Chapter 29 illustrated the illusion of “God’s Absence” in 7 Bible passages, as follows:
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
Deuteronomy 7:1-9
Hebrews 12:1-13
Job 19:1-27
1 Peter 4:1-19
Job 23:1-17
Isaiah 40:12-31
Prayer:
Rest your prayers in the love of an ever-present God. Remember that he is not present because you feel he is present nor is he absent because you feel he is absent. He is always present because he has promised to be. Speak to him because he is there.
Hymn:
The hymn for Chapter 29 was “Under His Wings” by William O. Cushing. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)
Benediction:
“Almighty God, you are ever present in the world without (outside of) me, in my spirit within me, and in the unseen world above me. Let me carry with me through this day’s life a most real sense of your power and your glory. Hallowed be your name. Amen” (John Baillie in A Diary of Private Prayer)
Meditation Selections:
The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Thomas R. Kelly, Paul Tournier, Richard J. Foster, Tilden H. Edwards and Hannah Whitall Smith. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)
Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:
• “Either the world is holy or it’s not. Either the creator’s work is a sign of himself or it’s a sham. …We try to hedge in the holy… we take the big black crayon in our hands and draw these little islands where we will let God live in the world. …We draw more lines around Bibles and sanctuaries, thus adding a few more islands to this archipelago of the holy, and there you have it. Little concentration camps for Christ.”
• “If we are really listening, we shall know that the one who is eternally young never passes (comes) in the same way more than once. He is inexhaustibly inventive.”
• “It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. …What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain…?”
• “I can never say, ‘God is there and I am here,’ as if I were separated from my Source. For God is the core of my being and the core of all beings.”
• “Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible: he tried to hide from the Presence of God. …If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated act of the world?”
• “There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. …like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it only comes to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them …patience is everything!”
• “The truth is this: He wants to make us in His own image, choosing the good, refusing the evil. How should He effect this if He were always moving us from within, as He does at divine intervals, toward the beauty of holiness?”
• “…the scientist-philosopher Pascal said ‘All things are the veils which cover God.’ If that is the case, and everything masks God, then everything also speaks of him….”
• “One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you stay with it and look back over a long period of prayer, you suddenly realize that something has happened.”
What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 29 not quoted) mean to you?
Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).
Thanks for your participation.
John
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Chapter 28 - Guidance
Chapter 28, in 7 Bible passages, enlarged our understanding of God’s “Guidance”, as follows:
1 Samuel 3:1-10
Exodus 13:17-22
John 10:1-15
Genesis 24:1-67
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Judges 6:11-40
John 16:5-15
Prayer:
The Christian life has often been compared to the taking of a journey or pilgrimage. And this is so. There is a sense in which we are but “passing through this land.” But we must always remember that we are never the Guide. We never blaze an uncut trail; Christ has gone before. In your prayer this week think of God as Guide, and ask him to direct your path.
Hymn:
The hymn for Chapter 28 was “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” by William Williams. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)
Benediction:
“Father, you alone know what lies before me this day, grant that in every hour of it I may stay close to you. Let me today embark on no undertaking that is not in line with your will for my life, nor shrink from any sacrifice which your will may demand. Suggest, direct, control every movement of my mind; for my Lord Christ’s sake. Amen” (John Baillie in A Diary of Private Prayer)
Meditation Selections:
The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Thomas R. Kelly, Paul Tournier, Richard J. Foster, Tilden H. Edwards and Hannah Whitall Smith. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)
Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:
• “…this total Instruction proceeds in two opposing directions at once. We are torn loose from earthly attachments and ambitions. – contemptus mundi. And we are quickened to a divine but painful concern for this world – amor mundi. He plucks the world out of our hearts, loosening the chains of attachment. And He hurls the world into our hearts, where we and He together carry it in infinitely tender love.”
• “God guides us, despite our uncertainties and our vagueness, even through our failings and mistakes. …He leads us step by step, from event to event.”
• “…that basic insight found scattered throughout Christian literature that each of us is a child of royal lineage. Royal means a status that cannot be earned, only given. …Christian spiritual guidance in all its forms exists to reveal this condition in us and encourage our reconciliation with transforming power to our royal Source…”
• “You must recognize the fact that God’s thoughts are not as man’s thoughts, nor His ways as man’s ways; and that He who knows the end of things from the beginning alone can judge of what the results of any course of action may be.”
• “There are four ways in which He reveals His will to us – through the Scriptures, - through providential circumstances, - through the convictions of our own higher judgment, - and through the inward impressions of the Holy Spirit on our minds. …And in all true guidance these four voices will necessarily harmonize, for God cannot say in one voice that which He contradicts in another.”
• “God’s promise is, that He will work in us to will as well as to do of His good pleasure. …The way in which the Holy Spirit, therefore, usually works in this direct guidance is to impress upon the mind a wish or desire to do or to leave undone certain things.”
What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 28 not quoted) mean to you? Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).
Thanks for your participation.
John
1 Samuel 3:1-10
Exodus 13:17-22
John 10:1-15
Genesis 24:1-67
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Judges 6:11-40
John 16:5-15
Prayer:
The Christian life has often been compared to the taking of a journey or pilgrimage. And this is so. There is a sense in which we are but “passing through this land.” But we must always remember that we are never the Guide. We never blaze an uncut trail; Christ has gone before. In your prayer this week think of God as Guide, and ask him to direct your path.
Hymn:
The hymn for Chapter 28 was “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” by William Williams. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)
Benediction:
“Father, you alone know what lies before me this day, grant that in every hour of it I may stay close to you. Let me today embark on no undertaking that is not in line with your will for my life, nor shrink from any sacrifice which your will may demand. Suggest, direct, control every movement of my mind; for my Lord Christ’s sake. Amen” (John Baillie in A Diary of Private Prayer)
Meditation Selections:
The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Thomas R. Kelly, Paul Tournier, Richard J. Foster, Tilden H. Edwards and Hannah Whitall Smith. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)
Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:
• “…this total Instruction proceeds in two opposing directions at once. We are torn loose from earthly attachments and ambitions. – contemptus mundi. And we are quickened to a divine but painful concern for this world – amor mundi. He plucks the world out of our hearts, loosening the chains of attachment. And He hurls the world into our hearts, where we and He together carry it in infinitely tender love.”
• “God guides us, despite our uncertainties and our vagueness, even through our failings and mistakes. …He leads us step by step, from event to event.”
• “…that basic insight found scattered throughout Christian literature that each of us is a child of royal lineage. Royal means a status that cannot be earned, only given. …Christian spiritual guidance in all its forms exists to reveal this condition in us and encourage our reconciliation with transforming power to our royal Source…”
• “You must recognize the fact that God’s thoughts are not as man’s thoughts, nor His ways as man’s ways; and that He who knows the end of things from the beginning alone can judge of what the results of any course of action may be.”
• “There are four ways in which He reveals His will to us – through the Scriptures, - through providential circumstances, - through the convictions of our own higher judgment, - and through the inward impressions of the Holy Spirit on our minds. …And in all true guidance these four voices will necessarily harmonize, for God cannot say in one voice that which He contradicts in another.”
• “God’s promise is, that He will work in us to will as well as to do of His good pleasure. …The way in which the Holy Spirit, therefore, usually works in this direct guidance is to impress upon the mind a wish or desire to do or to leave undone certain things.”
What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 28 not quoted) mean to you? Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).
Thanks for your participation.
John
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Chapter 27 - Place
Chapter 27 clarified the “Place” to meet God in our lives in 7 Bible passages, as follows:
Hebrews 10:19-27
Mark 1:35-39
Acts 1:1-11
Genesis 13:1-18
2 Samuel 24:18-25
Luke 14:7-14
Matthew 6:5-14
Prayer:
Let your prayers this week be that God will direct you to some particular place for your regular prayer and that he will make it a sacred and holy place for you.
Hymn:
The hymn for Chapter 27 was “Near to the Heart of God” by C. B. McAfee. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)
Benediction:
“Father, teach me your Kingdom is all about (around) me, teach me it is within me, teach me so that I may withdraw into it and so that I may live my life centered there. Amen”
Meditation Selections:
The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of M. Basil Pennington, Henri J. Nouwen William Law, E. Stanley Jones, Thomas Howard, Oswald Chambers, Morton T. Kelsey, Madeleine L’Engle and Jane Howard. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)
Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:
· “…the place where one enjoys God.”
· “…to pray always in the same place … would have an effect upon your mind … as would very much assist your devotion.”
· “…a prayerful life … is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.”
· “The Holy Spirit came upon the waiting group not in the Temple nor in a synagogue but in the upper room. …Religion was put where it belongs – in the human heart. Her (the Temple’s) holiness had shifted from places to persons. And rightly so.”
· “I would like to suggest that at least one place (among others) which may be hallowed anew as the place where … all of life may be offered up in oblation to the Most High, is the family household.”
· “… ‘enter into thy closet’; and remember, it is a place selected to pray in, not to make little addresses in, or for any other purpose than to pray in, never forget that.”
· “…find a place where the outer confusion can be shut off… . The purpose is not to create, or make something happen, but to allow it to happen, and where it takes place is an individual matter.”
· “My special place is a small brook in a green glade, a circle of quiet from which there is no visible sign of human beings. …If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns.”
· “…a sense of place…these days is not achieved easily. …all the old symbols are gone. …So what are we to do…? …Live here, wherever here may be, as if we were going to belong here for the rest of our lives.”
What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 27 not quoted) mean to you?
Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).
Thanks for your participation.
John
Hebrews 10:19-27
Mark 1:35-39
Acts 1:1-11
Genesis 13:1-18
2 Samuel 24:18-25
Luke 14:7-14
Matthew 6:5-14
Prayer:
Let your prayers this week be that God will direct you to some particular place for your regular prayer and that he will make it a sacred and holy place for you.
Hymn:
The hymn for Chapter 27 was “Near to the Heart of God” by C. B. McAfee. (If you are not familiar with the song, just Google the hymn name and you will get multiple sources to read and/or hear it, as well as its history.)
Benediction:
“Father, teach me your Kingdom is all about (around) me, teach me it is within me, teach me so that I may withdraw into it and so that I may live my life centered there. Amen”
Meditation Selections:
The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of M. Basil Pennington, Henri J. Nouwen William Law, E. Stanley Jones, Thomas Howard, Oswald Chambers, Morton T. Kelsey, Madeleine L’Engle and Jane Howard. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)
Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:
· “…the place where one enjoys God.”
· “…to pray always in the same place … would have an effect upon your mind … as would very much assist your devotion.”
· “…a prayerful life … is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.”
· “The Holy Spirit came upon the waiting group not in the Temple nor in a synagogue but in the upper room. …Religion was put where it belongs – in the human heart. Her (the Temple’s) holiness had shifted from places to persons. And rightly so.”
· “I would like to suggest that at least one place (among others) which may be hallowed anew as the place where … all of life may be offered up in oblation to the Most High, is the family household.”
· “… ‘enter into thy closet’; and remember, it is a place selected to pray in, not to make little addresses in, or for any other purpose than to pray in, never forget that.”
· “…find a place where the outer confusion can be shut off… . The purpose is not to create, or make something happen, but to allow it to happen, and where it takes place is an individual matter.”
· “My special place is a small brook in a green glade, a circle of quiet from which there is no visible sign of human beings. …If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns.”
· “…a sense of place…these days is not achieved easily. …all the old symbols are gone. …So what are we to do…? …Live here, wherever here may be, as if we were going to belong here for the rest of our lives.”
What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 27 not quoted) mean to you?
Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).
Thanks for your participation.
John
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