Week #15 – Bible Reading

Invocation:
Father, let Your word be a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path. Let me hide it in my heart that I might not sin against You. Amen.
(Psalm 119:105, 11)

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 19

Daily Scripture Readings:

Monday John 8:31-32
Tuesday Hebrews 4:12-13
Wednesday 1 Peter 1:13-25
Thursday Deuteronomy 30:11-14
Friday John 5:31-47
Saturday 2 Peter 1:3-21
Sunday 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Selections for Meditation

Personal Meditation

Prayer
Spend part of your prayer time in asking for a deeper understanding of the Word of God and for a renewed love for all that it speaks to you.

Hymn: “Lamp of Our Feet”

Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace
Our path when wont to stray;
Stream from the fount of heavenly grace,
Brook by the travelers’ way.

Bread of our souls, whereon we feed;
True manna from on high;
Our guide and chart, wherein we read
Of realms beyond the sky.

Pillar of fire, through watches dark,
Or radiant cloud by day;
When waves o’erwhelm our tossing bark,
Our anchor and our stay.

Word of the ever-living God;
Will of His glorious Son,
Without Thee how could earth be trod,
Or heaven be won?

Lord, grant us all aright to learn
The wisdom it imparts,
And to its heavenly teaching turn
With simple, childlike hearts.
-Bernard D. Barton-

Benediction:
Dear Jesus, this day do not let me forget that I cannot live by bread alone, that like You I must have words from the mouth of the Father. Amen.

Selections for Meditation

* For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the Word of God is so great that it remains the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her children, the food of the soul, the pure and perennial source of spiritual life.
-From Christian Mysticism Today
by William Johnston-

* It has long been repeated that prayer is a loving conversation with one whom you know loves you. Yet not a few today ask how do I know that I am not talking to myself, in an ongoing dialogue between me, myself and I? Is it really an I-Thou encounter or just more I-me? It is Scripture, the Word of God that is the reality-depth of our prayer, for “we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine sayings.” From The Hasidim, the Jewish mystics, there is the beautiful legend of the rabbi who would go into ecstasy every time he would utter the words “and God spoke. . . .” He would become totally overwhelmed with the realization that God spoke to man!
What would happen to us if we would more deeply believe the truth — God speaks! God speaks to me! This is the heart of prayer, this is the power behind the prayer revolution of today — that God is speaking directly to me in Scripture.
-From Prayer Is a Hunger by
Edward J. Farrell-

* Known primarily as an educator, Frank Gaebelein was the founding headmaster at the Stony Brook School, a Christian college preparatory school in Long Island, which has become a prototype. He held the post for 41 years and considered his work there his most important accomplishment.
When once asked what counsel he wished to pass on to the next generation of Christians, he replied: “Maintain at all costs a daily time of Scripture reading and prayer. As I look back, I see that the most formative influence in my life and thought has been my daily contact with Scripture over my 60 years.”
-Taken from Christianity Today Magazine-

* In this context, God’s word whether written or spoken may be compared to a mirror. Spiritually, the eyes of your soul are your reason, your consciousness is your spiritual face. And just as it is so that if you have a dirty spot on your physical face your eyes cannot see that spot nor know where it is without a mirror or someone else to tell you so; so it is spiritually in the same way that without reading or hearing God’s word it is not possible for a soul blinded by habitual sin to see the foul spot upon his consciousness.
-From The Cloud of Unknowing
Translated by Ira Progoff-

* This word which sets us at once to work and obedience, is the rock on which to build our house. The only proper response to this word which Jesus brings with Him from eternity is simply to do it. Jesus has spoken: His is the Word, ours is the obedience. Only in the doing of it does the word of Jesus retain its honor, might, and power among us. Now the storm can rage over the house, but it cannot shatter that union with him, which his word has created.
There is only one other possibility, that of failing to do it. It is impossible to want to do it and yet not do it. To deal with the word of jesus otherwise than by doing it is to give him the lie. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and say no to his word. If we start asking questions, posing problems, and offering interpretations, we are not doing his word. Once again the shades of the rich young man and the lawyer of Luke 10 are raising their heads. However vehemently we assert our faith, and our fundamental recognition of his word, Jesus still calls it “not doing.” But the word which we fail to do is no rock to build a house on. There can then be no union with Jesus. He has never known us. That is why as soon as the hurricane begins we lose the word, and find that we have never really believed it. The word we had was not Christ’s, but a word we had wrested from him and made our own by reflecting on it instead of doing it. So our house crashes in ruins, because it is not founded on the word of Jesus Christ.
-From The Cost of Discipleship
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

* The Bible is the record of those divine breakthroughs into human history. “God’s search for man, “ it is described, rather than being our search for God. And its accents are considered a key for discerning the continuing divine activity in the present. Unlike most religious literature, it is not chiefly a collection of noble sayings, but a drumroll of events, people, struggles, great and terrible, of frailty, doubts, and heroism, of the ultimate might of right. Scripture isn’t meant as scientific exposition or as mere history. It is “salvation history,” a universal spiritual drama of an overarching compassion and concern for human integrity, of an unwavering love that seeks an answering affirmation. It is a vivid, sometimes parabolic account of God’s persistent, unrelenting quest for us and our stumbling, often faithless response.
-From The Untamed God by George Cornell-

* To candid, reasonable men, I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing — the way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me.
-From A Compendium of Wesley’s Theology
Edited by Burtner and Chiles-

Week #14 – Study

Invocation:
O You who are the Source and Ground of all truth, guide me today, I beseech You, in my hours of reading. Give me wisdom to abstain as well as to persevere. Let the Bible have proper place; and grant that as I read I may be alive to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit in my soul. Amen.

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:1-16

Daily Scripture Reading:

Monday Philippians 4:8-9
Tuesday 1 Timothy 4:6-16
Wednesday Deuteronomy 17:18-20
Thursday 2 Peter 1:3-8
Friday Psalm 119:97-104
Saturday Luke 8:16-18
Sunday Proverbs 2:1-22

Selections for Meditation

Personal Meditation

Prayer:
Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Our problem is not in believing His statement, but in knowing the truth. Pray that your capacity to receive the truth is not blocked by pride or by the ungodly thought that you already know enough truth.

Hymn:
“How Blest Are They Who Hear God’s Word”

How blest are they who hear God’s word,
Who keep in faith what they have heard,
Who daily grow in learning;
From light to light shall they increase,
And tread life’s weary path in peace,
The balm of joy discerning
To soothe the spirit’s yearning.

Through sorrow’s night my sun shall be
God’s word — a treasure dear to me,
My shield and buckler ever.
My title as his child and heir
The Father’s hand hath written there,
His promise failing never:
“Thou shalt be mine forever.”

Today His voice with joy I heard,
And, nourished by His holy word,
That bread so freely given,
May stronger faith through grace prevail,
And may its fruits for me avail,
That, after I have striven,
I rest with him in heaven.
-Johan Nordahl Brun-

Benediction:
Grant me grace to desire everything that is pleasing to You, and to examine it prudently, to acknowledge it truthfully, and to accomplish it perfectly, for the praise and glory of Your name. Amen.

Selections for Meditation:

* So there is need for some sort of prayer which is not spontaneous but which is truly rooted in conviction. To find this you can draw from a great many of the existing prayers. We already have a rich panoply of prayers which were wrought in the throes of faith, by the Holy Spirit. For example, we have the psalms, we have so many short and long prayers in the liturgical wealth of all the Churches from which we can draw. What matters is that you should learn and know enough of such prayers so that at the right moment you are able to find the right prayers. It is a question of learning by heart enough meaningful passages, from the psalms or from the prayers of the saints. Each of us is sensitive to certain particular passages. Mark these passages that go deep into your heart, that move you deeply, that make sense, that express something which is already within your experience, either of sin, or of bliss in God, or of struggle. Learn those passages, because one day when you are so completely low, so profoundly desperate that you cannot call out of your soul any spontaneous expression, any spontaneous wording, you will discover that these words come up and offer themselves to you as a gift of God, as a gift of the Church, as a gift of holiness, helping our simple lack of strength. And then you really need the prayers you have learned and made a part of yourself.
-From Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom-

* Many Christians remain in bondage to fears and anxieties simply because they do not avail themselves of the discipline of study. They may be faithful in church attendance and earnest in fulfilling their religious duties and still they are not changed. . . . They may sing with gusto; pray in the Spirit, live as obediently as they know how, even receive divine visions and revelations; and yet the tenor of their lives remains unchanged. Why? Because they have never taken up one of the central ways God uses to change us: study. Jesus made it unmistakably clear that it is the knowledge of the truth that will set us free.
-From Celebration of Discipline by
Richard J. Foster-

* I have learned to distrust speed reading and instant knowledge. Few joys of mind can compare with the experience of lingering over deft character description, or hovering over a well-wrought passage. “Some people,” said Alexander Pope, “will never learn anything . . . Because they understand everything too soon.”
-From Human Options by Norman Cousins-

* Countless writings underlie the urgency for our modern world, with all its bustle & noise, of rediscovering the value of meditation, of silence, of prayer, of devotion. I preached it before I practiced it. If one is to help the world towards this rediscovery, one must practice it oneself. The religious life must be fed. We devote years to studying a trade or profession. Ought we to show less perseverance in acquiring the experience of God? The least player of billiards or chess knows how long he has to spend in order to learn to play, and how many games he had to lose before winning one. The scientist, when an experiment fails, instead of abandoning it, asks himself whether there has not slipped into his arrangements or his calculations some cause of error.
Recently I saw a young woman who after several years of great spiritual adventure, was swamped in overwhelming difficulties. I happened to mention to her that during the last 12 years, I could count the days on which I had neglected to write down during meditation what I thought God had expected of me. A few days later she wrote me: “I am grateful for what you said. It is a long time since I gave up the habit of written meditation. Someone told me that after a time one had made sufficient spiritual progress to be able to keep contact with God all day long, without having to reserve any special time for listening to Him!”
Everything is habit in biology, and habits are created only by means of repetition. Experiments have shown how much of our behavior is determined by the mental images to which our minds are constantly returning. If we bring our minds back again and again to God, we shall, by the same inevitable law be gradually giving the central place to God, not only in our inner selves, but also in our practical everyday lives.
-From Reflections by Paul Tournier-

* Spiritual life is not mental life. It is not thoughts alone. Nor is it, of course, a life sensation, a life of feeling — “feeling” and experiencing the things of the Spirit, and the things of God.
Nor does the spiritual life exclude thought and feeling. It needs both. It is not just a life concentrated at the “high point” of the soul, a life from which the mind and the imagination and the body are excluded. If it were, so few people could lead it. And again, if that were the spiritual life, it would not be a life at all. If man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. Everything must be elevated and transformed by the action of God, in love and faith.
-From Thoughts in Solitude by
Thomas Merton-

* One simple and somewhat obvious technique is memorization. The expression “to know by heart” already suggests its value. Personally, I regret the fact that I know so few prayers and psalms by heart. Often, I need a book to pray, and without one I tend to fall back on the poor spontaneous creations of my mind. Part of the reason, I think, that it is so hard to pray “without ceasing” is that few prayers are available to me outside church settings. Yet I believe that prayers which I know by heart could carry me through very painful crises. The Methodist minister Fred Morris told me how Psalm 23 had carried him through the gruesome hours in the Brazilian torture chamber and had given him peace in his darkest hour. And I keep wondering which words I can take with me in the hour when I have to survive without books. I fear that in crisis situations I will have to depend on my own unredeemed ramblings and not have the word of God to guide me.
-From The Living Reminder by
Henri J. Nouwen-

* It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people. A people who talk much will know little. Press this upon them with your might, and you will soon see the fruit of your labors.
You can never be deep without it any more than a thorough Christian. O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or not, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days. . . .
-From The Message of the Wesleys
Compiled by Philip S. Watson-

Week #13 – Meditation

Invocation:
My Father of infinite love, enter and fill me and take control of every area of my life. Let my mind be as transparent as a window for letting Your truth shine through me. Let my heart be as the widow’s cruse, ever brimming over with Your compassion for men. Let the threads of my life be interwoven with the tapestry of Your eternal purposes. For Yours is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 27

Daily Scripture Reading:

Monday Ecclesiastes 12:1-7
Tuesday Colossians 4:4-9
Wednesday Luke 16:19-31
Thursday Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Friday Psalm 119:97-104
Saturday Joshua 1:1-9
Sunday Luke 20:41-47

Selections For Meditation

Personal Meditation

Prayer:
Ask God this week to help you to keep your mind fixed on His greatness and wonder. Begin in your devotional times and practice such meditation with short affirmations woven into the fabric of your everyday life.

Hymn: “O Thou in Whose Presence”

O Thou in whose presence;
my soul takes delight,
On whom in affliction I call,
My comfort by day and my song in the night,
My hope, my salvation, my all.

Where dost Thou, resort with Thy sheep,
To feed them in pastures of love?
Say, why in the valley of death should I weep,
Or alone in this wilderness rove?

He looks, and ten thousands of angels rejoice,
And myriads wait for His word.
He speaks, and eternity, filled with His voice,
Re-echoes the praise of the Lord.

Dear Shepherd! I hear and will follow Thy call;
I know the sweet sound of Thy voice.
Restore and defend me, for Thou art my all,
And in Thee I will ever rejoice.
-Joseph Swain-

Benediction:
May the strength of God pilot me. May the power of God preserve me. May the wisdom of God instruct me. May the hand of God protect me. May the way of God direct me. May the shield of God defend me. Amen.

Selections for Meditation:

* Listening means being released from willfulness, arrogance, and self-assertiveness. It calls for respectful presence to the mystery we are meditating, for humble openness to its meaning. Such listening or apprehending is prior to our appraisal of these meanings and our decision to incorporate them into our spiritual development, should God give us the grace for this growth . . . . Listening is only possible to the degree that we let go of the grip of our egotistic will and become inwardly and outwardly silent, alert, receptive, attentive. Then we may be able to think clearly or meditate; it becomes possible to reflect on our lives as a whole or on a text we are reading. What we hear sinks from our minds into our hearts. Ideas are not exploited to serve our purposes but to direct us to deeper wisdom, to a revelation of persons, events, and things as they are in themselves. We become the servants rather than the masters of the word.
-From Pathways of Spiritual Living by
Susan Annette Muto-

* We have some idea, perhaps, what prayer is, but what is meditation? Well may we ask; for meditation is a lost art today, and Christian people suffer grievously from their ignorance of the practice. Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God; as a means of communion with God. It’s purpose is to clear one’s mental and spiritual vision of God, and to let His truth make its full and proper impact on one’s mind and heart. It is a matter of talking to oneself about oneself; it is, indeed, often a matter of arguing with oneself, reasoning oneself out of moods of doubt and unbelief into a clear apprehension of God’s power and grace. Its effect is ever to humble us, as we contemplate God’s greatness and glory, and our own littleness and sinfulness and to encourage and reassure us — “comfort” us, in the old, strong, Bible sense of the word — as we contemplate the unsearchable riches of divine mercy displayed in the Lord Jesus Christ . . . . As we enter more and more deeply into this experience of being humbled and exalted, our knowledge of God increases, and with it our peace, our strength, and our joy.
-From Knowing God by J. I. Packer-

* The creation of a framework, an atmosphere, a structure, is not prayer, but it is a necessary preliminary to prayer. It is within the atmosphere of inner discipline and simplicity that prayer can begin to grow. The eastern church, in its teaching on prayer, focuses on the constant use of the Name of Jesus. The first recorded teaching about the invocation of the Name of Jesus comes in the mid-fifth century writer Diadochus. He recommended the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me” as a way of cleansing the mind of its sickness, and he recommended this to beginners. The Prayer of Jesus was to be used inwardly and secretly at all times — when dropping off to sleep, when waking, when eating or drinking, while talking. It is seen as a prayer which both binds the mind and unifies the personality. Thus Philotheus of Sinai in. The 10th century says: “By the memory of Jesus Christ gather together your mind that is scattered abroad. Through the Fall this disintegration has happened, but memory of God restores primal wholeness.”
One of the essential aspects of the use of the Name of Jesus then is the “binding of the mind.” This is an expression used by the 19th century eastern spiritual teacher Theophan the Recluse. He advises his disciples to “bind the mind with one thought — or the thought of One only.” It is this process of binding which is the purpose of meditation. What is meant by meditation? In Christian spirituality, the term “meditation” has generally been used to describe a way of disciplined thinking, an ascetic also exercise marked by discipline and sobriety. It involves pursuing one line of thought and renouncing all others. It is therefore a method of reducing the range of activity of the mind, allowing it to center on one point, to focus.
-From True Prayer by Kenneth Leech-

* Today we will have a primer talk. What is confusing to you I imagine is that you have not quite understood what takes place when you have a new thought, a sun-thought, in the galaxy which makes your identity, especially such powerful ones as you have been given. You do not take, as it were, a new concept in your hands, place it in the midst of the familiar galaxy and expect a sudden radiance, an immediate change, although I do not forget that instant revelation and realization have come to some of the great ones who have walked this way. No, like all good things this work begins humbly. It is like planting a seed that grows and grows for a time in the dark. Ideas that have been given to you in these communions are in movement and as they grow larger and larger they push out into oblivion the older ideas which were foolish and out of proportion. This is difficult to put into words, but it may help you not to be too introspective.
When you meditate or abide in your quiet times of communion, you do not charge in and do something, like saying, “I will now be good and move mountains by my act of faith.” No, you water your garden, knowing that these ideas are growing into a heavenly garden; the indwelling spirit does the work, not you: you merely water it. Do you not see the comfort there is in that? I can tell you in primer language that a very gentle, calm, unemotional, selfless, and patient attitude toward your spiritual growth is essential — such as all old gardeners know. They know that patience, hoeing, watering, and a certain order, a quiet rhythm, bring to birth a heavenly beauty.
-From Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood
Edited by Mary Strong-

* Living things need an appropriate climate in order to grow and bear fruit. If they are to develop to completion, they require an environment that allows their potential to be realized. The seed will not grow unless there is a soil that can feed it, light to draw it forth, warmth to nurture and moisture that unlocks its vitality. Time is also required for its growth to unfold.
Meditation is the attempt to provide the soul with the proper environment in which to grow and become. In the lives of people like St. Francis or St. Catherine of Genoa one gets a glimpse of what the soul is able to become. Often this is seen as the result of heroic action lying beyond the possibility of ordinary people. The flowering of the human soul, however, is more a matter of the proper psychological and spiritual environment than of particular gifts or disposition or heroism. How seldom we wonder at the growth of the great redwood from a tiny seed dropped at random on the littered floor of the forest. From one seed is grown enough wood to frame several hundred houses. The human soul has seed potential like this if it has the right environment. Remember that only in a few mountain valleys were the conditions right for the Sequoia gigantia, the mighty redwood, to grow.
For both the seed and the soul, these things all take time. In both cases there is need for patience. Most of us know enough not to poke at the seed to see if it is sprouting, or to try to hurry it along with too much water or fertilizer or cultivation. The same respect must be shown for the soul as its growth starts to take place. Growth can seldom be forced in nature. Whether it is producing a tree or a human personality, nature unfolds its growth slowly, silently.
Where meditation is concerned, we need to realize two things. Meditation is simple and natural, like a seed growing and becoming a tree. At the same time it requires the right conditions, conditions not provided by the secular world today. If meditation is to touch reality, we must seek out the right climate.
-From The Other Side of Silence
by Morton T. Kelsey-

* Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake. It is not really a paradox that it is precisely in meditation that most aspirants for religious perfection grow dull and fall asleep. Meditative prayer is a stern discipline, and one which cannot be learned by violence. It requires unending courage and perseverance, and those who are not willing to work at it patiently will finally end in compromise. Here, as elsewhere, compromise is only another name for failure.
To meditate is to think. And yet successful meditation is much more than reasoning or thinking. It is much more than “affections,” much more than a series of prepared “acts” which one goes through.
In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with his mind and lips, but in a certain sense with his whole being. Prayer is then not just a formula of words, or a series of desires springing up in the heart — it is the orientation of our whole body, mind and spirit to God in silence, attention, and adoration. All good meditative prayer is a conversion of our entire self to God.
-From Thoughts in Solitude by
Thomas Merton-

Week #12 – Intercession

Invocation:
O Lord, You lover of souls, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, I bring before You in my prayers all those who are lonely in this world. Yours they are, and none can pluck them out of Your hand. In Your mercy let my remembrance reach them and comfort their hearts. For Your love’s sake. Amen.

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 20

Daily Scripture Readings:

Monday Numbers 14:11-20
Tuesday 1 Samuel 12:12-25
Wednesday Psalm 106:1-48
Thursday Genesis 18:16-33
Friday Hebrews 7:23-25
Saturday Romans 8:28-39
Sunday 1 Timothy 2:1-8

Selections for Meditation:

Personal Meditation

Prayer:
Lift up to God those persons who have asked you to pray for them. Try to visualize your becoming strength in their weakness, courage in their fear, freedom in their guilt and hope in their despair.

Hymn: “Lord, As to Thy Dear Cross We Flee”

Lord, as to Thy Cross we flee.
And plead to be forgiven,
So let Thy life our pattern be,
And form our souls for heaven.

Help us, through good report and ill,
Our daily cross to bear;
Like Thee, to do our Father’s will,
Our brethren’s grief to share.

Let grace our selfishness expel,
Our earthliness refine,
And in our hearts let kindness dwell,
As free and true as Thine.

If joy shall at Thy bidding fly,
And grief’s dark day come on,
We in our turn would meekly cry,
“Father, Thy will be done.”
-C.M. Windsor-

Benediction:
Grant my Savior, that Your patience in bearing with me and suffering for me may be the model and principle of my patience in suffering for You, and that, entering into Your designs of my salvation, which You would secure for me by the good use I make of afflictions, I may receive all things with humble submission to Your holy will. Amen.

Selections for Meditation:

* And why should the good of anyone depend on the prayer of another? I can only answer with the return question: “Why should my love be powerless to help another?”
-From An Anthology of George MacDonald
Edited by C.S. Lewis-

* A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others. There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day. The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.
How does this happen? Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God, to see him under the Cross of Jesus as a poor human being and sinner in need of grace. Then everything in him that repels us falls away; we see him in all his destruction and need. His need and his sin become so heavy and oppressive that we feel them as our own, and we can do nothing else but pray: Lord, do Thou, Thou alone, deal with him according to Thy severity and Thy goodness. To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in His mercy.
-From Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

* What requests did Paul make for his Ephesian friends (Ephesians 1:17-21)? Pause a moment. You are writing a letter to a friend for whom you pray fairly regularly. What will you tell him? “I do pray for you, Jack. I’m asking God to bless you and to lead you. I really pray. I pray He’ll bless you richly.”
What do the words mean? What does bless mean? Is the word an excuse on your part for not being specific? Is it too much trouble to think out a specific request? It is easier, of course, if Jack is sick or if Jack’s girlfriend has just been killed in a car accident. You can get your teeth into prayer under such circumstances. But if nothing dramatic is happening to Jack and if he’s a Christian who’s getting along reasonably well in his Christian walk, how are you supposed to pray? Bless comes in handy. You probably use it at different times to mean such things as, “Do whatever is best for Jack and make things work out for him. Make him a better Christian in some way or another. Make him happy,” and so on.
Are these the things god wants for Jack? What does God want? Remember, God has His own goals for Jack’s life. God will share those goals with you if you are willing to get involved with Him in a partnership of prayer. You may need to begin praying something like this, “Lord, I don’t know how to pray for Jack. I thank you for bringing him to yourself. I know you have been working in his life. What is it he most needs? What are your trying to do in him?” God still has the initiative in Jack’s life. Play it God’s way. That is what partnership in prayer is all about.
-From Daring to Draw Near by John White-

* The thought of our fellowship in the intercession of Jesus reminds us of what He has taught us more than once before, how all these wonderful prayer-promises have as their aim and justification, the glory of God in the manifestation of His kingdom and the salvation of sinners. As long as we only or chiefly pray for ourselves, the promises of the last night must remain a sealed book to us. It is to the fruit bearing branches of the Vine; it is to disciples sent into the world as the Father sent Him, to live for perishing men; it is to His faithful servants and intimate friends who take up the work He leaves behind, who have like their Lord become as the seed-corn, losing its life to multiply it manifold — it is to such that the promises are given. Let us each find out what the work is, and who the souls are entrusted to our special prayers; let us make our intercession for them our life of fellowship with God, and we shall not only find the promises of power in prayer made true to us, but we shall then first begin to realize how our abiding in Christ and His abiding in us make us share in His own joy of blessing and saving men.
-From With Christ in the School of Prayer
by Andrew Murray-

* Prayer does not occur in the heart of a man who thinks God will do it all or who supposes he himself can do nothing. Prayer is a willingness to admit we can do something even if not everything and that, although nothing is done without God, God does nothing without us. So often in our theology of prayer we have articulated half-truths. We have emphasized the vertical dimension of prayer and neglected its horizontal character. We have used prayer to make too much of God, too little of ourselves. We have turned away from life in the foolish notion that one could, thereby, discover the God of life. We have judged the value of prayer by the amount of time given to it rather than by its intensity.
-From Dawn Without Darkness
by Anthony Padovano-

* Today I imagined my inner self as a place crowded with pins and needles. How could I receive anyone in my prayer when there is no real place for them to be free and relaxed? When I am still so full of preoccupations, jealousies, angry feelings, anyone who enters will get hurt. I had a very vivid realization that I must create some free space in my innermost self so that I may indeed invite others to enter and be healed. To pray for others means to offer others a hospitable place where I can really listen to their needs and pains. Compassion, therefore, calls for self-scrutiny that can lead to inner gentleness.
If I could have a gentle “interiority” — a heart of flesh and not of stone, a room with some spots on which one might walk barefooted — then God and my fellow humans could meet each other there. Then the center of my heart can become the place where God can hear the prayer for my neighbors and embrace them with his love.
-From The Genesee Diary
by Henri J. Nouwen-

* A final characteristic of the prayer of the heart is that it includes all our concerns. When we enter with our mind into our heart and there stand in the presence of God, then all our mental preoccupations become prayer. The power of the prayer of the heart is precisely that through it all that which is on our mind becomes prayer.
When we say to people, “I will pray for you,” we make a very important commitment. The sad thing is that this remark often remains nothing but a well-meant expression of concern. But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the very center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate. It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God’s heart has become one with ours.
Here we catch sight of the meaning of Jesus’ words, “Take my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matthew 11:29-30). Jesus invites us to accept his burden, which is the burden of the whole world, a burden that includes human suffering in all times and places. But this divine burden is light, and we can carry it when our heart has been transformed into the gentle and humble heart of our Lord.
-From The Way of the Heart by
Henri J. Nouwen-

Week #11 – Petition

Invocation:
Lord, teach me to pray, with a faith in your goodness that believes for the answers; with a love for your will that cleanses my askings. Amen.

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 5

Daily Scripture Reading:

Monday 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12
Tuesday Colossians 1:1-13
Wednesday Matthew 7:7-12
Thursday James 5:13-20
Friday Genesis 18:16-33
Saturday John 14:1-14
Sunday 1 John 5:13-21

Selections for Meditation:

Personal Meditation:

Prayer:
Jesus reminded us to bring our needs to the Father, bread for today, forgiveness for past trespasses, guidance and deliverance for the days that are ahead. Bring those needs, for yourself and others, to Him this week. Remember also to pray for your requests to grow out of a deep desire to be in His will.

Hymn: “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”

My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Savior divine;
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my sin away,
O let me from this day,
Be wholly Thine!

May Thy rich grace impart,
Strength to my fainting heart,
My zeal impart;
As Thou hast died for me,
O may my love for Thee,
Pure, warm and spotless be,
— a living fire!

While life’s dark maze I tread,
And griefs around me spread,
Be Thou my Guide;
Bid darkness turn to day,
Wipe sorrow’s tears away,
Nor let me ever stray,
From Thee aside.
-Ray Palmer-

Benediction:
Grant me, O Lord, heavenly wisdom, that I may learn to seek You above all things, and to understand all other things as they are according to the order of Your wisdom. Amen.

Selections for Meditation:

* True, the New Testament says, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” That surely does not mean that anything we desire, we may have. There is a limitation in the passage itself which is usually overlooked. There are many things we naturally desire when we are on a holiday, or are worried with our work, or are walking the streets, or are just daydreaming. But those same desires disappear when we begin to pray. They and prayer just do not seem to go together. The moment we begin to talk to God, we begin to be ashamed to talk about them. And when talking to God becomes talking with God, we forget those desires altogether. As one man said to me once: “I remember something I very much wanted. It seemed the answer to a long-felt and almost intolerable hunger. Every time I thought about it, and that was often, my heart was on fire and my pulse raced. So I tried to pray for it. But I couldn’t. The words choked me. My God-directed thought could not tolerate it.”
Another word of Jesus is often mis-interpreted: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done to you.” That seems at first an unlimited guarantee of an affirmative answer to any desire. But it is not what anybody wills, that is assured of the answer. It is what is willed by a particular person, one who is abiding in Christ. When someone truly abides in Christ, there are many, many things he never wills to ask because he does not want them. And if Christ’s words are abiding in someone — all of Christ’s words — you can be sure they will not ask for a whole category of events. When Christ’s words are in the soul, a wish that the secular heart grasps after is no longer even interesting! When we truly abide in Christ, when our union with Him is complete, then His desires and our are one. Having no will but His, it is right that that will should find expression in our prayers. Here is where the difficulty arises. Most of us are far from such unity with Him. We still will things which God must veto. Therefore, our desires should always be suspect — our preferences should not become petitions. Jesus’ counsel, “Ask and you shall receive,” should always be understood to mean the asking sanctioned in another of the Master’s words, “But seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.” So petition is now for the unfolding of His will, guidance, and power for its fulfillment.
-From An Autobiography of Prayer by
-Albert E. Day-

* There can be no doubt that petition is a dominant part of prayer. How dominant it ought to be, and what petitions ought to be offered, are questions calling for further examination.
In many discussions of prayer, petition, if not ruled out, is placed on the lower rounds of the ladder. I have many times heard and read that the true end of prayer is to cultivate fellowship with God, seeking not to have anything from his hand but only to be in his presence. As has earlier been suggested, this seems to me to rest on a false antithesis.
Certainly to be in fellowship with God and in right relationship with him is a higher aspiration than to possess anything else we may desire. But does this discredit the prayer of petition? On the contrary, it calls for discrimination in petitioning. All prayer springs from a sense of need. What is required is not to eliminate petition, which would eliminate the expression of desire, but to purge and redirect desire until we pray for the right things.
-From Prayer and the Common Life
by Georgia Harkness-

* For several months, I’d been attempting to absorb the truth of this Scripture: Seek God First. Why do we tend to seek other things first, and want God to be added later?
We seek success . . .
and want God to endorse our goals.
We seek acceptance . . .
and want God to be the cheering section.
We seek income . . .
and want God to be the bonus.
We seek vindication . . .
and want God to take our side.
We seek happiness . . .
and want God’s smile of approval.
We seek health . . .
and want God to dispense an instant cure.

As we mature in our relationship with the Lord, our goals change. But we don’t realize that our pattern often remains the same!

We seek to be useful . . .
and want God to bless our busy activities.
We seek to be helpful to others . . .
and want God to tag along.
We seek to be spiritual . . .
and want God to applaud.

We tend to use God instead of seek Him. We want God to do our bidding more than we want Him.
What percentage of our prayers are for our own comfort? To fulfill our fantasies? Where do we ask for God’s will? Isn’t it usually at the end of the prayer, as a closing benediction, sometimes almost as an afterthought?
I wonder how this all-wise God do ours feels about being brought in at the conclusion and asked to bless the plan? What a waste to rely on our wisdom, when God’s wisdom is available!
-From When the Pieces Don’t Fit
by Glaphre Gilliland-

* Another element in Jesus’ prayers was petition. We have seen already that asking for God’s gifts was certainly not the whole or even the main part of the Master’s prayer life, but we must be careful not to go to the other extreme and imagine that such petitionary prayers found no place at all. It is particularly necessary at the present time to emphasize this, for there is a dangerous tendency today, even among good Christian people, to speak disparagingly of petitionary prayers and to say that asking for definite things from God is prayer of such a rudimentary and childish form that it ought to have no place in the religion of the mature and fully developed believer. This we must quite definitely deny. The idea that it is expedient to outgrow petitionary prayer goes to pieces on one clear fact — Jesus never outgrew it.
-From The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ
by James Stewart-

* Somehow I feel sure that the most direct route to religious experience is to ask for the grace to give, to share, to console another, to bandage a hurting wound, to lift a fallen human spirit, to mend a quarrel, to search out a forgotten friend, to dismiss a suspicion and replace it with trust, to encourage someone who has lost faith, to let someone who feels helpless do a favor for me, to keep a promise, to bury an old grudge, to reduce my demands on others, to fight for a principle, to express gratitude, to overcome a fear, to appreciate the beauty of nature, to tell someone I love him and then to tell him again.
There is a haunting possibility that I have not heard the voice of God speaking to me in all circumstances and persons in my life because I have been asking the wrong questions, making the wrong requests. I have been too busy speaking to listen. The Psalmist prays: “Create in me, O God, a loving and listening heart!” Maybe I should pray for such a heart.
-From A Reason to Live! A Reason to Die!
by John Powell-

* The prayer of faith, like some plant rooted in a fruitful soil, draws its virtue from a disposition which has been brought into conformity with the mind of Christ.
1.) It is subject to Divine will.(1 John 5:14).
2.) It is restrained within the interest of Christ. (John 14:13).
3.) It is instructed in the truth. (John 15:7)
4.) It is energized by the Spirit.
(Ephesians 3:20)
5.) It is interwoven with love and mercy.
(Mark 11:25)
6.) It is accompanied with obedience.
(1 John 3:22)
7.) It is so earnest that it will not accept denial.
(Luke 11:9)
8.) It goes out to look for, and to hasten its answer. (James 5:16)

-From The Hidden Life by D.M. M’Intyre-

Week #10 – Confession

Invocation:
Here in the presence of Almighty God, I kneel in silence, and with penitent and obedient heart, confess my sins, so that I may obtain forgiveness by your infinite goodness and mercy. Amen.

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 32

Daily Scripture Reading:

Monday 1 John 2:1-14
Tuesday Hosea 1:1-11
Wednesday Romans 10:1-13
Thursday Leviticus 26:32-45
Friday Nehemiah 9:1-3
Saturday Proverbs 28:13
Sunday Jeremiah 3:11-13

Selections For Meditation:

Personal Meditation

Prayer
It is easier to confess some things than others. But it is usually the more difficult ones and the more personal problems that we need to confess for they are impeding our Christian growth. Quiet yourself before God this week and let Him bring to your mind those things that you need to confess to Him. He knows best what lies between the two of you.

Hymn: “Just As I Am”

Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me.
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee.
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot.
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, tho’ tossed about,
With many a conflict, many a doubt.
Fightings within, and fears without,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
-Charlotte Elliot-

Benediction:
Dear Lord, grant me absolution and remission for all my sins, true repentance, amendment of life and the grace and consolation of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Selections for Meditation:

* “Confess your faults one to another” (James 5:16). He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, not withstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!
There are 2 dangers that a Christian community which practices confession must guard against. The first concerns the one who hears confessions. It is not a good thing for one person to be the confessor for all the others. All too easily this one person will be overburdened; thus confession will become for him an empty routine, and this will give rise to the disastrous misuse of the confessional for the exercise of spiritual domination of souls. In order that he may not succumb to this sinister danger of the confessional every person should refrain from listening to confession who does not himself practice it. Only the person who has so humbled himself can hear a brother’s confession without harm.
The second danger concerns the confessant. For the salvation of his soul let him guard against ever making a pious work of his confession. If he does so, it will become the final, most abominable, vicious, and impure prostitution of the heart; the act becomes an idle, lustful babbling. Confession as a pious work is an invention of the devil. It is only God’s offer of grace, help, and forgiveness that could make us dare to enter the abyss of confession. We can confess solely for the sake of the promise of absolution. Confession as a routine duty is spiritual death; confession in reliance upon the promise is life. The forgiveness of sins is the sole ground and goal of confession.
-From Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

* Confession is so difficult a discipline for us partly because we view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We come to feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We could not bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy.
But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners, we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God’s love and to confess our need openly before our brothers & sisters. We know we are not alone in our sin. The fear & pride which cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied but transformed.
The discipline of confession brings an end to pretense. God is calling into being a church that can openly confess its frail humanity and know the forgiving and empowering graces of Christ. Honesty leads to confession, and confession leads to change. May God give grace to the church once again to recover the discipline of confession.
-From Celebration of Discipline by
Richard J. Foster-

* Complete sincerity is an unattainable ideal. But what is attainable is the periodic moment of sincerity, the moment, in fact, when we confess that we are not as we have sought to appear; and it is at those moments that we find contact with God once more. The progress of our spiritual life is made up of these successive discoveries, in which we perceive that we have turned away from God instead of going towards Him. That is what makes a great saint like St. Francis of Assisi declare himself chief among sinners. We cannot, indeed, be content with this fluctuating condition, any more than we can resign ourself to always re-discovering discordances between our personage and our person. We hear Christ’s command: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We find this intuitive aspiration towards perfection in unbelievers as well as in believers. It implies especially a complete concordance between personage and person. Now it is precisely because we feel the impossibility of following this call that we recognize our need of God and His grace, of Jesus Christ and His atonement. If we thought we did not need God, should we still have a spiritual life?
-From Reflections by Paul Tournier-

* We may trust God with our past as heartily as with our future. It will not hurt us so long as we do not try to hide things, so long as we are ready to bow our heads in hearty shame where it is fit we should be ashamed. For to be ashamed is a holy and blessed thing. Shame is a thing to shame only those who want to appear, not those who want to be. Shame is to shame those who want to pass their examination, not those who would get into the heart of things. . . . To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth.
-From An Anthology of George MacDonald edited by C. S. Lewis-

* Misunderstanding, then, on this point of known or conscious sin, opens the way for great dangers in the higher Christian life. When a believer, who has as he trusts entered upon the highway of holiness, finds himself surprised into sin, he is tempted either to be utterly discouraged, and to give everything up as lost; or else, in order to preserve the doctrine untouched, he feels it necessary to cover his sin up, calling it infirmity, and refusing to be honest and aboveboard about it. Either of these courses is equally fatal to any real growth and progress in the life of holiness. The only way is to face the sad fact at once, call the thing by its right name, and discover, if possible, the reason and the remedy. This life of union with God requires the utmost honesty with Him and with ourselves. The blessing, which the sin itself would only momentarily disturb, is sure to be lost by any dishonest dealing with it. A sudden failure is no reason for being discouraged and giving up all as lost. Neither is the integrity of our doctrine touched by it. We are not preaching a state, but a walk. The highway of holiness is not a place, but a way.
The fact is that that same moment which brings the consciousness of having sinned, ought to bring also the consciousness of being forgiven. This is especially essential to an unwavering walk in the highway of holiness, for no separation from God can be tolerated here for an instant.
We can only walk in this path by looking continually unto Jesus, moment by moment; and if our eyes are taken off of Him to look upon our own sin and our own weakness, we shall leave the path at once. The believer, therefore, who has, as he trusts, entered upon this highway, if he finds himself overcome by sin must flee with it instantly to Jesus. He must act on 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He must not hide his sin and seek to salve it over with excuses, or to push it out of his memory by the lapse of time. But he must do as the children of Israel did, rise up “early in the morning,” and “run” to the place where the evil thing is hidden, and take it out of its hiding place, and lay it “out before the Lord.” He must confess his sin.
From The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith

One of the critical events during the presidency of Ronald Reagan was the Sunday morning terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Hundreds of American soldiers were killed or wounded as they slept. You may recall the horrible scenes as the dazed survivors worked to dig their trapped comrades from the rubble.
A few days after the tragedy, Marine Corps Commandant Paul X. Kelly, visited some of the wounded survivors in a Frankfurt, Germany hospital. Among them was Corporal Jeffery Lee Nashton, who was severely wounded in the incident. Nashton had so many tubes running in and out of his body that he looked more like a machine than a man — yet he survived.
As Kelly neared him, Nashton, struggling to move and in obvious pain, motioned for a piece of paper and a pen. He wrote a brief note and passed it to the commandant. On the slip of paper were 2 words – “Semper Fi” — the Marine motto, which means“Forever Faithful.” What does it mean for you and me to be “forever faithful” to Jesus Christ?
Join us this Sunday, as we conclude our series on Lordship Living, and we’ll discover how we can be faithful to Christ in any and every situation. Hope to see you Sunday.

Faithful to Him,
Pastor Ben

Week #9 – Adoration

Invocation:
Eternal Father, let my first thought today be of You, let my first impulse be to worship You, let my first speech be Your name, let my first action be to kneel in prayer. Amen.

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 150

Daily Scripture Reading:

Monday Deuteronomy 6:4-25
Tuesday Isaiah 42:1-13
Wednesday Genesis 1:1-31; 2:1-3
Thursday 1 Peter 1:3-9
Friday Job 38:1-33; 42:1-6
Saturday Revelation 21:1-7
Sunday Luke 1:46-55

Selections for Meditation

Personal Meditation

Prayer
Try to make the first petitions of your prayer this week to be those of praise & adoration. Do not let yourself begin with your needs or from within the context of your life. Instead, begin your prayer against the backdrop of the greatness and majesty of God:

Our Father . . . Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done. . . .

Hymn: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,
Opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness,
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day.

All Thy works with joy surround Thee
Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays:
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain,
Call us to rejoice in Thee.

Thou art giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Wellspring of the joy of living,
Ocean depth of happy rest.
Thou our Father, Christ our brother
All who live in love are Thine,
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.

Mortals join the mighty chorus,
Which the morning stars began,
Father love is reigning o’er us,
Brother love binds man to man.
Ever singing, march we onward,
Victors in the midst of strife,
Joyful music leads us onward,
In the triumph song of life.
-Henry Van Dyke-

Benediction:
Father, may my life make Your great heart glad today. Let me live in adoration, praise and gratitude for who You are and all You have come to mean to me. Amen.

Selections for Meditation:

* “Adoration” for the person of today is difficult because we are not altogether sure what it is or what it means. Yet, “adoration” is one of the great continuing words of the religious vocabulary, a vocabulary which is one of the richest, most retensive elements of our language. Words linger on long after the deep experience which they signified has been forgotten. Sometimes, even the capacity for the experience has become dimmed or lost, the meaning of the word blurred. We “adore” many things — the word is in common use, is used to describe lesser and often inane things or ideas. Thus “adoration” in its religious and original sense — the bowing down in awe and reverence, tinged with the fear of God — has become largely lost in superficial wonder and feeling.
-From Surprised By the Spirit by
Edward J. Farrell-

* The highest adoration is not occupied with the recollection of favors received and mercies extended, though they do help one be aware of the true nature of God. There is still, in all such recollection, a remnant of that self-centeredness which it should be the purpose of prayer to escape. In it, we are still thinking of God in terms of something done to “me” and for “me.” We never really adore Him, until we arrive at the moment when we worship Him for what He is in Himself, apart from any consideration of the impact of His Divine Selfhood upon our desires and our welfare. Then we love Him for Himself alone. Then we adore Him, regardless of whether any personal benefit is in anticipation or not. Then it is not what He has done for us or what we expect Him to do for us, but what He has been from eternity before we existed, and what He is now even if we were not here to need Him, and what he will be forever whether that “forever” includes us or not — it is that which captivates us and evokes from us the selfless offering of self in worship. That is pure adoration. Nothing less is worthy of the name.
-From An Autobiography of Prayer by
Albert E. Day-

* There is a place in the religious experience where we love god for Himself alone, with never a thought of His benefits. And there is a place where the heart does not reason from admiration to affection. True, it all may begin lower down, but it quickly rises to the height of blind adoration where reason is suspended and the heart worships in unreasoning blessedness. It can only exclaim, “Holy, holy, holy,” while scarcely knowing what it means.
If this should seem too mystical, too unreal, we offer no proof and make no effort to defend our position. This can only be understood by those who have experienced it. By the rank & file of present day Christians it will be rejected or shrugged off as preposterous. So be it. Some will read and will recognize an accurate description of the sunlit peaks where they have been for at least brief periods and to which they long often to return. And such will need no proof.
-From The Root of Righteousness by
A.W. Tozer-

* So we have come to the point at which, through discipline and silent waiting, prayer happens. We do not create prayer, but merely prepare the ground and clear away obstacles. Prayer is always a gift, a grace, the flame which ignites the wood; the Holy Spirit gives prayer. The human response is one of adoring love. It is this posture of adoration which is the central posture of worship. “Religion is adoration” wrote Von Hugel. As in meditation, adoring prayer calls for a concentration. But it is not a fierce mental concentration so much as a focusing of our love, an outpouring of wonder toward God. In meditation there was a simplifying of thought so that we came to think deeply around a single word or phrase or theme until thought gave way to prayer. Similarly in the prayer of adoration we focus ourselves. The mind becomes less active, and we allow ourselves, body & spirit, to rest in an attitude of outpoured offering to God.
-From True Prayer by Kenneth Leech-

* Our children can teach us a great deal about ourselves. My daughter once came home with the not unusual remark for a 9 year old, “I’ll never speak to Elizabeth again.” She was angry with Elizabeth but, either because of the latter’s size or the restraining influence of a civilized image of a young lady, she refrained from scratching Elizabeth’s eyes out. Instead, she did the more civilized thing: she refused to speak to her.
To act as if another does not exist is a more hostile act than to slap his face. In the latter action one at least acknowledges his presence. The silent treatment is an extremely powerful weapon of aggression. With God, we are seemingly unable to hurt him in any other way. The only weapon we can use on Him, as a vehicle for our anger at all the suffering he allows, is our silence. Like my daughter we can at least not speak to Him.
-From Guilt, Anger, and God by
C. Fitzsimons Allison-

* And let it be observed, as this is the end, so it is the whole and sole end, for which every man upon the face of the earth, for which every one of you, were brought into the world and endured with a living soul. Remember! You are born for nothing else. Your life is continued to you upon earth for no other purpose than this; that you may know, love and serve God on earth, and enjoy him to all eternity. Consider! You were not created to please your senses, to gratify your imagination, to gain money, or the praise of men; to seek happiness in any created good, in anything under the sun. All this is “walking in a vain shadow”; it is leading a restless, miserable life, in order to avoid a miserable eternity. On the contrary, you were created for this and for no other purpose, by seeking and finding happiness in God on earth, to secure the glory of God in heaven. Therefore let your heart continually say, “This one thing I do” — having one thing in view, remembering why I was born, and why I am continued in life — “I press on to the mark.” I aim at the one end of my begging, God; even at “God in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” He shall be my God forever and ever, and my guide even until death!
-From The Message of the Wesleys.
Compiled by Philip S. Watson-

* When the worst finally happens, or almost happens, a kind of peace comes. I had passed beyond grief, beyond terror, all but beyond hope, and it was there, in that wilderness, that for the first time in my life I caught sight of something of what it must be like to love God truly. It was only a glimpse, but it was like stumbling on fresh water in the desert, like remembering something so huge and extraordinary that my memory had been able to contain it. Though God was nowhere to be clearly seen, nowhere to be clearly heard, I had to be near Him — even in the elevator riding up to her floor, even walking down the corridor to the one door among all those doors that had her name taped on it. I loved him because there was nothing else left. I loved him because he seemed to have made himself as helpless in his might as I was in my helplessness. I loved him not so much in spite of there being nothing in it for me but almost because there was nothing in it for me. For the first time in my life, there in that wilderness, I caught what it must be like to love God truly, for his own sake, to love him no matter what. If I loved him with less than all my heart, soul, might, I loved him with at least as much of them as I had left for loving anything.
-From A Room Called Remember by
Frederick Buechner-

Some years ago, a man was learning to fly a plane. His instructor told him to put the plane into a steep and extended dive. The novice pilot was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. After a brief time the engine stalled, and the plane began to plunge out of control. It soon became evident the instructor was not going to help at all. After a few seconds, which seemed like an eternity, the rookie’s mind began to function again. He quickly corrected the situation, then vented his frustrations at his instructor. The instructor calmly answered, “There is no position you can get this airplane into that I cannot get you out of. If you want to learn to fly, go up there and do it again.”
There are times in our lives that God seems to say the same thing to us: “Remember this: as you serve Me, there is no situation you can get yourself into that I cannot get you out of. If you trust me, you will be alright.”
Have you discovered this wonderful truth yet? This Sunday, as we continue our series on “Lordship Living,” we’re going to look at one of the greatest stories on trust in the Scriptures. Come and join us as we learn the difference between simply believing in God and truly trusting Him. In the process, you’ll discover no situation is ever beyond God’s control.

You Are Loved!
Pastor Ben

Week #8 – Silence

Invocation:
O God, my Father, I have no words by which I dare express the things that stir within me. I lay bare myself, my world, before you in quietness. Watch over my spirit with Your great tenderness and understanding and judgment, so that I will find, in some strange new way, strength for my weakness, health for my illness, guidance for my journey. This is the stirring of my heart, O God, my Father. Amen.

Scripture Reading: Psalm 8

Daily Scripture Reading:
Monday Revelation 3:20-22
Tuesday James 3:1-12
Wednesday Ecclesiastes 5:1-3
Thursday 1 Kings 19:9-13
Friday Psalm 46
Saturday John 10:1-15
Sunday Habakkuk 2:20

Selections For Meditation:

Personal Meditation

Prayer
There is much to be said in the Christian life; but it is God who is to do the speaking. Pray for silence both in mind and spirit so that you may hear His voice. If He spoke to you in a whisper, would you be quiet enough to hear Him?

Hymn: “Still, Still With Thee”

Still still with Thee,
When purple morning breaketh,
When the bird waketh,
And the shadows flee;
Fairer than morning,
Lovelier than the daylight,
Dawns the sweet consciousness,
I am with Thee.

So shall it be at last,
In that bright morning
When the soul waketh,
and life’s shadows flee;
Oh, in that hour,
fairer than day-light dawning,
Shall rise the glorious thought —
I am with Thee.
-Harriet Beecher Stowe-

Benediction:
Come, Lord, and speak to my heart. Communicate to it Your holy will, and mercifully work within it both to will and to do according to Your good pleasure. Alas! How long shall my exile be prolonged? When shall the veil be removed which separates time from eternity? When shall I see that which I now believe? When shall I find what I seek? When shall I possess what I love, which is You, O my God! Grant, O Jesus, that these holy desires with which you now inspire me, may be followed by that eternal happiness which I hope for from Your infinite mercy. Amen.
-Thomas a’ Kempis-

Selections For Meditation:

* Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful & attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self. It is a harrowing journey, a death to self — the false self — and no one wants to die. But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love. And it begins with silence. We cannot give ourselves in love if we do not know and possess ourselves. This is the great value of silence. It is the pathway to all we truly want. This is why St. Benedict speaks of silence as if it were a value in itself: for the sake of silence.
-From A Place Apart by M. Basil Pennington-

* Silence is the very presence of God — always there. But activity hides it. We need to leave activity long enough to discover the Presence — then we can return to activity with it.
Stillness is present throughout the run at every point. But if one only runs, he never knows stillness.
God is present in all beings, but we will never be aware of Him if we never stop and leave behind all beings to be to Him.
-From O Holy Mountain! by
M. Basil Pennington-

* Not long ago the religion instructor at a Christian high school decided to introduce silent meditation into one of his classes. He gave the students instructions simply to “be” during the silence: to be relaxed and awake, open to life as it is, with nothing to do but appreciate whatever comes. Week by week he slowly increased the amount of time to a maximum of 10 minutes.
The student response was very revealing. One boy summarized a general feeling of the class: “It is the only time in my day when I am not expected to achieve something.” The response of several irate parents was equally revealing: “It isn’t Christian,” said one. “I’m not paying all that tuition for my child to sit there and do nothing,” proclaimed another.
How is it that 10 minutes of silence can be so special to some and so threatening to others?
-From Spiritual Friend by Tilden H. Edwards-

* As there are definite hours in the Christian’s day for the Word, particularly the time of common worship & prayer, so the day also needs definite times of silence, silence under the Word and silence that comes out of the Word. These will be especially the times before and after hearing the Word. The Word comes not to the chatterer but to him that holds his tongue. The stillness of the temple is the sign of the holy presence of God in His Word.
There is an indifferent, or even negative, attitude toward silence which sees in it a disparagement of God’s revelation in the Word. This is the view which misinterprets silence as a ceremonial gesture, as a mystical desire to get beyond the Word. This is to miss the essential relationship of silence to the Word. Silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the Word of God. We are silent before hearing the Word because our thoughts are already directed to the Word, as a child is quiet when he enters his father’s room. We are silent after hearing the Word because the Word is still speaking and dwelling within us. We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God. We keep silence solely for the sake of the Word, and therefore not in order to sho disregard for the Word but rather to honor and receive it.
Silence is nothing but waiting for God’s Word and coming from God’s Word with a blessing. But everybody knows that this is something that needs to be practiced and learned, in these days when talkativeness and noise prevails. Real silence, real stillness, really holding one’s tongue, comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness.
-From Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

* The disciplined person is the person who can do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. The mark of a championship basketball team is a team that can score the points when they are needed. Most of us can get the ball in the hoop eventually but we can’t do it when it is needed. Likewise, a person who is under the discipline of silence is a person who can say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. “A Word filly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living in the discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark.
-From Celebration of Discipline by
Richard J. Foster-

* For as long as I can remember, I have not feared silence but welcomed it as a source of spiritual deepening. Like other people living in the world, I’ve grown accustomed to the noise in my place of work, to the raucous sounds of the city, to the inner disquiet stirred up by busy thoughts and earnest projects. Silence can be an escape from the functional responsibilities and physical demands of listening and conversing with colleagues, friends and family members. But it can also be an opening to God.
A common problem related to why we may seek to escape silence, is the discovery that it evokes nameless misgivings, guilt feelings, strange, disquieting anxiety. Anything is better than this mess, and so we flick on the radio or pick up the phone and talk to a friend. If we can pass through these initial fears and remain silent, we may experience a gradual waning of inner chaos. Silence becomes like a creative space in which we regain perspective on the whole.
-From Pathways of Spiritual Living by
Susan Annette Muto-

* It is necessary that we find the silence of God not only in ourselves but also in one another. Unless some other person speaks to us in words that spring from God and communicate with the silence of God in our souls, we remain isolated in our own silence, from which God tends to withdraw. For inner silence depends on a continual seeking, a continual crying in the night, a repeated bending over the abyss. If we cling to a silence we think we have found forever, we stop seeking God and the silence goes dead within us. A silence in which He is no longer sought ceases to speak to us of Him. A silence from which He does not seem to be absent, dangerously threatens His continued presence. For He is found when He is sought and when He is no longer sought, He escapes us. He is heard only when we hope to hear Him, and if, thinking our hope to be fulfilled, we cease to listen, He ceases to speak, His silence ceases to be vivid and becomes dead, even though we re-charge it with the echo of our own emotional noise.

Contradictions have always existed in the soul of man. But it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become a constant and insoluble problem. We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them and see them in the light of exterior and objective values which make them trivial by comparison.
Silence, then, belongs to the substance of sanctity. In silence and hope are formed the strength of the Saints (Isaiah 30:15).
-From Thoughts in Solitude
by Thomas Merton-