Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.

Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.

Of this I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some time. Now read more

Of this I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some time. Now the end of life puts the longest life on a par with the shortest... And of what consequence is it what kind of death puts an end to life, since he who has died once is not forced to go through the same ordeal a second time? They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will usher them.

Concluding a series on the church: The task to which we are called is not the sacrifice of any read more

Concluding a series on the church: The task to which we are called is not the sacrifice of any principle in which we firmly believe. It is rather to return to Christ not a figure of the imagination, but the Christ of the Scriptures and to listen to His voice in obedience, to discover afresh what is the Truth. All unpretentious Bible study, every effort to disseminate a true scriptural theology, and every earnest prayer is part of the task of promoting that unity which is truly Christian. We must not envisage Christian Unity as consisting of faroff and doubtful schemes, but as something very nigh which affects us all. If we are really to seek for Christian Unity, we must be prepared to pay the cost. For it must be based upon love, and love is always costly. It will never be attained until there is "far more humility, far more thought, far more self-sacrifice, and far more prayer, than there is at present." (Streeter) If we are right in the conclusion that such disunion as has been sinful in the history of the Church has been due to pride, selfassertion, and contempt for God's Word and commandment, then it follows that the way to the unity which God wills [is] through humility, love of the brethren, and obedience to the Divine Revelation. When Christians pray to be shown where they have been wrong, proud, complaisant, or censorious, and to be put right; when they meet for common counsel and study of the Word, in the spirit of obedience and prepared to subject their individual opinions to the guidance of the Spirit; where the strong are willing to foster and strengthen the weak; and where all are seeking the common good rather than their own sectional interests: then the pathway to unity will become plain, and God will grant His blessing.

[Thomas] Carlyle believed that every man has a special duty to do in this world. If he had been asked read more

[Thomas] Carlyle believed that every man has a special duty to do in this world. If he had been asked what especially he conceived his own duty to be, he would have said that it was to force men to realize once more that the world was actually governed by a just God; that the old familiar story, acknowledged everywhere in words on Sundays and disregarded or openly denied on week-days, was, after all, true. His writings, every one of them, ... were to this same purpose and on this same text -- that truth must be spoken and justice must be done; on any other conditions, no real commonwealth, no common welfare, is permitted or possible.

If God bores you, tell Him that He bores you, that you prefer the vilest amusements to His presence, that read more

If God bores you, tell Him that He bores you, that you prefer the vilest amusements to His presence, that you only feel at your ease when you are far from Him.

Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100 Thanksgiving (U.S.) Eternal life is not an unending continuance of read more

Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100 Thanksgiving (U.S.) Eternal life is not an unending continuance of this life--that would, perhaps, be Hell--but Eternal Life is quite a different life, divine, not mundane; perfect, not earthly; true life, not corrupt half-life. We cannot form a conception of Eternal Life. What we imagine is ever simply of the earth, temporal, worldly. Nor could we know anything about our eternal life if it had not appeared in Jesus Christ. In him we realize that we were created for the eternal life. If we ask, what is this eternal life? what sense is there in thinking about it if we can have no conception of it?, the answer is, "It is life with God, in God, from God; life in perfect fellowship." Therefore it is a life in love, it is love itself. It is a life without the nature of death and sin, hence without sorrow, pain, anxiety, care, misery. To know this suffices to make one rejoice in eternal life. If there were no eternal life, this life of time would be without meaning, goal, or purpose, without significance, without seriousness and without joy. It would be nothing. That our life does not end in nothing, but that eternal life awaits us, is the glad message of Jesus Christ. He came to give us this promise as a light in this dark world. A Christian is a man who has become certain of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why read more

From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why doesn't He stop Hitler?", to the unspoken questioning in many a Christian heart when a devoted servant of Christ dies from accident or disease at what seems to us a most inopportune moment, there is this universal longing for God to intervene, to show His hand, to vindicate His purpose. I do not pretend to understand the ways of God any more than the next man; but it is surely more fitting as well as more sensible for us to study what God does do and what He does not do as He works in and through the complex fabric of this disintegrated world, than to postulate what we think God ought to do and then feel demoralized and bitterly disappointed because He fails to fulfil what we expect of Him.

Feast of Pentecost Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 It was something more than a glorified Jesus read more

Feast of Pentecost Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 It was something more than a glorified Jesus Christ in the heavens in which [the Apostles] believed. In the beginning, John the Baptist had taught his disciples to expect from Christ the baptism -- not of water only, as in his baptism -- but of the Spirit. Before His death, Jesus had sought to fill His disciples' minds with the expectation of this gift... And that Spirit had come in sensible power upon them some ten days after Jesus disappeared for the last time from their eyes... And this Spirit was the Spirit of God, but also, and therefore, the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus was not then merely a past example, or a remote Lord, but an inward presence and power. A mere example in past history becomes in experience a feebler and feebler power... But the example of Jesus was something much more than a memory. For He who had taught them in the past how to live was alive in the heavenly places and was working within them by His Spirit.

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 If all you have found [in Christianity] read more

Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 If all you have found [in Christianity] is advantage, whether it is fun or profit or security, then you haven't started following Him yet. His way is the way of the Cross. The world can be very hard on those it hates. If it is not hard on you, perhaps it sees nothing in you to hate. But then it doesn't see Jesus in you, for it hates Jesus with an undying hatred. While your way is still all fun, all easy, all jolly, it is only your way: when you turn from it to follow His way, it will cost. It may cost you everything you have. That is what it cost Him.