Christian Quotation of the Day (Jesus Christ, choices, choice, America)

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 4, 2004
Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650


If our faith is not relevant to our daily life in the world and in the parish, then it is no use; and if we cannot be Christians in our work, in the neighborhood, in our political decisions, then we had better stop being Christians. A piety reserved for Sundays is no message for this age.
... Douglas Rhymes

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

Christian Quotation of the Day
September 3, 2004
Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604

We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.
... John Owen

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 5, 2004

It seems to be very hard and -- if that would do any good -- might be a just matter of complaint, that we are fallen into so profane and skeptical an age, which takes a pleasure and a pride in unraveling almost all the received principles both of religion and reason, so that we are put many times to prove those things which can hardly be made plainer than they are of themselves.
... John Tillotson

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 6, 2004
Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851
Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965

Who is it that has helped you most? Has it not been those who believed in you? Perhaps there may be few such left. The light of expectation may have died out of the most friendly and hopeful eyes; and you yourself may have lost heart. Ah! but there is still One whose faith in you has never wavered. And how wonderful it is that that one should be Jesus Christ!... It was a wonderful dream God dreamed, Christ says, when He created you; it was a stately being that was in His mind when you were fashioned; and I can make you all He meant that you should be.
... A. J. Gossip, The Galilean Accent

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 7, 2004
Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957

Above all, desire to please Christ; dread his disapproval above everything else.
... Rowland Croucher, Sunrise Sunset

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 8, 2004

He may effect us directly by His Spirit, with the force of a thunderbolt, or He may choose to woo us gently by stirring up our conscience. But, in addition, God affects us by determining that in the universe certain causes shall bring about certain effects. Cause and effect is, therefore, the operation of God through normal channels rather than through special channels. We have our normal way of acting when we drive a car. We can more or less put it in "automatic pilot" while we carry on a conversation, but when an emergency arises, we take conscious personal control. I have a hunch that God has something for which this automatic pilot will serve as an illustration. That is, His routine way of operating is cause and effect, and He is in control of it, so that when cause and effect affects us, then God is affecting us. That is what the Apostle Paul means in Galatians when he says, "Do not kid yourself -- God is not blind. What you do, you will get paid for." The causes which we have set in operation by our own personal choices will inevitably bring about certain results. But God is involved because God makes cause and effect to work. [Continued tomorrow]
... Kenneth L. Pike, With Heart and Mind

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 9, 2004

But since cause and effect is under the personal control of God, He can introduce into the situation other causes than the ones which we ourselves can control. When in faith we come to God for cleansing from the mess we have made of things, and when we ask for power to reverse causes we have set in motion, God sends in other causes by His Holy Spirit. It may be by direct intervention, or by a combination of circumstances which He controls. We can, therefore, be delivered from the wrath to come, because God will add other causes than those that we have initiated.
... Kenneth L. Pike, With Heart and Mind

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 10, 2004

Not pleading with the Father, but expressing the Father's good pleasure is the key-note of true intercession. Forgiveness is God's idea, God's desire; and it is He who appoints both the Judge and the Counsel for the Defense. It was He who inaugurated the priestly work, that men might receive His cleansing and turn to the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. God has provided for himself a Lamb. It is He who sends His Son to be our Elder Brother, and to incorporate us as adopted sons into the circle of His Fatherly love. So then it is the voice of His beloved Son which is most clearly heard by the Father in heaven. In that voice of intercession, all the voices of intercession are contained and heard. The Son is talking to the Father about us, and what He says is not Please but Yes.
... David Head, Shout for Joy

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

September 11, 2004

He had no qualms; "for", said he, "when I fail in my duty, I readily acknowledge it, saying, 'I am used to do so; I shall never do otherwise if I am left to myself'. If I fail not, then I give God thanks, acknowledging that the strength comes from Him."
... Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God