Friday, January 12, 2018

Out of the hillsides of humiliated pride...

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
Out of the hillsides of humiliated pride; deep in the darkness of crushed despair; in the fretting and dusty atmosphere of little cares; in the hard, cruel contacts that man has with man; wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely ways;—there God is hewing out the pillars for His temple. ...Phillips Brooks image

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait...

waiting
If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people. ...CH Spurgeon image

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Bibles read without prayer...

closer
Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer; friendships formed without prayer; the daily act of prayer itself hurried over, or gone through without heart: these are the kind of downward steps by which many a Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the point where God allows them to have a tremendous fall. ...J.C. Ryle image

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder...

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body.

As they look, they believe and do not question, as their symbolic gifts bear witness: incense for God, gold for a king, myrrh for one who is to die. ...Peter Chrysologus image

Friday, January 5, 2018

Insistence on security is incompatible with the way of the cross...

Le Jour ni l’Heure 4799 : Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863, Crucifixion, 1835, dét., musée de la Cohue, Vannes, Morbihan, mardi 28 octobre 2014, 14:59:50
Insistence on security is incompatible with the way of the cross. What daring adventures the incarnation and the atonement were! What a breach of convention and decorum that Almighty God should renounce his privileges in order to take human flesh and bear human sin! Jesus had no security except in his Father. So to follow Jesus is always to accept at least a measure of uncertainty, danger and rejection for his sake. ...John R.W. Stott image

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Beware in your prayer...

sunset.
Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. ...Andrew Murray image