Chapter 9 - Adoration

Chapter 9 introduced us to 7 scripture passages to help us understand the Biblical view of adoration (with my personally assigned title for each passage):

• Deuteronomy 6: 4-25 (Remember God in everything)
• Isaiah 43: 1-13 (Knowledge instills adoration)
• Genesis 1: 1-31, 2: 1-3 (Adoration inevitably follows creation)
• I Peter 1: 3-9 (Adoration developed by faith)
• Job 38: 1-33, 42: 1-6 (A focus on God brings adoration)
• Revelation 21: 1-7 (Unavoidable adoration)
• Luke 1: 46-55 (Mary’s song of adoration)

The hymn for the week was "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” by Henry Van Dyke. (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.)

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Edward J. Farrell, Albert E. Day, A. W. Tozer, Annie Dillard, Kenneth Leech, Martin E. Marty, C. Fitzsimons Allison, Philip S. Watson (in a compilation from The Message of the Wesleys) and Frederick Buechner. (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:

· “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.”
· “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…”
· “There is a place in the religious experience where we love God for Himself alone… 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.”
· “ ‘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.”
· “Rabbi Zalman said of the Lord: ‘I don’t want your paradise, I do not want your coming world. I want you, and you only.’ …The ancient Hebrew loved God for the sake of a long life in which to enjoy creation, but he also was to love the Lord for the Lord’s sake. …A believer shifts away from a bartering concept in which one loves God for the sake of a transaction. Now there is a relation in which the trusting one is simply reposed in the divine will.”
· “The silent treatment is an extremely powerful weapon of aggression.”
· “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.”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 9 not quoted) mean to you? I look forward to your responses.

John

Chapter 8 - Silence

Chapter 8 cited 7 scripture passages to focus on the value of silence as a help in our ability to hear what God may be trying to say to us (with my personally assigned title for each passage):

Revelation 3: 20-22 (Listening enables hearing).
James 3: 1-12 (Guard the tongue).
Ecclesiastes 5: 1-3 (Listening beats talking).
I Kings 19: 9-13 (The still, small voice).
Psalm 46 (Be still to know God’s presence).
John 10: 1-15 (Knowing the Shepherd’s voice).
Habakkuk 2: 20 (Silence in God’s presence).

The hymn for the week was "Still, Still with Thee” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. (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.)

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Tilden H. Edwards, M. Basil Pennington, Dom Helder Camara, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John White, Richard J. Foster, Susan Annette Muto, Thomas R. Kelly, Thomas Merton, Anthony Padovano and Henri J. Nouwen. (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 only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love…begins with silence.”
• “…the grace You grant me of silence without loneliness, …to clamour for my brothers imprisoned in a loneliness without silence!”
• “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.”
• “…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 ten minutes. …One boy summarized the general feeling of the class: ‘It is the only time in my day when I am not expected to achieve something’.”
• “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. …Silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the Word of God. …Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word and coming from God’s Word with a blessing. …(It) is something that needs to be practiced and learned. Real silence, real stillness, …comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness.”
• “(God) is more anxious to speak to us than we are to hear him.”
• “The disciplined person is the person who can do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.”
• “Silence can be an escape… But it can also be an opening to God.”
• “Silence becomes like a creative space in which we regain perspective on the whole.”
• “We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them… .”
• “ ‘Father’ sometimes becomes the only word silence allows as we express inexpressibly all we feel and want and reach for.”
• “…silence is the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive. …Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 8 not quoted) mean to you? I look forward to your responses.

John

Chapter 7 - Making Moments

Chapter 7 used the 7 scripture passages to illustrate the kind of moments that may seem mundane at the time but then can become seared in our memories (with my personally assigned title for each passage):

Luke 24: 13-35 (The moment of realization).
Mark 9: 2-8 (The moment of transfiguration).
I Chronicles 29: 10-30 (A moment of acknowledgement and praise).
Revelation 3: 14-22 (A moment of stark truth).
I Samuel 7: 7-17 (The “Ebenezer” moment).
Mark 14: 1-9 (The anointing moment).
Matthew 17: 1-13 (The transfiguration moment).

The hymn for the week was "This Is My Father’s World ". (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.)

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of John Powell, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Evelyn Underhill, Howard Thurman, Truman Capote, Tilden H. Edwards and Jean-Pierre de Caussade (translated by Kitty Muggeridge). (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:
  “It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.”
• “The supernatural can and does seek and find us, in and through our daily normal experience: the invisible in the visible. There is no need to be peculiar in order to find God.”
• “A king and queen are the center of “where it’s at,” so they move with easy, royal bearing. …Looking deeply at our lineage, we see that we are of the highest royal line: the royal image of God is in us – covered over, but indestructibly there. …We mainly need to attentively relax and dissolve the amnesia that obscures our true identity.”
• “With all the suddenness and jolt of a heart attack, I was filled with an experiential awareness of the presence of God within me.”
• “The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your faith and love.”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 7 not quoted) mean to you? I look forward to your responses.

John

Chapter 6 - Solitude

Chapter 6 utilized 7 scripture passages to spotlight how solitude was helpful to those taking advantage of it (with my personally assigned title for each passage):

• Luke 5: 12-16 (The priority of private prayer)
• Matthew 4: 1-11 (Quality quiet time builds strength)
• Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13 (A time for everything)
• Luke 22: 39-46 (How solitude can strengthen)
• Galatians 1: 11-24 (Solitude precedes Service)
• Luke 17: 20-21 (The true "kingdom of God")
• Psalms 37: 1-7 (Lessons learned)

The hymn for the week was "I Need Thee Every Hour ". (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.)

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Henri J. Nouwen, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Tilden H. Edwards, Edward J. Farrell, Morton T. Kelsey, S. D. Gordon, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas 'a Kempis and Andrew Murray. (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:

• “Deserts, silence, solitudes are 'not necessarily places but states of mind and heart'. ...it is God who makes solitude, deserts and silences holy. ...One of the first steps toward solitude is a departure."
• "...Jesus' guidance ... was a rhythm of dealing with individuals, groups and crowds ... There was one other dimension of this rhythm: solitude."
• "As long as my mind is raging with thoughts, ideas, plans and fears, I cannot listen significantly to God or any other dimension of reality. ... In quietness we find detachment and so untie ourselves from total attention to outer, physical reality."
• "How much prayer meant to Jesus! ... There was no emergency, no difficulty, no necessity, no temptation that would not yield to prayer, as He practiced it."
• "Exterior retirement is not sufficient ... but interior retirement is likewise necessary. ... A soul which is separated from all the amusements of the senses seeks and finds in God that pure satisfaction which it can never meet within creatures. ...with a view of honoring His sovereign dominion by the complete destruction of sin in itself, it renounces all desire of finding any other satisfaction than that of pleasing Him."
• "The desert initiates us into the life of the spirit by helping us to discover who we most deeply are."

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 6 not quoted) mean to you? I look forward to your responses.

John

Chapter 5 - Desire

Chapter 5 selected 7 scripture passages to illuminate the depth of desire we can or should have for God (with my personally assigned title for each passage):

• Philippians 3: 7-11 (Knowing Christ surpasses everything)


• Psalm 63: 1-8 (The only satisfier is knowing God)


• Luke 9: 46-50 (The least is the greatest)


• John 12: 1-8 (Getting priorities rights)


• I Peter 2: 1-10 (Man’s inverted wisdom)


• Romans 8: 18-25 (The surpassing hope in God)


• John 7: 37-44 (The surpassing thirst-quenching of the Holy Spirit)

The hymn for the week was "Oh! To Be Like Thee ". (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.)

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Catherine de Hueck Doherty, M. Basil Pennington, Thomas R. Kelly, Henri J. Nouwen, E. M. Bounds, A. W. Tozer, John Powell and William Barclay. (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:

• “Prayer is a contact of love between God and man.”
  (The next paragraph said that “married people don’t need a bedroom to make love”, explaining that “making love” does not necessarily mean what people immediately think it means, but can consist of looking into each other’s eyes, or holding hands, or simply being aware of each other in the midst of a crowd. I was reminded of the love poem that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to Robert Browning:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.”

• “I find myself asking what I am getting out of this retreat, but I realized today that that is the wrong question. This retreat is not for me, but for Him. It is to give Him, at least for this little while, the fullest attention and love that I can, freed as I am from many other cares and concerns that ordinarily clutter my life…”
• “…there is a deeper, an internal simplification of the whole of one’s personality.… This amazing simplification comes when we “center down”, when life is lived with singleness of eye, from a holy Center … and we are wholly yielded to Him.”
• “The Lord will reveal himself and enter into our lives to the extent we (really desire) and believe this is possible and want it.”
• “Desire is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated craving; an intense longing… Without desire, prayer is a meaningless mumble of words. … And yet even if it be discovered that desire is honestly absent, we should pray anyway… pray whether we feel like it or not, and not allow our feelings to determine our habits of prayer. … we ought to pray for desire to pray… so that praying, henceforth, should be an expression of ‘the soul’s sincere desire’.”
• “To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love… Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God.”
• “It is this desire (for something more than human resources can promise or produce) that carries us beyond what we can see into the darkness and obscurity of faith. It is a hunger that can be satisfied in God alone. … This inner restlessness and disquiet can well be God sowing the first seeds of faith in the human heart.”
• “Do you desire righteousness with that intensity of desire with which a starving man desires food, and a man parched with thirst desires water?... In effect Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Do you want to become my disciples enough to give me the unconditional first place in your life?’ ”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 5 not quoted) mean to you? I look forward to your responses.

John

Chapter 4 (second session) Discipline

Having skipped a week because of severe weather, we were able to resume our discussion of Discipline this past Thursday night. The discussion quickly evolved into a well-participated discussion on "sanctification".

The Manual of the Church of the Nazarene (PDF version available at: http://media.premierstudios.com/nazarene/docs/Manual2005_09.pdf

beginning on page 30 of that document explains it as follows:

III. The Holy Spirit
3. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the
Triune Godhead, that He is ever present and efficiently active
in and with the Church of Christ, convincing the world
of sin, regenerating those who repent and believe, sanctifying
believers, and guiding into all truth as it is in Jesus.
(John 7:39; 14:15-18, 26; 16:7-15; Acts 2:33; 15:8-9; Romans 8:1-27; Galatians
3:1-14; 4:6; Ephesians 3:14-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8; 2 Thessalonians
2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 John 3:24; 4:13)

X. Entire Sanctification
13. We believe that entire sanctification is that act of God,
subsequent to regeneration, by which believers are made
free from original sin, or depravity, and brought into a state
of entire devotement to God, and the holy obedience of love
made perfect.

It is wrought by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and
comprehends in one experience the cleansing of the heart
from sin and the abiding, indwelling presence of the Holy
Spirit, empowering the believer for life and service.
Entire sanctification is provided by the blood of Jesus, is
wrought instantaneously by faith, preceded by entire consecration;
and to this work and state of grace the Holy Spirit
bears witness.

This experience is also known by various terms representing
its different phases, such as “Christian perfection,” “perfect
love,” “heart purity,” “the baptism with the Holy Spirit,”
“the fullness of the blessing,” and “Christian holiness.”

14. We believe that there is a marked distinction between
a pure heart and a mature character. The former is obtained
in an instant, the result of entire sanctification; the latter is
the result of growth in grace.

We believe that the grace of entire sanctification includes
the impulse to grow in grace. However, this impulse must be
consciously nurtured, and careful attention given to the requisites
and processes of spiritual development and improvement
in Christlikeness of character and personality.Without
such purposeful endeavor, one’s witness may be impaired
and the grace itself frustrated and ultimately lost.
(Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-27; Malachi 3:2-3; Matthew 3:11-12;
Luke 3:16-17; John 7:37-39; 14:15-23; 17:6-20; Acts 1:5; 2:1-4; 15:8-9; Romans
6:11-13, 19; 8:1-4, 8-14; 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 6:14—7:1; Galatians
2:20; 5:16-25; Ephesians 3:14-21; 5:17-18, 25-27; Philippians 3:10-15;
Colossians 3:1-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; Hebrews 4:9-11; 10:10-17;
12:1-2; 13:12; 1 John 1:7, 9)
(“Christian perfection,” “perfect love”: Deuteronomy 30:6; Matthew 5:43-
48; 22:37-40; Romans 12:9-21; 13:8-10; 1 Corinthians 13; Philippians
3:10-15; Hebrews 6:1; 1 John 4:17-18
“Heart purity”: Matthew 5:8; Acts 15:8-9; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:3
“Baptism with the Holy Spirit”: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-27;
Malachi 3:2-3; Matthew 3:11-12; Luke 3:16-17; Acts 1:5; 2:1-4; 15:8-9
“Fullness of the blessing”: Romans 15:29
“Christian holiness”: Matthew 5:1—7:29; John 15:1-11; Romans 12:1—
15:3; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Ephesians 4:17—5:20; Philippians 1:9-11; 3:12-
15; Colossians 2:20—3:17; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 4:7-8; 5:23; 2 Timothy
2:19-22; Hebrews 10:19-25; 12:14; 13:20-21; 1 Peter 1:15-16; 2 Peter 1:1-
11; 3:18; Jude 20-21).

If this doesn't give you plenty of reading material, let me know! :-) Also let me know if you have other questions on this.

As we move on into Chapter 5, you might want to review the first 4 chapters to see if there is any discernable thread beginning to tie these chapters together.

Looking forward to seeing you Thursday night!
John

Chapter 4 (first session) Discipline

Chapter 4 referenced 7 scripture passages dealing with discipline in the Bible (with my personally assigned title for each passage):

• John 3:25-36 (Certifying God as truthful)
• Luke 12:35-48 (Readiness and Responsibility)
• Matthew 25:14-30 (Risk and rewards)
• Romans 12:1-2 (How to know God’s will)
• Luke 2:41-49 (Acting on God’s will)
• Deuteronomy 27:1-8 (Publishing God’s will)
• I Thessalonians 4:1-12 (Sanctification is God’s will)

The hymn for the week was "Sweet Will of God". (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.)

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Annie Dillard, Virginia Stem Owens, Emilie Griffin, Edward J. Farrell, Albert C. Outler, Tilden H. Edwards, Henri J. Nouwen, Evelyn Underhill and Brother Lawrence. (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:

• …life … in time is not a stumbling from one ecstatic epiphany to another. The enormous task is to keep your eyes open, your wick trimmed, your lamp filled, your powder dry. … There are no two ways about it. You’ve got your eyes open or you don’t. … Whatever the great human enterprise currently in hand, the point is to watch. All the rest is addenda. Seeking the kingdom is the essential (thing).
• Prayer is a matter of keeping at it. The rewards will come no other way. … You should have it firm in your mind that prayer is neither to impress other people or to impress God. … The goal, in prayer, is to give oneself away. The Lord loves us – perhaps most of all – when we fail and try again.
• Prayer tomorrow begins today or there will be no prayer tomorrow. … Prayer is a journey, a path that is created only by walking in it. (Editor’s comment: Prayer is not a fly-over.) … Eventually one is led out to the desert where one discovers the new creation and becomes a new creature.
• The denying ourselves, and the taking up our cross, in the full extent of the expression, is not a thing of small concern: It is not expedient only, as are some of the circumstantials of religion: but it is absolutely, indispensably necessary, either to our becoming or continuing His disciples.
• …spiritual discipline…is to aid human digestion of the Holy, so that we do not 1) reject his nourishment, 2) throw it up by not allowing room inside for it, 3) mistake “artificial flavors” for the real thing, or 4) use its strength for building an ego empire.
• Yes, I notice, maybe only retrospectively, that my days and weeks are different days and weeks when they are held together by these regular “useless” times (time with God). God is greater than my senses, …thoughts, …heart. …when I feel this inner pull to return again to that (time with God), I realize that something is happening that is so deep that it becomes like the riverbed…
• …being a disciple means living a disciplined life…
• You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.
• One way to recollect the mind easily in the time of prayer… is not to let it wander too far, …(but to) …keep it strictly in the presence of God.
• Some of us are more naturally night people or morning people. …Most important though is not the number of times or duration (of our prayers), but on deciding on some time and duration and sticking to it, at least for a trial period of a few weeks. …we treat it like brushing our teeth: it is just something we “do”, without agonizing over it each time.
  

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 3 not quoted) mean to you? I look forward to your responses.

John