A Brother in Another Time

Confessions, Augustine

You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet most intimately present, perfection of both beauty and strength, stable and incomprehensible, immutable and yet changing all things, never new, never old, making everything new and ‘leading’ the proud ‘to be old without their knowledge’ (Job 9: 5, Old Latin version); always active, always in repose, gathering to yourself but not in need, supporting and filling and protecting, creating and nurturing and bringing to maturity, searching even though to you nothing is lacking: you love without burning, you are jealous in a way that is free of anxiety, you ‘repent’ (Gen. 6: 6) without the pain of regret, you are wrathful and remain tranquil. You .will a change without any change in your design. You recover what you find, yet have never lost. Never in any need, you rejoice in your gains (Luke 15: 7); you are never avaricious, yet you require interest (Matt. 25: 27). We pay you more than you require so as to make you our debtor, yet who has anything which does not belong to you? (1 Cor. 4: 7). You pay off debts, though owing nothing to anyone; you cancel debts and incur no loss. But in these words what have I said, my God, my life, my holy sweetness? What has anyone achieved in words when he speaks about you? Yet woe to those who are silent about you because, though loquacious with verbosity, they have nothing to say.

The house of my soul is too small for you to come to it. May it be enlarged by you. It is in ruins: restore it.

For you were always with me, mercifully punishing me, touching with a bitter taste all my illicit pleasures. Your intention was that I should seek delights unspoilt by disgust and that, in my quest where I could achieve this, I should discover it to be in nothing except you Lord, nothing but you.

Pride imitates what is lofty; but you alone are God most high above all things.

When I hear this or that brother Christian, who is ignorant of these matters and thinks one thing the case when another is correct, with patience I contemplate the man expressing his opinion. I do not see it is any obstacle to him if perhaps he is ignorant of the position and nature of a physical creature, provided that he does not believe something unworthy of you, Lord, the Creator of all things (1 Macc. 1: 24). But it becomes an obstacle if he thinks his view of nature belongs to the very form of orthodox doctrine, and dares obstinately to affirm something he does not understand. But such an infirmity in the cradle of faith is sustained by mother charity, until the new man ‘grows up into a mature man and is no longer carried about by any wind of doctrine’ (Eph. 4: 13).

My ears were already satiated with this kind of talk, which did not seem better to me because more elegantly expressed. Fine style does not make something true, nor has a man a wise soul because he has a handsome face and well-chosen eloquence. They who had promised that he would be so good were not good judges. He seemed to them prudent and wise because he charmed them by the way he talked.

That ‘man of God’ (2 Kgs. 1: 9) received me like a father and expressed pleasure at my coming with a kindness most fitting in a bishop. I began to like him, at first indeed not as a teacher of the truth, for I had absolutely no confidence in your Church, but as a human being who was kind to me.

My belief in this was sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. But at least I always retained belief both that you are and that you care for us, even if I did not know what to think about your substantial nature or what way would lead, or lead me back, to you.

The authority of the Bible seemed the more to be venerated and more worthy of a holy faith on the ground that it was open to everyone to read, while keeping the dignity of its secret meaning for a profounder interpretation.

Praise to you, glory to you, fount of mercies! As I became unhappier, you came closer

It was obvious to me that things which are liable to corruption are good. If they were the supreme goods, or if they were not good at all, they could not be corrupted. For if they were supreme goods, they would be incorruptible. If there were no good in them, there would be nothing capable of being corrupted. Corruption does harm and unless it diminishes the good, no harm would be done. Therefore either corruption does not harm, which cannot be the case, or (which is wholly certain) all things that are corrupted suffer privation of some good. If they were to be deprived of all good, they would not exist at all. If they were to exist and to be immune from corruption, they would be superior because they would be permanently incorruptible.

I inquired what wickedness is; and I did not find a substance but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance, you O God, towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life (Ecclus. 10) and swelling with external matter.

The consequence of a distorted will is passion. By servitude to passion, habit is formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomes necessity.

As I was saying this and weeping in the bitter agony of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or a girl (I do not know which), saying and repeating over and over again ‘Pick up and read, pick up and read.’ At once my countenance changed, and I began to think intently whether there might be some sort of children’s game in which such a chant is used. But I could not remember having heard of one. I checked the flood of tears and stood up. I interpreted it solely as a divine command to me to open the book and read the first chapter might find.

The examples given by your servants whom you had transformed from black to shining white and from death to life, crowded in upon my thoughts. They burnt away and destroyed my heavy sluggishness, preventing me from being dragged down to low things. They set me on fire with such force that every breath of opposition from any ‘deceitful tongue’ (Ps. 119: 2 f.) had the power not to dampen my zeal but to inflame it the more.

I trembled with fear and at the same time burned with hope and exultation at your mercy, Father (Ps. 30: 7–8).

At that time you tortured me with toothache, and when it became so bad that I lost the power to speak, it came into my heart to beg all my friends present to pray for me to you, God of health of both soul and body. I wrote this on a wax tablet and gave it to them to read. As soon as we fell on our knees in the spirit of supplication, the pain vanished. But what agony it was, and how instantly it disappeared! I admit I was terrified, ‘my Lord my God’ (Ps. 37: 23). I had experienced nothing like it in all my life.

When I am evil, making confession to you is simply to be displeased with myself. When I am good, making confession to you is simply to make no claim on my own behalf, for you, Lord, ‘confer blessing on the righteous’ (Ps. 5:13) but only after you have first ‘justified the ungodly’ (Rom. 4: 5).

But when I love you, what do I love? It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, nor the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odour of flowers and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor limbs welcoming the embraces of the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God. Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God—a light, voice, odour, food, embrace of my inner man, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God.

I have met with many people who wished to deceive, none who wished to be deceived. . . . They love the truth because they have no wish to be deceived, and when they love the happy life (which is none other than joy grounded in truth) they are unquestionably loving the truth.

But why is it that ‘truth engenders hatred’? Why does your man who preaches what is true become to them an enemy (Gal. 4: 16) when they love the happy life which is simply joy grounded on truth? The answer must be this: their love for truth takes the form that they love something else and want this object of their love to be the truth; and because they do not wish to be deceived, they do not wish to be persuaded that they are mistaken. And so they hate the truth for the sake of the object which they love instead of the truth. They love truth for the light it sheds, but hate it when it shows them up as being wrong (John 3: 20; 5: 35). Because they do not wish to be deceived but wish to deceive, they love truth when it shows itself to them but hate it when its evidence goes against them. Retribution will come to them on this principle: those who resist being refuted the truth will make manifest against their will, and yet to them it will not be manifest. Yes indeed: the human mind, so blind and languid, shamefully and dishonourably wishes to hide, and yet does not wish anything to be concealed from itself.

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you.

Although health is the reason for eating and drinking, a dangerous pleasantness joins itself to the process like a companion. Many a time it tries to take first place, so that I am doing for pleasure what I profess or wish to do only for health’s sake. They do not have the same measure: for what is enough for health is too little for pleasure. . . .  It is not the impurity of food I fear but that of uncontrolled desire.

Thus I fluctuate between the danger of pleasure and the experience of the beneficent effect, and I am more led to put forward the opinion (not as an irrevocable view) that the custom of singing in Church is to be approved, so that through the delights of the ear the weaker mind may rise up towards the devotion of worship.

The present considering the past is the memory, the present considering the present is immediate awareness, the present considering the future is expectation. . . .  So it is in you, my mind, that I measure periods of time. . . .  But how does this future, which does not yet exist, diminish or become consumed? Or how does the past, which now has no being, grow, unless there are three processes in the mind which in this is the active agent? For the mind expects and attends and remembers, so that what it expects passes through what has its attention to what it remembers.

The only thing that is not from you is what has no existence. The movement of the will away from you, who are, is movement towards that which has less being.

It is one thing to inquire into the truth about the origin of the creation. It is another to ask what understanding of the words on the part of a reader and hearer was intended by Moses, a distinguished servant of your faith. In the first category I will not be associated with all those who think they know things but are actually wrong. In the second category I will have nothing to do with all those who think Moses could have said anything untrue.

[F]or your truth does not belong to me nor to anyone else, but to us all whom you call to share it as a public possession. With terrifying words you warn against regarding it as a private possession, or we may lose it (Matt. 25: 14–30). Anyone who claims for his own property what you offer for all to enjoy, and wishes to have exclusive rights to what belongs to everyone, is driven from the common truth to his own private ideas, that is from truth to a lie. For ‘he who speaks a lie’ speaks ‘from his own’ (John 8: 44).

If any among them comes to scorn the humble style of biblical language and in proud weakness pushes himself outside the nest in which he was raised, he will fall, poor wretch.

The haughtiness of pride, the pleasure of lust, and the poison of curiosity (1 John 2: 16) are the passions of a dead soul. The soul’s death does not end all movement. Its ‘death’ comes about as it departs from the fount of life, so that it is absorbed by the transitory world and conformed to it.

A gift is the object given by the person who is sharing in these necessaries such as money, food, drink, clothing, a roof, assistance generally. Fruit, however, is the good and right will of the giver. (Augustine, Confessions)

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.  (Philippians 4:8-9)

It wouldn't be too long ago that Augustine's thoughts would have been characterized as "counting the number of angels that could fit on the end of a pin"-sort of pondering to me.  It wasn't so much that I thought he was unintelligent, but just out-dated and irrelevant.  I actually thought, What could this guy know about the life I lead?   What could he know about anything really important?


I have to admit that I still didn't find Confessions enjoyable by and large.  I felt bogged down in a number of places and confused in other ones.  I wondered, What is he trying to get at?

I decided to come to Augustine with more openness than before.  His Confessions are recognized widely as "great."  Furthermore, I was given them to read as an assignment (at least part of them).  I thought I would try to find what I could in his writing.

I found that Augustine had a deep love for God.  His yearning after God is often quoted.  "Restless until I find rest in you," "my God, my life, my holy sweetness,"  "late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new" are a few phrases that show that Augustine was anything but stilted and merely ritualistic in his faith.  He longed after God with a love that is seldom seen.

I found that Augustine pondered God and his ways deeply.  He was not able to merely accept things without wrestling with them first.  His conversion experience spanned more than a decade as he struggled to come to God and escape from the world and his own desires.  He understood how difficult it can be to come to God when he wrote: "The consequence of a distorted will is passion. By servitude to passion, habit is formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomes necessity."  At the same time he saw how faithful God is and how easily he could come to him: "Praise to you, glory to you, fount of mercies! As I became unhappier, you came closer."  His struggle was real and within each part of him, from desires to intellect, from personal relationships to public image.  Augustine captured so much of the struggle to coming to God.

I found in Augustine's questions, both before and after his conversion to Christ, relentless integrity.  He so much wants to bring ideas together with God and his life.  These are not empty questions as I first assumed, but things that really troubled and excited him.  He saw it rightly when he began his Confessions with this thought: "What has anyone achieved in words when he speaks about you? Yet woe to those who are silent about you because, though loquacious with verbosity, they have nothing to say."  Although he may not understand much, there is great joy in knowing even a little about God and his ways.

Perhaps most importantly, I found in Augustine a person like myself.  The events that led up to his conversion were so real to me.  He was exposed to The Life of St. Anthony through a chance meeting with an Egyptian Christian.  He wondered if what happened to Anthony could happen to him.  And it did!  Through the Bible, God also spoke to Augustine.  God also gave him a friend to journey with into his new-found belief.  The story is so beautiful in its reality.  I could see myself as Augustine and with him.

The breadth and depth of a relationship with God in Christ transcends place as I find other people from other places who share the wonder of following Jesus.  In Augustine, I see that it also transcends time.  Through his writings, I can "join together in following [the] example" of those who hunger for Christ.  Such experiences expand my experience and love for God, who continues to embrace so many different people even through the ages.

Lord, I am grateful for your servant Augustine.  He shared about you from his heart.  He questioned you deeply with his mind.  He gave so much in service to you through his body.  May I learn from him and be encouraged by his example and his teaching.  Amen.


I look forward to reading Confessions again a bit more slowly with the goal of walking with a dear brother in Christ.  I hope I will learn how to hear him "in love" as he would want me to.

The Word Comes to an Honest Heart

Devotional Classics, Watchman Nee,  Excerpts from What Shall This Man Do?

God has made, from His side, a threefold provision for every person in that person’s hour of crisis: Firstly, Jesus has come as the Friend of sinners; secondly, it is He personally (and no intermediary) whom we are called to meet; and thirdly, the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, to bring to pass in us the initial work of conviction of sin, repentance, and faith, and, of course, all that follows. . . .  We are not required – in the first place – to believe, or to repent, or to be conscious of sin, or even to know that Christ died.  We are required only to approach the Lord with an honest heart.

In the Gospels the Lord Jesus is presented as the Friend of sinners, for historically He was found, first of all, moving among the people as their Friend before He became their Savior.

I met a student who said it was too early for him to come to the Lord. . . .  He said to me, “The thief on the cross was saved, but he had his fling, and it was high time that he repented.  But I – I am young.”

“Well what do you want to do?” I asked him. 

He replied, “I want to wait another forty years and have a good time, and then I will repent.” 

So I said, “Let us pray.”

“Oh, I can’t pray,” he answered.

“Yes, you can,” I said.  “You can tell the Lord all you have told me.  He is the Friend of unrepentant sinners like you.”

“Oh, I can’t say that to Him.”

“Why not?  Whatever is in your heart, you tell it to Him.  He will help you.”  Finally he prayed, and told the Lord that he did not want to repent and be saved, but that he knew he needed a Savior; and he just cried to Him for help.  The Lord worked repentance in him and he got up a saved man.

What is salvation?  Many think that to be saved we must first believe that the Lord Jesus died for us, but it is a strange fact that nowhere in the New Testament does it say precisely that.  We are told to believe in Jesus, or to believe on Him; not to believe that He died for us.  “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,” were Paul’s words.

The first condition of salvation is not knowledge, but meeting Christ.

For what is it to be reckoned righteous?  It is to touch God.  That is why our first object must be to lead people to meet Him.

[Salvation] is, as we have seen, a question of meeting God – of people coming into first-hand contact with Christ the Savior.  So what, you ask me, is the minimum requirement in a person to make that contact possible?  The basic condition of a sinner’s salvation is not belief or repentance, but just honesty of heart towards God.  God requires nothing of us except that we come in that attitude.

At first, Watchman Nee’s statement about coming to God without repentance or belief seems wrong.  How else could someone come?  Jesus himself said, “Repent!”  Paul speaks of faith as the sole avenue for righteousness from God.  Yet he says we need only meet God with an honest heart.

When I read this, I found that Nee had hit on something I learned a while ago, but easily forget.  (Funny how that works. . . .)  I cannot find God without this “honest heart.”  Repentance cannot be a precursor to coming to God because by their very nature, sinners are unrepentant.  Repentance follows conversion.

Similarly if belief is understanding some things about God, a person who does not know God will know very little about him.  This kind of understanding follows coming to God.  Belief as trust is the same.  I cannot trust God before I come to know him.  Somehow, I must touch him, experience him.

My certainty about this only increases as I grow closer to God.  The thing that takes me into the road of religious pride and away from God the quickest is trying to change (repent) or believe (understand or trust) without touching God.  The whole thing becomes powered by my will and guided by my pride.

One of the most tempting ways (maybe the most tempting) of dealing with sins and shortcomings in my life is to bring pride in to beat them into submission.  “You’re better than that!”  “At least I’m not as bad as. . . .”  “I may do this, but at least I don’t do that.”  All these statements and many more of them  come to my mind when I try to resist my faults and sins with pride.  I may see improvement with certain sins, but I exchange them for something far more deadly.

I think this “honest heart” is one way of describing humility.  In the story above, the young student practiced humility through confession.  Confession is not so much admitting I am wrong as being honest before God about where I am at.  Confession is not so much “I’m sorry” as “I’m here.”  Meeting Jesus keeps me from the source of pride: hiding from God.  Hiding means I am trying to take care of it on my own rather than bring it to Jesus for help.

Nee’s three provisions are absolutely necessary to make this kind of “honest heart” effective.  Jesus is my Friend before I repent.  He is on my side.  He wants to be around me and will be, even if I have ambivalent feelings.  Jesus is merciful and forgiving.

Next, this meeting with Jesus is all that is necessary.  He alone stands before me when I am alone in grief or sin or pain.  He alone stands with me when I face what I fear, whether God or people.  He alone is my mediator, not his death or his teaching or his resurrection.  These come with him, but they are not mediators; only Jesus is.  I go to him with an honest heart, not to his teachings or his promises or his achievements.  Jesus himself answers my needs and cries.  He alone is the mediator.

Finally, I meet Jesus through his Spirit.  His Spirit overshadows me and all people, awaiting my cries to him.  He is as close as the cries from my heart.  His presence and power are available immediately when I seek him out apart from my repentance or my belief.  I access Jesus by my heart crying out to him, not my efforts to please him or know him.  This is grace: Jesus’s immediate presence to each person.

Jesus’s grace takes the honest heart and fills it with repentance and belief.  All that matters is how my heart turns to Christ in each moment, whether crisis or peace.  He is my Friend, faithful at all times even when I am not.

Lord, recently I have once again turned to you.  I have seen how pride grows easily in my heart.  I begin to hide.  I grow cold.  I forget your presence beside me.  I try to conjure repentance and create belief.  For you, I let it go today.  They are not worth anything.  I need you and you alone, Jesus, this day and every day.  Let me eyes be on you as I open myself completely before you.  Then I will turn.  Then I will trust.  Amen.

Confession is powerful tool to beat on pride.  Pride thrives in darkness and hiding.  Confession brings light and community.  Pride competes.  Confession brings the knowledge that everything is loss compared to knowing Jesus, my Friend, my Mediator, my Help.

The Work in the Way

The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan

The Man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on crying, Life!  Life!  Eternal Life!  So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the Plain.  (4)

Interpreter:  Let this man's Misery be remembered by thee, and be an everlasting Caution to thee.  (33)

Then [Christian] stood still a while to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his Burden.  He looked therefore, and looked again, even as the springs that were in his head sent waters down his cheeks.  (36)

Formalist and Hypocrisy:  If we get into the Way, what's the matter which way we get in?  If we are in, we are in.

Christian:  You come in by yourselves without his Direction; and you shall go out by yourselves, without his Mercy.  (38, 39)

Prudence: Can you remember by what Means you find your annoyances at times, as if they were vanquished?

Christian: Yes, when I think what I saw at the Cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my 'broidered Coat, that will do it; also when I look into the Roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it.  (51)

Faithful: This Shame tells me what men are; but it tells me nothing what God or the Word of God is.  (79)

Hopeful: Then I said, but Lord, what is Believing?  And then I saw from that saying, [He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst] that Believing and Coming was all one; and that he that came, that is, ran out in his heart and affections after Salvation by Christ, he indeed believed in Christ. . . .  And now was my heart full of joy, mine eyes full of tears, and mine affections running over with love to the Name, People, and Ways of Jesus Christ. (164, 165)

Now while they were thus drawing towards the Gate, behold a company of the Heavenly Host came out to meet them; to whom it was said by the other two Shining Ones, These are the men that have loved our Lord, when they were in the World, and that have left all for his Holy Name, and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired Journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with Joy.  (185)

Since I have read The Pilgrim's Progress, I have run into the very characters on my own pilgrimage: Atheist, Temporary, and Ignorance.  I have seen some of the same challenges before me as Christian faced: running for life when others call me back, sinking into despondency, and being persecuted for buying into the vanity of much of this life.  Progress seems slow.  I am slow to learn.

Yet, the cross still relieves my burdens, and the Interpreter reminds me of who I can trust and the dangers before me.  In the house of Prudence, Knowledge, and Charity, I find the faith of those who have gone before me and catch glimpses of the glories to come.  Maybe someday, I will sight the Gates and walk in the Delectable Mountains where joy and peace reign.

This is the delight of Bunyan's allegory.  He has spotted a number of the people I meet, the challenges I face, and the joys I encounter on the way.  How can I bring this together?  I suppose I could say that one of Bunyan's main concerns is for people who get on the path without entering by the Wicket Gate.  Repentance is knocking on the door of God's good will and being let in.  The Gate is not just a moment that comes and goes, but a beginning, like a wedding to a marriage, of a way of life, a pilgrimage.  Those who do not enter by the Gate walk without God's leave and without his mercy.  Like Hypocrisy, they say, "If we are in, we are in," not realizing that the actions without the heart will not carry one to the end of the journey.

Bunyan reminds me that the pilgrimage of this life is full of knocking and seeking.  God's grace is fully available, but not always immediately received.  It is encountered on the way.  Pilgrim has to come a little ways on his journey before his burden falls off.  Hopeful has to pray to receive Christ repeatedly and with faith.  God is not playing with them, but revealing their desire mixed with his mercy which brings them perseverance.  "Ask, seek, knock" are not half-hearted attempted, but ways in which I can love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.  There is no other way to come and I need grace the whole way.  Grace brings perseverance; it doesn't eliminate it.

Bunyan makes clear that this great salvation that I walk is always a gift.  In my natural life, I will do no good, that is, I will not make this journey.  Ignorance cannot accept this fact, but must see that his journey is mostly upon his own shoulders and due to his own innate goodness.  Sharing with Ignorance, I think I am "good enough" and so turn down God's offer for real goodness and even find his offer to be oppressive, since it condemns my goodness as not good enough and show where I fall short.  It hurts and such conviction can make me think that God's call is not really good at all.  Conviction leads to mercy and joy if I can let go of my Self-holiness and embrace God and his goodness.

Bunyan also makes clear that this great salvation is an achievement.  Just because it is a matter of mercy and grace does not mean that I have not share in the work.  God's grace upholds my achievement.  There is no boasting, only gratitude.  Boasting does not come from work and achievement, but only from entitlement.  Effort is expected, as is clear from Christian's whole pilgrimage, even if much of the effort is asking for God's grace to carry me through.

Lord, allow me to walk in the Way.  Keep me from being sidetracked.  Save me from the pitfalls before me.  Bring me into this day's joy.  Let me work be hard and true, especially the work of prayer.  I need your grace to carry me through.  Amen.


I resonate with Christian's cry, "Life!  Life!  Eternal life!" I see how much my devotion needs to be single-minded on the Lord.  It is easy to be divided.  It is at those times that the Way becomes unclear.  Devotion brings me back to the path and keeps me on it.

Lost in Self-Righteousness

Devotional Classics, Charles Spurgeon, Excerpts from "Spiritual Revival the Want of the Church"

We too often flog the Church when the whip should be laid on our own shoulders.  We should always remember that we are a part of the Church, and the our own lack of revival is in some measure the cause of the lack of revival in the Church at large.

Many people have recently joined the Church in our country.  But are there any fewer cheats than there used to be?  Are there less frauds committed?  Do we find morality more extensive?  Do we find vice coming to an end?

Pay attention to the conversation of the average professing Christian.  You might spend from the first of January to the end of December and never hear them speak about their faith. 

But even if our conduct and conversation were more consistent with our faith, I would still have this third charge against us: there is too little real communion with Jesus Christ. . . .  Men and women, let me ask you, How long has it been since you have had an intimate conversation with Jesus Christ?

Our problem is this: there are many who say they want revival but they do not groan for it, they do not long for it.

To say, "I will revive myself," reveals that you do not know your true state.  If you knew your true state, you would just as soon expect a wounded soldier on the battlefield to heal himself without medicine, of get himself to hospital when his arms and legs have been shot off as you would expect to revive yourself without the help of God.  I urge you: do nothing until you have first prayed to God, crying out, "O Lord, revive thy work."

In this present era there is a sad decline of the vitality of godliness. . . .  When you heard [George Whitfield] preach, you felt like you were listening to a man who would die if he could not preach.  Where, where is such earnestness today?

The absence of sound doctrine. . . happened when ministers in the pulpit stopped preaching sound doctrine for fear of how it would be received.

"O!" says one person, "if we had another minister.  O! if we had another kind of worship.  O! if we had a different sort of preaching."  You do not need new ways or new people, you need new life in what you have. . . .  It is not a new person or a new plan, but the life of God in them that the Church needs.  Let us ask God for it!  (pp. 317-320)

O Lord, I have heard of your renown and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work.  In our own time revive it. (Habakkuk 3:1-2) 

 Recently I read that the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 is about two lost sons.  The younger son, most people are familiar with.  He is the one who runs off and thinks better of it and comes back.  He is the son of unrighteousness.  The father longs for his return and comes to him while he is still far away.  What picture of God's merciful assistance to people caught in unrighteousness!

But there is another son.  He is the one who stands outside the party for the younger son in anger and disbelief.  He is the son of self-righteousness.  Again, the father goes out to him.  Does the father withhold anything that he gave the younger son?  No, "all that I have is yours," he says.  The story ends abruptly with the question, "What will the older son do?"  We all know what the father does.  He clothes and honors the lost sons, wherever they come from.

I have no trouble seeing how the older brother misses out on his father's love because of his envy toward his younger brother.  I have no trouble seeing his self-righteousness and seeing how it warps his view of his father.  What I have often missed is the father's love for this older brother.  The father goes out to him as well.  He is also invited in.  I have usually left the older brother out in the cold.

I have missed the point of the story.  God finds and saves what is lost. I have not thought the older brother was lost.  No one asks about how to invite the older brother inside.  It seems that instead of having the older brother berating his younger brothers for wasting his money on loose-living, nowadays it might be more appropriate to have the younger son berating the older brother.  Maybe he would say, "What, him?  Don't invite him in!  He would only ruin the party with his 'work ethic' and 'piety.'  He's a fake anyway. . . ."

So I look at Spurgeon and I wonder if my attitude has been to flog the church like that older brother.  Really the troubles come from both unrighteousness and self-righteousness.  Neither of them bring a person back the Father.  Only when I turn my back on them am I pointed in the right direction.  And Jesus says that is all I need do: turn.  Turn (repent) and the kingdom of God (his loving arms and blessings) is right there.

The kingdom of heaven is the party.  Even though the full celebration is yet to come, Jesus came to say that the party has already started.  Anyone who joins in will find that it just being there with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and in the communion of party-ers (saints) will find the conduct, conversation, and communion in their lives changed.

In conduct, parties call for certain behavior.  They call out joy and celebration.  A person not in the spirit of the party would be said not to belong there.  So it is with God's kingdom, the gathering of those who follow and obey him.  Excitement in following and joy in obedience characterize this party.  Outside there is only feeding on pig's food (unrighteousness) and miserable self-justification (self-righteousness).

In conversation, when a celebration approaches,  it becomes the "talk of the town."  Eager planning is part of the party.  Even in the party, there is eagerness to talk about what is good and enjoyable even as we do it.  A party that no one talked about would not be much of a party.  So with the kingdom of God - his loving influence in these days and into the days to come - conversation revolves around what goods thing are happening and going to happen.  In contrast, unrighteousness talks about all the ways it will fill its desires, only to come out empty  Self-righteousness talks about how hard it works and how it deserves more appreciation.

In communion, what can be better than being with people who are celebrating?  The kingdom of God is a celebration and the most important part is the company of celebrants.  At the heart is the Trinity, and such celebration is continual as praise and worship.  Unrighteousness, however, starts with friends, but ends up with pigs.  Self-righteousness ends up cold and alone.

I have beaten that analogy to a pulp.  Although the church does not encompass the kingdom, it certainly is an important part of it.  When I have retreated from the church, I find that what I am saying is "I will revive myself."  Often as I have attended I have wished for changes in programs and positions rather than in the hearts of those who come, worship, and serve.

Lord, let me find the party in the church.  Teach me how to celebrate.  My heart is often cold.  I find I am not expectant, but weary.  I need you to show me how to hope.  Pity me!  Amen.


I am humbled by Spurgeon's point about wanting revival, but not groaning for it.  This is where I am.

Made for God

The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God.

The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted.

Jesus called it "life" and "self," or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness.

[Jesus] had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation.

God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say. Should faulty education and perverse reasoning lead a man to conclude otherwise, there is little that any Christian can do for him.

The Presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence.

Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they?

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us.

To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. "He must be," they say, "therefore we believe He is. . . ."  While admitting His existence they do not think of Him as knowable in the sense that we know things or people.

But the very ransomed children of God themselves: why do they know so little of that habitual conscious communion with God which the Scriptures seem to offer? The answer is our chronic unbelief. Faith enables our spiritual sense to function. Where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things.

God has objective existence independent of and apart from any notions which we may have concerning Him. The worshipping heart does not create its Object. It finds Him here when it wakes from its moral slumber in the morning of its regeneration.

Another word that must be cleared up is the word reckon. This does not mean to visualize or imagine. Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there.

What now does the divine immanence mean in direct Christian experience? It means simply that God is here.

These are truths believed by every instructed Christian. It remains for us to think on them and pray over them until they begin to glow within us.

I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which [faithful believers] had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward.

Receptivity is not a single thing; it is a compound rather, a blending of several elements within the soul. It is an affinity for, a bent toward, a sympathetic response to, a desire to have.

The tragic results of this spirit [of quick spirituality] are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.

The Voice of God is the most powerful force in nature, indeed the only force in nature, for all energy is here only because the power-filled Word is being spoken.

God's word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God's word in the universe. It is the present Voice which makes the written Word all-powerful.

That God is here and that He is speaking—these truths are back of all other Bible truths; without them there could be no revelation at all.

The Voice of God is a friendly Voice. No one need fear to listen to it unless he has already made up his mind to resist it.

This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion.

"Looking" on the Old Testament serpent [as in John 4] is identical with "believing" on the New Testament Christ. That is, the looking and the believing are the same thing. And he would understand that while Israel looked with their external eyes, believing is done with the heart. I think he would conclude that faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.

Indeed Jesus taught that He wrought His works by always keeping His inward eyes upon His Father. His power lay in His continuous look at God (John 5:19-21).

The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him.

"Be thou exalted" is the language of victorious spiritual experience.

Another saying of Jesus, and a most disturbing one, was put in the form of a question, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God alone?" If I understand this correctly Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible. Is this sin at the root of religious unbelief? Could it be that those "intellectual difficulties" which men blame for their inability to believe are but smoke screens to conceal the real cause that lies behind them?

A whole world of literature has been created to justify this kind of life [without God] as the only normal one.

The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion. Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do, it is what comes to us when we cease to do.

Advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense. "Courses" are offered in this or that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim's desire to shine at a party. Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are peddled, by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we are not.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life. In the Presence of His Father He lived on earth without strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act. "I do always the things that please him," was His brief summary of His own life as it related to the Father.

His presence in human flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human body something innately offensive to the Deity.

We need no more be ashamed of our body—the fleshly servant that carries us through life—than Jesus was of the humble beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem. "The Lord hath need of him" may well apply to our mortal bodies. If Christ dwells in us we may bear about the Lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry, "Hosanna in the highest."

It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything.

"God made us for himself."  My desire after God then has purpose and reason.  "The pursuit of God" is the foundation of my being and the reason for my creation.  Where this desire dissipates or disappears real violence has been done to the human soul.  It is the "natural" order which has been distorted and destroyed by sin, which is also a desire, but not with God at its center.

Because God made me for himself, "he waits to be wanted."  This is the only action God can take essentially, if he wanted spiritual beings to be made for himself.  If the my spirit is coerced or forced to seek or take something, there is resentment and rebellion. Choice is the heart of the inner world. I am what I choose to desire.

The heart of sin says, "If I cannot possess it, I do not want it."  Sin withers and dies in the light of desire after God, because he cannot be possessed.  Possession implies control.  God made us so we could have him while not possessing him.  When  I can find the desire to want God without possessing him, then the rest of life - full of God's creation of people, creatures, and things - is mine for the having and enjoying.  If only I can be free of possessing!

The possessiveness of sin comes from the thought that the most "real" thing I can count on is myself - what I possess in things, abilities, and status.  With this view of reality, God is decidedly unreal.  He becomes an idea or sentiment that I can possess and manipulate to please and aid my flesh - the abilities and status I possess.  At the heart of sin is this distorted view of reality based on "self-life."

Belief is the trust that reality is God-centered, God-initiated, and God-sustained.  Such trust is practiced through reckoning.  Faith is confidence.  Faith is expectation.  Faith sees and beholds God and so is opposed to sight that does not see God.

What does faith see?  The reality of God is based on his Word.  By his Word everything comes into being, is order, and is sustained.  Listening starts the journey into God's reality.  In order to behold God I must listen to him, just like Mary, the friend of Jesus, sat at his feet to hear him.  When I trust, I listen.  If I do not listen, I am not trusting.  If I do not trust, I will not listen.  The eyes direct the ears and the ears instruct the eyes.  "Come and see," says Jesus.  "He who has ears, let him hear!"  And finally, "Faith comes from hearing."  With my eyes I find food for my soul to hear.  With my ears, I feed the faith of my eyes.

The veil of self-life keeps me from overcoming sin and seeing God.  Self-life serves the body and assumes that God will not.  Self-life lives a life of pretending.  It pretends that God will not care for my whole being, so I have to do it myself.  It pretends that only in tricking other people into thinking I am what I am not can I really get what I want and need out of them. Self-life never trusts.  It always pretends, presumes, and pushes.  The desire and pursuit of God is far from this life since he made me for trusting and waiting for him rather than grabbing what I can when I can.

Lord, the foundation of life is the fact the you made me for you.  These words bring trust, hope, and peace.  They deeply communicate your love.  Let me not pretend to live, but really live.  Let me not live blinded by my flesh, my self-life, but with open eyes of faith.  Let me listen so that I might be fed and strengthened.  I am for you, Father.  Amen.

"God made us for himself."  This is why my life must be the pursuit of God.  I think of certain kinds of software that are made for certain operating systems.  So it is with God.  I am "made for God," just like some things are "made for Windows."  I operate in him best.  Without him, whatever I am remains either poorly used or unused entirely.

The Right Use of the Word

Devotional Classics, John Chrysostom, Excerpts from A Sermon Titled "Dead to Sin"

When the fornicator becomes chaste, when the covetous person becomes merciful, when the harsh become subdued, a resurrection has taken place, a prelude to the final resurrection which is to come.  How is it resurrection?  It is a resurrection because sin has been mortified, and righteousness has risen in its place; the old life has passed away, and new, angelic life is now being lived.

The love of money, the slavery to wrong desires, and any sin whatsoever, makes us grow old in soul and body.  Our souls become rheumatic, distorted, decayed, and tottering with many sins.  Such, then, are the souls of sinners. Not so those of the righteous, for they are youthful and strong, always in the prime of life, ready for any fight.  Not so for the sinners, for they are subject to fall at the least resistance.  The sinful lose their ability to see, to hear, and to speak, for they spew forth words that are foul.

When the prodigal [son] was willing, he became suddenly young by his decision.

How am I to go back [to God] again?  Start by avoiding vice, going no farther into it, and you will have come home.  When a person who is sick does not get any worse it is a sign that he is getting better, and so is the case with vice.  God not further and your deeds of wickedness will have an end.

God is not so well pleased with being our Master as he is with being our Father; he is not so pleased with our being slaves as he is with our being children  This is what God truly wants.
God's exceeding desire to be loved comes from loving exceedingly.

What is there to fear?  Losing all your money?  If you bear it nobly, it will be as great a reward to you as if you gave it all to the poor - as long as you freely lose it because you know you have a greater reward in heaven.  What else is there to fear?  Having people revile and persecute you?  If so, those people have weaved a great crown for you if you bear it meekly. Rejoice and be glad, Jesus said, when people speak evil against you falsely, for great is your reward in heaven.    And even if they speak the truth against us, it is to our advantage if we bear it humbly, just as the Pharisee spoke rightly about the publican, but only the publican went home because he bore it in humility.

If we were suddenly aware of a serpent nestling in our bed, we would go to great lengths to kill it.  But when the devil nestles in our souls, we tell ourselves we are in no danger, and thus we lie at ease.  Why?  Because we do not see him and his intent with your mortal eyes.  (pp. 309-312)

While [the prodigal son] was still far off, the father saw him and was filled with compassion;  he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  (Luke 15)

Sometimes I am lazy.  I use a spoon or knife as a screwdriver.  Or I use the end of a screwdriver as a hammer.  Or I use pliers instead of a wrench.  It just seems too difficult to go and locate the right tool for the right job.  While some improvisation can be innovative, I usually end up breaking something or hurting myself.

Sometimes I am lazy with my family.  I use condemnation instead of encouragement.  I point out other people's problems most often when they are my own problems as well instead of showing mercy.  I try to give good advice instead of listening for what is needed.  Again, I find the wrong tools for job and I break things and people get hurt.

The Bible is a tool notorious for misuse.  I am tempted to pull it out on the wrong occasions.  I use it to prove how right I am instead of how good God is.  I use it to point out other people's sins and shortcomings rather than reveal my own need for a Deliverer.  I treat it like a contract instead of an ongoing conversation.  The main purpose of the Bible is as Chrysostom says, to make me dead to sin and alive to God.  (Romans 6:10)  For this reason, I need to be immersed in it as I am in the presence of God.

Dead to sin?  I like the picture of sin creating soul-decay.  The part of me that holds me together as a unified whole - my soul - becomes frayed and eventually ruined by sin.  And so, as with the body, I start to fall apart.  How do I fight this disease?  Simply, do not get sicker, and I will get better.  This takes into account the basic truth of sin: sin kills.  If I am getting better, then sin is losing its foothold.  The focus is on spiritual health and vitality, not on how much sin can I stand before I really fall apart.  I am tempted to remain a little sick, but it shows through under stress or when I am attempting to follow Christ.  With sin-sickness, I am quickly winded and giving up.

The one who encourages sin is like that snake in the bed.  There is no compromise.  There is no "managing" or "coping."  Simply sin and its accomplices must die.  Getting better is at the heart of killing sin.

Getting better is going back.  The very decision to return to the Father will bring hope and vitality.  The picture that Jesus wants us to have is of a father longing for a son, not a judge gathering a jury.  Perhaps the journey back begins as obligation to a master, but when I draw near, I find that really I am responding to the love of a parent.

Fear hangs over the image of a master waiting for a slave.  That is where the prodigal son started.  Even with that image, the son realized that his treatment under such a father would be better than the treatment he was now receiving in his runaway status.  I see that even a God as judge and master has more appeal than the cruel treatment of sin form my flesh, the devil, and the world.  My fear is what I may lose: money or reputation, for instance.  I am encouraged by the idea that if I lose them well, they will assist me in drawing close to God and living in his love and power.

This fear is unfounded, though.  What I find is not a master or a judge, but a father.  This father does not wait for me to make my way back, but comes to me while I am still far off.  This is the story of grace:  I turn and God is there.  I am never far from him because of his mercy and grace.

Lord,


I am always going into the far country,
  and always returning home as a prodigal,
  always saying, Father, forgive me,
  and thou art always bringing forth the best robe.
Every morning let me wear it,
  every evening return in it,
  go out to the day's work in it,
  be married in it,
  be wound in death in it,
  stand before the great white throne in it,
  enter heaven in it shining as the sun.


Amen.


(The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan Prayers &Devotions)

The Bible is then the light and the trumpet that makes me turn around and go home.  It shows the darkness of the world's night and the dawn of God's goodness and grace.  It shows the sickness of sin and the healing of Jesus hands in my life.  I announces the futility of living on my own for myself and whispers the call of family and home in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  I want to not be lazy and use it incorrectly, but let it be a light, a medicine, and good news in the hand of God.

Pain Without Suffering

Conversations, Gary Moon, Phillip Yancey, and Jan Johnson, The Problem of Pain

We are like children trying to understand the minds of an adult. Just as an infant cannot understand how an object can still be present in a room when it is hidden from vision, we cannot fathom how God’s love can still exist when it becomes concealed by tragedy. Evil is not a problem. Problems have solutions. Evil is a mystery. It defies solution through human intellect. Only faith can remove us from the dark dilemma.  (Gary Moon, Finding God in the Midst of Pain and Suffering)

Pain is directional, after all. It exists not to make us miserable but to force us to pay attention to something that needs changing. I see physical pain as the language the body uses to communicate a matter of urgent importance—and exactly the same principle applies to psychological or spiritual pain. (Philip Yancey, What Good Is God interview)

Spend less time and energy trying to clean up the culture around you—a task Jesus and Paul did not seem concerned about—and more time and energy creating a counter-culture that presents a compelling alternative while exposing the shallowness of its surroundings.  (Yancey)

First, I would say, don’t hold back. The Bible gives ample proof that God welcomes our honest expressions of emotion, even when they include profound disappointment and rage.  Further, I would say that suffering should come with a warning label: Do not practice this alone. (Yancey)

Jesus wept even for those who wanted to destroy him.  (Jan Johnson, A God Who Weeps)

Jesus "woes" to the Pharisees and his lament for Jerusalem (Matthew 23):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc8qOXeTsUQ#t=185m53s.

God does not have a problem with pain.  He comes into it through Christ.  He sees it through Christ.  He overcomes it through Christ.  Pain is not a problem in light of the the gospel.  This is the good news.

In itself, pain invites response and keeps people from growing too complacent.  As with other "natural" feelings, it has greatly increased with the Fall and has moved from mere pain to suffering and misery.  Change, growth, and healing do not occur quickly enough, so pain takes residence in my body and mind and creates suffering, much like anger can take residence and create rage or contempt.

God's solution is not one easily accepted.  Jesus did not seek pain, but neither did he avoid it exactly.  He accepted pain and addressed it.  He brought healing and comfort more than explanations.  When the time was right, when God's will was plain, he embraced pain and underwent suffering in order to overcome suffering with joy, peace, and love.  His victory did not remove pain, but defeated suffering and the outcome of hopeless, empty death.  No one need suffer or die alone anymore.

I am awed by the statement above that "Evil is not a problem. . . .  Evil is a mystery."  This shows that I cannot unravel the "problem of pain" on my own.  Mysteries are revealed.  Jesus's acceptance of and address to pain is a revelation more than an answer.  In him we find out not so much why pain and suffering exist, but how we are to deal with them.  Revelation comes through faith, that is, trust.  That is why the "answers" vary and fall short of universal truth.  They are pictures of journeys that other people have taken and reveal the kind of trust they had in God.

The "shallowness of [my] surroundings" encourages either glib or hopeless answers to pain and suffering.  What is needed is a community of faith, that is, a gathering of people dedicated to trusting God through pain and suffering.  This sort of community is not drawn and held together primarily by descriptions of what faith they have nor by what actions faith demands, but by lives drawn together by a trust in God through Christ that accepts and addresses pain in a walking friendship with God.

Such depth is evidenced through weeping and true sorrow.  Such sorrow does not have to be misery.  I do not think God is miserable because of suffering in and around him.  He is characterized by joy.  Only through faith, hope, and love can suffering be defeated and bring out love, joy and peace in my heart.  Such change comes through sorrow, which in Christ leads not to despair, but to change and growth and life.

Lord, may my tears come easily.  May they be real.  May I have the trust to accept and address pain instead of always denying it or running from it.  Such actions lack faith and lead to further suffering.  Calm my fear and reveal in me, to me, and through me your work in this world, especially in pain and suffering.  Amen.


I might say (very tentatively) that God has pain, but does not suffer.  I might say that although immutable in character, the love of God brings the reality of pain.  This would be all I could really say about God.  For myself, if growth is my destiny in God, then pain is also there.  Yet it may be a pain without suffering, a stretching and soreness from growth without the prolonged and mysterious pain of suffering.  This requires more thought and certainly more experience to understand.  May God's grace guide me.

God's Word Brings Faith By Quieting the Mind

Devotional Classics, Madame Guyon, Excerpts from Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ

In coming to the Lord by means of "praying the Scripture," you do not read quickly; you read very slowly.  You do not move from one passage to another, not until you have sensed the very heart of what you have read.  You may then want to take that portion of Scripture that has touched you and turn it into prayer.

Of course, there is a kind of reading the Scripture for scholarship and for study - but not here.  That studious kind of reading will not help you when it comes to matters that are divine!  To receive any deep, inward profit from the Scripture you read until revelation, like a sweet aroma, breaks out upon you.

In "beholding the Lord" you come to the Lord in a totally different way.  Perhaps at this point I need to share with you the greatest difficulty you will have in waiting upon the Lord.  It has to do with your mind.  The mind has a very strong tendency to stray away from the Lord.  Therefore, as you come before the Lord to sit in his presence, beholding him, make use of the Scripture to quiet your mind.

The way you do this is really quite simple.  First, read a passage of Scripture.  Once you sense the Lord's presence, the content of what you have read is no longer important.  The Scripture has served its purpose; it has quieted your mind; it has brought you to him.

Turn your heart to the presence of God.  How is this done?  This, too, is quite simple.  You turn to him by faith.  By faith you believe you have come into the presence of God.

Now, waiting before him, turn all your attention towrd your spirit.  Do not allow your mind to wander.  If your mind begins to wander, just turn your attention back again to the inward parts of your being. . . .  The Lord is found only within your spirit, in the recesses of your being, in the Holy of Holies; this is where he dwells.  The Lord once promised to come and make his home within you (John 14:23)

Oh, it is not that you will think about what you ahve read, but you will feed upon what you have read.  Out of love for the Lord you exert your will to hold your mind quiet before him.  When you have come to this state, you must allow your mind to rest.

In this peaceful state, swallow what you have tasted.  At first this may seem difficult, but perhaps I can show you a simple way.  Have you not, at times, enjoyed the flavor of a very tasty food?  But unless you were willing to swallow the food, you received no nourishment.  It is the same with your soul.  In this quiet, peaceful, and simple state simply take in what is there as nourishment.

For a long time I have sought to "practice the presence of Christ," as Brother Lawrence puts it, and have found myself more burdened than blessed.  It seems so strenuous and somewhat confusing.  My mind wanders because of a desire to "scheme" my way through life when I seek to stay with God throughout a day.  However, my mind also wanders because of confusion.  What am I supposed to think?  What am I supposed to be doing?

I have moved mostly toward regular times with God rather than "constant prayer."  I recharge throughout the day.  Still, even this can prove taxing.  Some days are better than others.  More often than not, though, I am flapping like a chicken rather than soaring like an eagle.  God meets me graciously and instructs, helps, and guides me.  But I want to know if this "constant prayer" is more than just a fantasy.

Through Madame Guyon's discussion of "beholding the Lord," I have come to understand more of what this "practicing the presence" is.  I have long recognized certain feeling associated with God's presence.  The feelings aren't always the same, but there is similarity to them.  Really the feelings are not so much God himself, but my attitude toward God when I am receptive to his presence.

This feeling has always been somewhat nebulous to me.  I didn't know what it was exactly or how it helped me.  Without knowing, I felt confused.  When confused, my mind wandered more.  So what has helped me is Madame Guyon's simple instruction to enter the "beholding of the Lord" through faith.

I find the word trust more helpful.  Trusting is not so much a feeling, but there is a certain kind of feeling that often accompanies it.  Also, her suggestions about resting my mind fit well with this trust.  In order to trust, often I must let go of certain thoughts and desires.  I must be open to God and therefore I must be closed to certain thoughts and desires.  The Scripture opens my mind to God and closes it to living life without him.

Trust and confidence are really actions of the will and heart more than the mind.  Although thoughts and feelings in the mind may accompany or facilitate trust, such confidence comes from the intention and action.  Trusting God involves a lot of waiting on him and resting in him.  Trust never involves hurry or frantic behavior, even if it does include quick action at times.  This faith is a readiness to do certain things.

A.W. Tozer speaks of faith as the "gazing soul on the saving God."  This lines up with Madame Guyon's "beholding the Lord."  It makes me realize that the command "Pray without ceasing" is really the same as "Do all things with faith."  Also I see that the reason faith is opposed to sight is that it is sight in itself.  Faith opposed temporal or physical sight.  This is analogous to a comment from C.S. Lewis Christianity and education: "Christianity does not require education because it is an education."  Faith is sight.

Such trust is possible on all occasions.  What I needed was recognition of that continuing faith followed by practice.  God opening my eyes to the experience of faith has made it easier to remain with him in faith.  Madame Guyon's admonition to look inward for me is not morbid self-absorption, but a reminder to attend to my trust in God and let go of the things that worry and obsess my mind.  The Scripture quiets the mind by refocusing my mind on God's goodness and love and encouraging my heart (will) to trust God.  Trust is the natural reaction to love.

This is how God's word goes out and brings people to him.  When people come to hear and realize the goodness and love of God, they are drawn into faith, trusting him.  This is not a one-time action, but a continual work of letting go of the things that seem so important to grasp the things that are important.  God's word, used honestly, brings faith.

Lord, may I be immersed in your word, so that my mind may be at rest and my heart full of trust.  Amen.


Now I feel I have grounds to practice this "prayer of the heart."  It is faith from "first to last."  People like Madame Guyon have explained and demonstrated this faith in practical terms.  The Bible is full of such descriptions.  Much of Jesus' teaching might be seen as a description of this faith and its outcome in God's kingdom and in this world.  I want to test this against the Scriptures.

Bear the Cross, It Will Bear You

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis

For verily it is not deep words that make a man holy and upright; it is a good life which maketh a man dear to God.

I had rather feel contrition than be skillful in the definition thereof. 

He only is truly great, who hath great charity.

If thou wouldst profit by thy reading, read humbly, simply, honestly, and not desiring to win a character for learning.

As oft as I have gone among men, so oft have I returned less a man.

Two things specially avail unto improvement in holiness, namely firmness to withdraw ourselves from the sin to which by nature we are most inclined, and earnest zeal for that good in which we are most lacking.

Let nothing be great, nothing high, nothing pleasing, nothing acceptable unto thee, save God Himself or the things of God.

Thou art none the holier if thou art praised, nor the viler if thou art reproached.

If thou willingly bear the Cross, it will bear thee. . . .  If thou cast away one cross, without doubt thou shalt find another and perchance a heavier.

For a little reward men make a long journey; for eternal life many will scarce lift a foot once from the ground.

 The prudent lover considereth not the gift of the lover so much as the love of the giver.

 My Son, he who striveth to withdraw himself from obedience, withdraweth himself also from grace, and he who seeketh private advantages, loseth those which are common unto all.

He is not truly patient who will only suffer as far as seemeth right to himself and from whom he pleaseth.

Strive, My Son, to do another's will rather than thine own. Choose always to have less rather than more. Seek always after the lowest place, and to be subject to all. Wish always and pray that the will of God be fulfilled in thee. Behold, such a man as this entereth into the inheritance of peace and quietness.

Hold fast the short and complete saying, 'Renounce all things, and thou shalt find all things; give up thy lust, and thou shalt find rest.'

It is not really a small thing, when in small things we resist self.

How many have been injured by their virtue being made known and too hastily praised.

All reason and natural investigation ought to follow faith, not to precede, nor to break it. 

I find it hard to group all the thoughts in The Imitation of Christ.  I will use the title as the main theme.  I guess it shows that imitating Christ, being his disciple, is simple in its meaning, but profound in its implications and manifold in its expression.

I am impressed with a Kempis' continual reminder that thinking about discipleship or talking about discipleship is not the same as practicing and doing it. Also that doing discipleship without the inner growth and change of self-denial and passion for God and his ways.

As far as mere talk, he criticizes mere book learning that can define the things of God without experiencing them and engage in learning for the inflation of ourselves with a "character of learning" rather than humility of a real disciple.  "Deep words" do not make a disciple, but a "good life."

As far as mere good deeds, he points out how a person may make a show of patience or virtue without really being virtuous at all because he picks and chooses the recipients of his virtue.  It is possible for people to be "injured by their virtue," when it is too quickly or too often praised.  In the end all good deeds, like reason and learning, need to proceed from faith and not precede or break it.

In particular, The Imitation expresses how I might take up the cross and follow Jesus.  Jesus said there would be no following him without first taking up his cross.  In short, a Kempis recommends this saying as central: "Renounce all things, and you will find all things; give up your desires, and you will find rest."  This is a picture of the cross of Christ. About this saying he adds, "Dwell upon this in thy mind, and when thou art full of it, thou shalt understand all things.O Lord, this is not the work of a day, nor children's play; verily in this short saying is enclosed all the perfection of the religious."

Another way he puts this truth about self-denial is "If you willingly bear the cross, it will bear you." In following Christ, the cross is sufficient in bringing us to a powerful, full, and happy life because of the promise and reality of the resurrection. That is why by renouncing, I can gain. "Possessing nothing, but having everything." That is why by giving up my desires, I find peace. My true desire is found in Christ.

Such reading has been foreign to me.  I have had The Imitation recommended to me several times, but I have never been able to make it through until now.  Taking up the cross as self-denial and as destruction of the natural human abilities apart from God has seemed "over the top" and "Medieval" to me until I came face to face with desires and habits that threatened my marriage and my family.  Such desires and habits kept my learning from Christ inconsistent and powerless and emptied my heart of love for him and others.  When I finally saw how destructive these forces that lived in my life and body were, I understood the necessity of the cross.  I saw that only an overhaul would do, not the cosmetic surgery I was trying out.  Death was the answer, not merely coping.

So I can say and hope to live out this message: "If you willingly bear the cross, it will bear you."


Lord, I regret how long I have avoided the cross and fiddled around with mere talk and mere deeds.  I have not followed you with my whole heart, but have often left you to the side, only dabbling in the life you offer, not seeing its full glory and benefit.  Let me see your glory so that I may embrace your cross.  Let nothing be great, nothing high, nothing pleasing, nothing acceptable to me, except you and what you bring.  Amen.


I am reminded of a particular day when I gave up trying to fix myself.  I drove up to a stop sign and realized that I couldn't go forward or backward or left or right and find what would help me.  I had looked everywhere for relief from my desires and vices.  I had looked everywhere, except up.  So I looked to you and said, "Lead me and I will go.  I will do what you say.  Nothing else will work."  You are faithful.  You are enough.  I do not miss the things that I gave up to you that day, but hope to see them crucified completely in my life, so that I may be raised completely in your life.

The Devil's Best Work: Keeping God Out of Mind

The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis

It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. (20)

[The Enemy] wants men to be concerned about what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them. (28)

The great thing is to direct his malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. . . .  Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, hie intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy.  You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy, and all the desirable qualities inward into the Will. (31)

Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours - and the more "religious" (one those terms), the more securely ours.  I could show you a pretty cage-full down here. (35) 

You now see that the the Irresistible and Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nautre of His scheme forbids Him to use.  Merely to override the human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless.  He cannot ravish.  He can only woo.  For His ignoble purpose is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves. (38)

We always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of it Maker, and least pleasurable.  An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. (42)

A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all - and more amusing. (43)

[When your patient realizes] that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based, . . . he will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent. . . .  All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. (46)

If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armor plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter.  It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect;  and it excites no affection between those who practice it. (52)

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.  (56)

The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting point, with which the Enemy  has furnished him. (59)

The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents - or in a sunrise, and elephant, or a waterfall. . . .  When they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. (64)

The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up which must be eternally enjoyed of eternally endured. (83)

Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies. . . .  They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certain not to them, whatever happens.  (98)

Prosperity knits a man to the World, He feels that he is "finding his place in it," while really it is finding its place in him.  (132)

Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps on the altar. (172) 

The work of spiritual warfare seems to be more tactics than force.  According to Lewis, we find ourselves more outmaneuvered by Satan than overpowered by him.  In the end, we are defeated by our own desires.  It is this end to which the Devil works.  "Get behind me Satan!  You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men!"

What sorts of things keep my mind from being set on God?  Forgetfulness brought on by keeping God on the outskirts of my life through "great" causes, diminishing pleasures, trust in God "moderated" into mere talk,  being of the World, holding onto my body as if I owned it, etc.  The options are endless and yet surprisingly repetitive.

If I were to sum up Screwtape's strategy, it would be to keep God out of the mind.  He talks of the many ways of using the flesh (natural human ability, status, and experience apart from God) and the World (organized, historically-moving, institutional flesh) to keep God out of the picture.  The gospel is intended to "renew the mind" for the transformation of my life.  The good news is that I do not have to forget or neglect God, but can live with his continual presence in my mind, and also in my life.  The kingdom that Jesus rules is the continual, eternal, working influence of God in each life and outward into all the universe.

Satan's tactics certainly do make for a strong assault.  Through lies and temptation, I am easily led to destruction.  Without God to lead me elsewhere, I will go astray.  Unlike Satan, God does not intend to control me, but to influence me deeply, fill me, work in and through me.  He is a loving Father always near, not a calculating tyrant, always coercing and manipulating.  Satan's main lie and temptation is simple: "You can't trust Jesus.  Trust yourself instead."

Lord, it is one thing to talk about Satan academically and another to face his lies and temptation in my life.  Let me continually set my mind on you.  Let me not listen to those lies, but only to your truth.  "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."  Amen.


The small temptations and sins lead to bigger ones.  The battles begin with arguments and skirmishes before they become all out war.  I cannot patrol the borders of my life alone.  The Lord is my shield and fortress and an ever-present help in trouble.