05 Saturday Oct 2019
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“The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history. He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow. He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead. He is friendless while living and famous when dead. He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint by posterity. “
26 Monday Aug 2019
Posted in Church History, Quotes, Worldview
I must admit that I’m happy in what author Mark Sayers calls “Non-Places.”(1) These are places where I have access to my digital world of music downloads, podcast, and my favorite T.V. dramas. Netflix, Amazon, and Facebook (even though Facebook can be stressful!) are ways to escape the harsh realities of the real world. Just give me a good book and a coffee shop and I’m content. I like to escape reality and retreat to my comfortable world. While these things can be good in moderation, they can also dry out our souls and distract us from God. The early Christians had to face the stark reality of death daily. The early Church, for the most part, was fearless. While I’m in no hurry to die and leave all my comforts – they lived like pilgrims, just passing through.
The Church Father John Chrysostom said; “We are strangers and sojourners. Let us not grieve over any of the world’s painful things. For if you come from a renowned country and from illustrious ancestors, and find yourself in a distant land, known to no one, having neither servants nor wealth, and then someone insults you, would you grieve as though these things had taken place at home? The knowledge that you were in a strange and foreign land would persuade you to bear all easily, and to despise hunger, thirst, and any suffering. So consider that you are a stranger and a pilgrim, and do not let anything bother you in foreign territory. You have a city whose builder and creator is God, and the journey is but for a short and little time. Let whoever wishes strike, insult, revile. We are in foreign territory, and live there in difficulty.“(2)
So instead of losing ourselves in this digital utopia we have created – maybe we need to let go of it – just a little. It might be a good idea to consider ourselves as foreigners in a strange land. And just maybe seek God for a heavenly and eternal perspective on life.
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,” – Philippians 3:20 (NKJV)
(1) I recommend Mark Sayers book, Strange Days: Life In The Spirit In A Time Of Upheaval .
(2.) Learning Theology With The Church Fathers, Christopher A. Hall, page 198.
21 Sunday Apr 2019
Posted in Ressurection, Uncategorized
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“Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Eugene Peterson’s Five “Conversations” in Spiritual Theology)” by Eugene H. Peterson –
“Following Jesus’ resurrection, his followers had forty days to be present with him and listen to his voice, listen to him “speaking about the kingdom of God.” They needed every single day they had with him in order to thoroughly assimilate the here-and-now, flesh-and-blood, body-and-soul, on-the-ground details and implications of resurrection, not only for Jesus but for themselves – resurrection not only as a promise of life beyond death but as a presence now. Hallucinations can’t be maintained for forty days. Dreams don’t last forty days. Religious hysteria cannot be sustained for forty days. Those forty days grounded Jesus’ resurrection as a life to be lived on streets, in homes, with families and neighbors – a life they, his followers, will live. And not as a private “spiritual” experience, but historically in the company of all of Jesus’ followers in workplace and politics, in the carnage of war and the quietness of worship.”
Start reading this book for free: http://a.co/5QjRstz
01 Sunday Apr 2018
Posted in Church History, Quotes
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“He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” – (Matthew 28:6 ESV)
A Prayer
O God, who by your only-begotten Son has overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life, grant us, we ask you, that we who celebrate the solemnities of our Lord’s resurrection may by the renewing of your Spirit arise from the death of the soul; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. [Amen.] – The Gelasian Sacramentary
Why The Stone Rolled Back?
An angel descended and rolled back the stone. He did not roll back the stone to provide a way of escape for the Lord but to show the world that the Lord had already risen. He rolled back the stone to help his fellow servants believe, not to help the Lord rise from the dead. He rolled back the stone for the sake of faith, because it had been rolled over the tomb for the sake of unbelief. He rolled back the stone so that he who took death captive might hold the title of Life. Pray, brothers, that the angel would descend now and roll away all the hardness of our hearts and open up our closed senses and declare to our minds that Christ has risen, for just as the heart in which Christ lives and reigns in heaven, so also the heart in which Christ remains dead and buried is a grave. May it be believed that just as he died, so was he transformed. Christ the man suffered, died and was buried; as God, he lives, reigns, is and will be forever. – Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 75.
A Prayer
“O God, who for redemption have your only – begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection has delivered us from the power of the enemy, Grant us to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him, in the joy of the resurrection, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” – Gregory the Great
31 Saturday Mar 2018
Posted in Church History, Quotes
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“But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. ” – (Hebrews 2:9 ESV)
Jesus tasted death so that all who trust in him will never have to taste death. The older I get the more I appreciate His work on the cross. Let us reflect on His death today with those who have gone before us, as we prepare to celebrate his resurrection tomorrow.
Wine Mingled With Gall
”When they had come to Golgotha”, the Gospel says, “They gave him vinegar mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he refused to drink.” This event was foretold by David when he wrote, They gave me gall for food, and they gave me vinegar to slake my thirst. ” Take note the mystery revealed here. Long ago, Adam tasted the sweetness of the apple and obtained the bitterness of death for the whole human race. In contrast to this, the Lord tasted the bitterness of gall and obtained our restoration from death’s sting to the sweetness of life. He took on himself the bitterness of gall in order to extinguish in us the bitterness of death.” – Chromatius of Aquileia, Tractate on Matthew 19.7.
He Put Death To Death
“The Word tasted death once on our behalf, the death of the cross. He went to his death so that by death he might put death to death. The Word, becoming human flesh, did not suffer in his divinity but suffered with humanity.” – Epiphanius The Latin, Ancoratus 92.
He Laid Down His Life
“When Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he yielded up the spirit. “This refers to what he had earlier said: “I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again,” and ” I lay it down of myself. ” So for this cause he cried with the voice, that it might be shown that the act is done by his own power. ” – Chrysostom, The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 88.1.
12 Monday Mar 2018
Posted in Quotes, Spiritual Formation
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“God declared his love for and pleasure in his Son, and then immediately sent him into the wilderness, seemingly withdrawing all divine support, and letting the devil test his Son. Sometimes God shows his love by caring and sometimes by preparing. In the wilderness God was preparing his Son for his greatest test, the test that would come at the very end of his ministry.
Jesus resisted the devil, not the wilderness.
The Lord leads us into the wilderness, and he will lead us out. So the fundamental question is not about escaping our wilderness, but how to make the most of it.
One of my favorite movies is Out of Africa with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. It is based on the book by Isak Dinesan. In 1957, a reporter asked her about how she was able to endure all that she suffered in Africa, the unfaithfulness of her husband who gave her an STD, the loss of her plantation, and the loss of her lover in a plane crash. She answered, “All suffering is bearable if it is seen in a story.”
I think that is the clue to our wilderness chapters. They are an essential part of our stories so that when the cross comes, whatever that may be, we will say yes to the cross, and heaven will erupt in praise for our God, and at last, we will have pleased our God.” – Jack Deere
05 Friday Jan 2018
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WHOM DO YOU THINK PAUL WAS TALKING TO WHEN he said, “We are fools for the sake of Jesus Christ, and you are wise in Jesus Christ.” To you! Not to the people who do not know God! He is talking to all who think they can work out their own salvation without accepting the folly of the cross of Jesus. No one wants to be humiliated and put down. It is not something to be excited about, but it is the way of God. You cannot give place to the world, to your passions or your laziness. Words are not enough to claim the kingdom of God. It takes strength and courage and violence. You must violently resist the tides of the world. Violently give up all that holds you back from God. Violently turn your will over to God to do His will alone. This violence is what I pray you will come to know, for how else will you know anything of the life of the Lord Jesus? —Fénelon
23 Thursday Nov 2017
“O My God, Thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects, my heart admires, adores, loves thee, for my little vessel is as full as it can be, and I would pour out all that fullness before thee in ceaseless flow.
When I think upon and converse with thee ten thousand delightful thoughts spring up, ten thousand sources of pleasure are unsealed, ten thousand refreshing joys spread over my heart, crowding into every moment of happiness.
I bless thee for the soul thou hast created, for adorning it, for sanctifying it, though it is fixed in barren soil;
for the body thou hast given me, for preserving its strength and vigour, for providing senses to enjoy delights, for the ease and freedom of my limbs, for hands, eyes, ears that do thy bidding;
for thy royal bounty providing my daily support, for a full table and overflowing cup, for appetite, taste, sweetness, for social joys of relatives and friends, for ability to serve others, for a heart that feels sorrows and necessities, for a mind to care for my fellow-men, for opportunities of spreading happiness around, for loved ones in the joys of heaven, for my own expectation of seeing thee clearly.
I love thee above the powers of language to express, for what thou art to thy creatures. Increase my love, O my God, through time and eternity.”
26 Tuesday Sep 2017
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A prayer candle I lit in a church in Oppenheim, Germany.
I feel a sense of urgency to grow in my prayer life. Praying on a consistent basis has always been a struggle for me. But, when I break through the resistance that I often feel when I pray, God’s presence is worth the effort. My goal is to grow stronger each day in my inner man, so that I can pray more effectively for others. Recently my pastor has called our fellowship to a season of focused prayer. God is looking for those who will labor with him in prayer. We must learn the art of “bathing prayer.” I have been encouraged by the quote below by J. P. Moreland.
“Petitionary prayer is a form co-laboring with God in which I invite God’s attention and direct his power on a problem and work on it with God in the very act of prayer itself. You may think of this as a form of bathing prayer: You bathe the issue in prayer; you soak it with the power and presence of God while you pray. In this sense, prayer becomes a form of spiritual labor with God, and the longer you can stay with God, and the longer you can stay with something, the more you work on it by way of interactive conversation with God himself. This means that continuous, repeated prayer is at the very heart of working something over and constantly or repeatedly directing God’s power toward the problem. Here the issue is not to tell God what you want as much as it is speaking together about the issue. And, as one who stands in the place of God’s kingdom, directing the power of God onto something.” – J.P. Moreland, The God Question, page 223.
22 Thursday Jun 2017
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“God has sovereignly pulled back the curtain on His glory. He has disclosed Himself on the platform of both creation and redemption that we might stand awestruck in His presence, beholding the sweet symmetry of His attributes, pondering the unfathomable depths of His greatness, baffled by the wisdom of His deeds and the limitless extent of His goodness. This is His beauty.” – Sam Storms
