In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God...

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.  And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.  And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.”  And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. -Luke 1:26-38

“At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky...

“At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky 

And flinging the cloud and the towers by, 

Is a place of central calm: 

So here in the roar of mortal things, 

I have a place where my spirit sings, 

In the hollow of God’s Palm.”

-Edwin Markham

May the Strength of God pilot us...

May the Strength of God pilot us.

May the Power of God preserve us.

May the Wisdom of God instruct us.

May the Hand of God protect us.

May the Way of God direct us.

May the Shield of God defend us.

May the Host of God guard us.

Against the snares of the evil ones.

Against temptations of the world

May Christ be with us!

May Christ be before us!

May Christ be in us,

Christ be over all!

May Thy Salvation, Lord,

Always be ours,

This day, O Lord,

and evermore. Amen.

...St. Patrick image

A genuine Christian should be a walking mystery...

A genuine Christian should be a walking mystery because he surely is a walking miracle. Through the leading and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is involved in a daily life and habit that cannot be explained. -A.W. Tozer

Ye hills, lift up your voices...

Ye hills, lift up your voices; let the shaggy woods upon your summits wave with adoration. Ye valleys, fill the air with the bleatings of your sheep and the lowing of your cattle. Ye that have life, if ye have voices, tune his praise; and if ye walk in silence, let your joyful motions show the thanks ye cannot speak. O, ye trees of the field, clap your hands; ye winds, in solemn harmony chant to his glory. 

Thou ocean, with thy myriad waves, in all thy solemn pomp, thy motion to and fro, forget not him who bids a thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain, and write no furrow on thy ever youthful brow. 

And you, ye storms, howl out his greatness; let your thunders roll like drums in the march of the God of armies; let your lightnings write his name in fire upon the midnight darkness; let the illimitable void of space become one mouth for song; and let the unnavigated ether, through its shoreless depths, bear through the infinite remote the name of him who is ever good and doeth good. -CH Spurgeon image

Lord make me as holy...

“Lord make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be.”

— Robert Murray M'Cheyne

You will never find Jesus so precious....

You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation—a rock rising above the storm.   

 -Robert Murray M’Cheyne

What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God...

What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now, as they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is surely coming when we shall have nothing but God! Health and wealth and friends and hiding places will all be swept away and we shall have only God. To the man of pseudo faith that is a terrifying thought, but to real faith it is one of the most comforting thoughts the heart can entertain.

It would be a tragedy indeed to come to the place where we have no other but God and find that we had not really been trusting God during the days of our earthly sojourn. It would be better to invite God now to remove every false trust, to disengage our hearts from all secret hiding places and to bring us out into the open where we can discover for ourselves whether we actually trust Him. This is a harsh cure for our troubles, it is a sure one! Gentler cures may be too weak to do the work. And time is running out on us. -A.W. Tozer

Ash Wednesday: O Lord, the house of my soul is narrow...

O Lord, the house of my soul is narrow; enlarge it that thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous, O repair it! It displeases thy sight; I confess it, I know. But who shall cleanse it, or to whom shall I cry but thee? Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord, and spare thy servant from strange sins. 

-St. Augustine, Confessions

Send out your light and your truth;

    let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy hill

    and to your dwelling! -Psalm 43:3

Transfiguration of Jesus: These are the divine wonders we celebrate today...

These are the divine wonders we celebrate today; this is the saving revelation given us upon the mountain; this is the festival of Christ that has drawn us here. Let us listen, then, to the sacred voice of God so compellingly calling us from on high, from the summit of the mountain, so that with the Lord’s chosen disciples we may penetrate the deep meaning of these holy mysteries, so far beyond our capacity to express. Jesus goes before us to show us the way, both up the mountain and into heaven, and - I speak boldly - it is for us now to follow him with all speed, yearning for the heavenly vision that will give us a share in his radiance, renew our spiritual nature and transform us into his own likeness, making us for ever sharers in his Godhead and raising us to heights as yet undreamed of.

 

Let us run with confidence and joy to enter into the cloud like Moses and Elijah, or like James and John. Let us be caught up like Peter to behold the divine vision and to be transfigured by that glorious transfiguration. Let us retire from the world, stand aloof from the earth, rise above the body, detach ourselves from creatures and turn to the creator, to whom Peter in ecstasy exclaimed: Lord, it is good for us to be here.  -St. Athanasius on the Transfiguration image

Asbury Professor: We’re Witnessing a ‘Surprising Work of God’...

Tom McCall

February 13, 2023

"...As an analytic theologian, I am weary of hype and very wary of manipulation. I come from a background (in a particularly revivalist segment of the Methodist-holiness tradition) where I’ve seen efforts to manufacture “revivals” and “movements of the Spirit” that were sometimes not only hollow but also harmful. I do not want anything to do with that.

And to be perfectly clear, this is nothing like that. There is no pressure or hype. There is no manipulation. There is no high-pitched emotional fervor.

To the contrary, it has been mostly calm and serene. The mix of hope and joy and peace is indescribably strong and indeed almost palpable—a vivid and incredibly powerful sense of shalom. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is undeniably powerful but also so gentle.

The holy love of the triune God is apparent, and there is an inexpressible sweetness and innate attractiveness to it. It is immediately obvious why no one wants to leave and why those who must leave want to come back as soon as they can..."  the rest

"I found myself with Unspeakable Joy and Awe" - Evan Roberts (Welsh Revival)

“We are just sitting with him, it’s just deeply gentle and deeply loving; it’s just a glimpse of what I think HEAVEN WILL LOOK LIKE.” - Alison Perfater (Asbury Student Body President)#asburyrevival 🔥 pic.twitter.com/qWxU1ugImm

— Greg Gordon (@gregjgordon) February 13, 2023

"This is Revival it isn't hype. It's ordinary people crying out for a move of God."

Are you hungry for more of God? Have a posture of "heart cry" for God's work. Go "low"

He will touch you where you are.#asburyrevival 🔥 #moveofgod pic.twitter.com/2bFMHhJbIF

— Greg Gordon (@gregjgordon) February 13, 2023

Holy Spirit power...

I fear that if you take the preaching throughout the Church of Christ and ask why there is, alas! so little converting power in the preaching of the Word, why there is so much work and often so little result for eternity, why the Word has so little power to build up believers in holiness and in consecration,—the answer will come: It is the absence of the power of the Holy Ghost. And why is this? There can be no other reason but that the flesh and human energy have taken the place that the Holy Ghost ought to have. -Andrew Murray

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!

From subtle love of softening things,

From easy choices, weakenings,

(Not thus are spirits fortified;

Not this way went the Crucified;)

From all that dims Thy Calvary,

O Lamb of God, deliver me.

 

Give me the love that leads the way,

The faith that nothing can dismay,

The hope no disappointments tire,

The passion that will burn like fire;

Let me not sink to be a clod:

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!

-Amy Carmichael

Earth breaks up, time drops away...

Earth breaks up, time drops away,

In flows heaven, with its new day

Of endless life, when He who trod,

Very man and very God,

This earth in weakness, shame and pain,

Dying the death whose signs remain

Up yonder on the accursed tree,—

Shall come again, no more to be

Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, All in all,

King of kings, Lord of lords,

As His servant John received the words,

“I died, and live for evermore!”

-Robert Browning 

Around us is a world lost in sin...

“Around us is a world lost in sin, above us is a God willing and able to save; it is ours to build the bridge that links heaven and earth, and prayer is the mighty instrument that does the work.” -E.M. Bounds

Hosanna to the King Of David’s ancient blood...

Hosanna to the King

Of David’s ancient blood;

Behold, he comes to bring

Forgiving grace from God:

Let old and young

Attend his way,

And at his feet

Their honors lay.

 

Glory to God on high;

Salvation to the Lamb;

Let earth, and sea, and sky,

His wondrous love proclaim:

Upon his head

Shall honors rest,

And every age

Pronounce him bless’d.

-Isaac Watts  image

We are anchored in God...

For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of His will. 

-Evelyn Underhill

He comes to us in the brokenness...

He comes to us in the brokenness of our health,

in the shipwreck of our family lives,

in the loss of all possible peace of mind,

even in the very thick of our sins.

He saves us in our disasters, not from them.

He emphatically does not promise to meet

only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery:

He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.

-Robert Farrar Capon

Your helplessness is your best prayer...

Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness.  -O. Hallesby

Prayer and a holy life are one...

Prayer and a holy life are one. They mutually act and react. Neither can survive alone... We are in danger of substituting churchly work and a ceaseless round of showy activities for prayer and holy living. A holy life does not live in the closet, but it cannot live without the closet. If, by any chance, a prayer chamber should be established without a holy life, it would be a chamber without the presence of God in it. ...E.M. Bounds