified souls and bodies, and to be without the body is to be unclothed (see 2 Corinthians 5:1-5). Hence, God's promise of new resurrection bodies.

Saw today confirmation that this quote is not from Lewis at all, but from George MacDonald. See Mere Orthodoxy and Justin Taylor for more details and proof.

Oh, and Francis of Assisi also never said “Preach the gospel; use words if necessary." Totally apocryphal.

This shows that you can't trust everything that you read on the Internet. As Abraham Lincoln said (and he would know) "The problem with quotes on the Internet is you can never be sure the guy didn't just make it up!"