Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 Be not afraid to pray... to pray is right. Pray read more

Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 Be not afraid to pray... to pray is right. Pray if thou canst with hope; but ever pray Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay. Whatever is good to wish, ask that of heaven; But if for any wish thou darest not pray, Then pray to God to cast that wish away.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 That crowd of Jews would have followed Christ at that moment because read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 That crowd of Jews would have followed Christ at that moment because He was giving them what they wanted [bread], and they wished to use Him for their plans and dreams and purposes. That attitude to Christ still lingers in men's minds. We would like Christ's gifts without Christ's Cross; we would like to use Christ instead of allowing Him to use us.

The vice I am talking about is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is read more

The vice I am talking about is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea-bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England It frequently happens that the value of a thing lies in the read more

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England It frequently happens that the value of a thing lies in the fact that someone has possessed it. A very ordinary thing acquires a new value, if it has been possessed by some famous person. In any museum we will find quite ordinary things--clothes, a walking-stick, a pen, pieces of furniture--which are only of value because they were possessed and used by some great person. It is the ownership which gives them worth. It is so with the Christian. The Christian may be a very ordinary person, but he acquires a new value and dignity and greatness because he belongs to God. The greatness of the Christian lies in the fact that he is God's.

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 If we allow the consideration of heathen morality read more

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 If we allow the consideration of heathen morality and heathen religion to absolve us from the duty of preaching the gospel we are really deposing Christ from His throne in our own souls. If we admit that men can do very well without Christ, we accept the Saviour only as a luxury for ourselves. If they can do very well without Christ, then so could we. This is to turn our backs upon the Christ of the gospels and the Christ of Acts and to turn our faces towards law, morality, philosophy, natural religion. We look at the moral teaching of some of the heathen nations and we find it higher than we had expected... Or we look at morality in Christian lands, and we begin to wonder whether our practice is really much higher than theirs, and we say, "They are very well as they are. Leave them alone." When we so speak and think we are treating the question of the salvation of men exactly as we should have treated it had Christ never appeared in the world at all. It is an essentially pre-Christian attitude, and implies that the Son of God has not been delivered for our salvation. It suggests that the one and only way of salvation known to me is to keep the commandments. That was indeed true before the coming of the Son of God, before the Passion, before the Resurrection, before Pentecost; but after Pentecost that is no longer true. After Pentecost, the answer to any man who inquires the way of salvation is no longer "Keep the law," but "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.".

Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951 Joy is not gush: joy is not jolliness. read more

Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951 Joy is not gush: joy is not jolliness. Joy is simply perfect acquiescence in God's will, because the soul delights itself in God himself... rejoice in the will of God, and in nothing else. Bow down your heads and your hearts before God, and let the will, the blessed will of God, be done.

Christmas Eve Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as read more

Christmas Eve Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in herath side ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! yet, I feel If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come; see the oxen kneel, In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know," I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.

We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So read more

We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God -- ah, then things must be critical indeed!

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary As out of Jesus' affliction came a read more

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary As out of Jesus' affliction came a new sense of God's love and a new basis for love between men, so out of our affliction we may grasp the splendor of God's love and how to love one another. Thus the consummation of the two commandments was on Golgotha; and the Cross is, at once, their image and their fulfillment.