Andrew Murray [God] longs and delights to bless. He has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of this children, by the power of his Holy Spirit, to reveal in them his love and power. And, each time you come to wait upon him, or seek to maintain in daily life the holy habit of waiting, you may look up and see him ready to meet you. He will be waiting so that he may be gracious unto you. Yes, it is blessed when a waiting soul and a waiting God meet each other. Let waiting be our work, as it is his. And if his waiting is nothing but goodness and graciousness, let ours be nothing but a rejoicing in that goodness, and a confident expectancy of that grace.
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Leonard Ravenhill By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh. What church ever asks its candidating ministers what time they spend in prayer? Yet ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen, degrees or no degrees. But who now “earnestly contends for the faith once delivered to the saints?” Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men. Preachers used to sow a seed; now they string together intellectual pearls. The LORD waits to be gracious to you… Blessed are those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18) from Thomas a Kempis …O Lord, give me true heavenly wisdom, that I may learn to seek you and to find you, and above all things to love, and to understand and know all other things as they are, after the direction of your wisdom, and not otherwise. And give me grace, also, to withdraw myself from those who flatter me, and patiently to tolerate those who grieve me so that the way I have begun will bring me to a good and blessed ending. A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. (Proverbs 12:3) I love A.W. Tozer, my brother in the Fellowship of the Burning Heart… though he’s often hard to read because of how convicted I usually feel afterward. One of the best collections of his is entitled, The Root of the Righteous. It is well worth getting and reading… and then reading again. By the way, it was first published in 1955. (That fact will explain why he’s often called a modern-day prophet.) Here are a few quotes from the first chapter, also entitled, The Root of the Righteous… One marked difference between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendants seem concerned only with the fruit. Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear. [Impatient Christians today] imitate their fruit without accepting their theology or inconveniencing ourselves too greatly by adopting their all-or-nothing attitude toward religion. The bough that breaks off from the tree in a storm may bloom briefly and give to the unthinking passerby the impression that it is a healthy and fruitful branch, but its tender blossoms will soon perish and the bough itself wither and die. There is no lasting life apart from the root. Much that passes for Christianity today is the brief, bright effort of the severed branch to bring forth its fruit in its season. But the deep laws of life are against it. Preoccupation with appearances and a corresponding neglect of the out-of-sight root of true spiritual life are prophetic signs which go unheeded. A church that is soundly rooted cannot be destroyed, but nothing can save a church whose root is dried up. No stimulation, no advertising campaigns, no gifts of money and no beautiful edifice can bring back life to the rootless tree. In every generation the number of the righteous is small. Be sure you’re among them. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32) from William Law Although the goodness of God and his rich mercies in Christ Jesus are sufficient assurance to us that he will be merciful to our unavoidable weaknesses, we have no reason to expect the same mercy toward those sins which we have not intended to avoid. You may say that all people fall short of the perfection of the gospel and, therefore, you are content with your failings. But this is not the point. The question is not, Can gospel perfection be fully attained? but, Have you come as near it as a sincere intention and careful diligence can carry you? If you have made as much progress in the Christian life as you can, then you may justly hope that your imperfections will not be laid to your charge. But if your defects are the result of your negligence and lack of sincere intention, then you leave yourself without excuse. If my religion is only a formal compliance with those modes of worship which are in fashion where I live; if it costs me no pain or trouble; if it puts me under no rules and restraints; if I have no careful thoughts and sober reflections about it – is it not foolish to think that I am striving to enter in at the strait gate? How can it be said that I am working out my salvation with fear and trembling? [I included the quotes above by Law with some reservation. I don't think he's suggesting that our works... or even our intentions... can save us. What I did like about his comments, and why I chose to include them, is his emphasis against an antinomian attitude of... "I'm saved by grace, therefore, I don't have to pursue holiness." That's the interpretation of his words that I'm sticking with for the purpose of including them here.] Words of Encouragement for The Fellowship of the Burning Heart from A.W. Tozer’s book, The Pursuit of God Chapter 1: Following Hard After God My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me. (Psalm 63:8) “Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which, briefly stated, means that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.” [Prevenient Grace is a wonderful John "Wesleyism"] “We pursue God because, and only because, he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.” “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.” “We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. …but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.” “The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.” “You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in his image we have within us the capacity to know him.” … The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the kingdom of God, It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead.” “To have found God and still to pursue him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.” William Law… Devotion is neither private not public prayer, but a life given to God. He is the devout man, therefore, who considers and serves God in everything and who makes all of his life an act of devotion by doing everything in the name of God and under such rules as are conformable to his glory. For any way of life, any employment of our time, our talents, or our money, that is not strictly according to the will of God is as great an absurdity and failing as prayers that are not according to the will of God. from Oswald Chambers… There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not. A man with the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue; he is devoted to God himself. The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. from Dietrich Bonhoeffer… Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price, to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. |
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