"Be persuaded, timid soul, that He has loved you too much to cease loving you..." (Keep A Quiet Heart by E. Elliot)
"To want what we don't have is impatience, for one thing, and it is to mistrust God. Is He not in complete control of all circumstances, events and conditions? If some are beyond His control, He is not God...
A spirit of resistance cannot wait on God. I believe it is this spirit which is the reason for some of our greatest sufferings. Opposing the workings of the Lord in and through our "problems" only exacerbates them...
It is here and now that we must win our victories or suffer defeats. Spiritual victories are won in the quiet acceptance of ordinary events. Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy..."
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, December 7, 2009
Providence - quotes from Calvin
I've been reading some of Calvin's Institutes lately. Although I thought the book terribly too dense at the beginning(!), I'm beginning to really like it -- at least this last chapter on providence! It seems especially good today after wondering over past decisions, the times when I think, well, if I could do it again and have that happen and not this. :P It's good knowing He's sovereign over all.
Calvin, J., ( 2008). The World, Created by God, Still Cherished and Protected by Him. Each and All of Its Parts Governed by His Providence. The Institutes. Massachusetts: Institutes of Christian Religion.
What an impetus for faith -- without regard to the degree or sort of difficulty, His sovereignty is eternal! I really like the hymn by William Cowper, in which he says, " Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face."
"We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things -- that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, he decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed. Hence we maintain, that by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined. What then, you will say, does nothing happen fortuitiously, nothing contingently? I answer it was a true saying of Basil the Great, that fortune and chance are heathen terms; the meaning of which ought not to occupy pious minds."
"In short, Augustine everywhere teaches, that if anything is left to fortune, the world moves at random."
"All future events being uncertain to us, seem in suspense as if ready to take either direction. Still, however, the impression remains seated in our hearts, that nothing will happen which the Lord has not provided."
"What seems to us contingence, faith will recognize as the secret impulse of God. The reason is not always equally apparent, but we ought undoubtedly to hold that all the changes which take place in the world are produced by the secret agency of the hand of God."
"In short, Augustine everywhere teaches, that if anything is left to fortune, the world moves at random."
"All future events being uncertain to us, seem in suspense as if ready to take either direction. Still, however, the impression remains seated in our hearts, that nothing will happen which the Lord has not provided."
"What seems to us contingence, faith will recognize as the secret impulse of God. The reason is not always equally apparent, but we ought undoubtedly to hold that all the changes which take place in the world are produced by the secret agency of the hand of God."
Calvin, J., ( 2008). The World, Created by God, Still Cherished and Protected by Him. Each and All of Its Parts Governed by His Providence. The Institutes. Massachusetts: Institutes of Christian Religion.
What an impetus for faith -- without regard to the degree or sort of difficulty, His sovereignty is eternal! I really like the hymn by William Cowper, in which he says, " Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face."
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"
Hebrews 11:1
Hebrews 11:1
Monday, November 9, 2009
Time for a New Good Quote :)
There just isn't enough room on Facebook for "favorite quotations." These will be my favorite Augustine ones (a few of them!). They probably aren't half as powerful out of context. And I'm not sure how good the translation is. Oh, to know Latin.
"Deep inside my heart his name remained, and nothing could entirely captivate me, however learned, however neatly expressed, however true it might be, unless his name were in it."
~Augustine's Confessions (in speaking of Christ)
book 2
"This is because the appearance of what we do is often different from the intention with which we do it, and the circumstances at the time may not be clear."
(hmmm interesting...)
~Augustine's Confessions
book 3
"...at your altar we receive the holy Victim, who canceled the decree made to our prejudice, and in whom we have triumphed over the enemy who reckons up our sins trying to find some charge to bring against us, yet can find no fault in Him in whom we conquer."
~St. Augustine
"O Lord my God, how deep are your mysteries! ...If there were a mind endowed with such great power of knowing and foreknowing that all the past and all the future were known to it as clearly as I know a familiar psalm, that mind would be wonderful beyond belief. We should hold back from it in awe at the thought that nothing in all the history of the past and nothing in all the ages yet to come was hidden from it. It would know all this as surely as, when I sing the psalm, I know what I have already sung and what I have still to sing, how far I am from the beginning and how far from the end. But it is unthinkable that you, Creator of the universe, Creator of souls and bodies, should know all the past and all the future merely in this way. Your knowledge is far more wonderful, far more mysterious than this."
~ St Augustine Confessions
Book 11
"They would see that time derives its length only from a great number of movements constantly following one another into the past, because they cannot all continue at once. But in eternity nothing moves into the past: all is present...Furthermore, although you are before time, it is not in time that you precede it..It is in eternity, which is supreme over time because it is never-ending present, that you are at once before all past time and after all future time. For what is now the future, once it comes, will become the past, whereas you are unchanging, your years can never fail. ..Your years are completely present to you all at once, because they are at a permanent standstill. They do not move on ... Your today is eternity...You made all time; you are before all time; and the "time," if such we may call it, when there was not time, was not time at all."
Augustine's Confessions
book 11 pp. 261, 263
"Deep inside my heart his name remained, and nothing could entirely captivate me, however learned, however neatly expressed, however true it might be, unless his name were in it."
~Augustine's Confessions (in speaking of Christ)
book 2
"This is because the appearance of what we do is often different from the intention with which we do it, and the circumstances at the time may not be clear."
(hmmm interesting...)
~Augustine's Confessions
book 3
"...at your altar we receive the holy Victim, who canceled the decree made to our prejudice, and in whom we have triumphed over the enemy who reckons up our sins trying to find some charge to bring against us, yet can find no fault in Him in whom we conquer."
~St. Augustine
"O Lord my God, how deep are your mysteries! ...If there were a mind endowed with such great power of knowing and foreknowing that all the past and all the future were known to it as clearly as I know a familiar psalm, that mind would be wonderful beyond belief. We should hold back from it in awe at the thought that nothing in all the history of the past and nothing in all the ages yet to come was hidden from it. It would know all this as surely as, when I sing the psalm, I know what I have already sung and what I have still to sing, how far I am from the beginning and how far from the end. But it is unthinkable that you, Creator of the universe, Creator of souls and bodies, should know all the past and all the future merely in this way. Your knowledge is far more wonderful, far more mysterious than this."
~ St Augustine Confessions
Book 11
"They would see that time derives its length only from a great number of movements constantly following one another into the past, because they cannot all continue at once. But in eternity nothing moves into the past: all is present...Furthermore, although you are before time, it is not in time that you precede it..It is in eternity, which is supreme over time because it is never-ending present, that you are at once before all past time and after all future time. For what is now the future, once it comes, will become the past, whereas you are unchanging, your years can never fail. ..Your years are completely present to you all at once, because they are at a permanent standstill. They do not move on ... Your today is eternity...You made all time; you are before all time; and the "time," if such we may call it, when there was not time, was not time at all."
Augustine's Confessions
book 11 pp. 261, 263
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Happiness
This is also from lecture eight, which I neglected to mention before is a chapter on love being the opposite of a selfish spirit.
"If you are selfish, and make yourself and your own private interests your idol, God will leave you to yourself, and let you promote your own interests as well as you can. But if you do not selfishly seek your own, but do seek the things that are Jesus Christ's, and the things of your fellow- beings, then God will make your interest and happiness his own charge, and he is infinitely more able to provide for and promote it than you are. The resources of the universe move at his Bidding, and he can easily command them all to sub-serve your welfare. So that, not to seek your own , in the selfish sense, is the best way of seeking your own in a better sense. It is the directest course you can take to secure your highest happiness. When you are required not to be selfish, you are not required...not to love and seek your own happiness, but only not to seek mainly your own private and confined interests. But if you place your happiness in God, in glorifying him, and in serving him by doing good, -- in this way above all others, will you promote your wealth, and honour, and pleasure here below, and obtain hereafter a crown of unfading glory, and pleasures for evermore at God's right hand."
~ Charity and Its Fruits
Jonathon Edwards
"If you are selfish, and make yourself and your own private interests your idol, God will leave you to yourself, and let you promote your own interests as well as you can. But if you do not selfishly seek your own, but do seek the things that are Jesus Christ's, and the things of your fellow- beings, then God will make your interest and happiness his own charge, and he is infinitely more able to provide for and promote it than you are. The resources of the universe move at his Bidding, and he can easily command them all to sub-serve your welfare. So that, not to seek your own , in the selfish sense, is the best way of seeking your own in a better sense. It is the directest course you can take to secure your highest happiness. When you are required not to be selfish, you are not required...not to love and seek your own happiness, but only not to seek mainly your own private and confined interests. But if you place your happiness in God, in glorifying him, and in serving him by doing good, -- in this way above all others, will you promote your wealth, and honour, and pleasure here below, and obtain hereafter a crown of unfading glory, and pleasures for evermore at God's right hand."
~ Charity and Its Fruits
Jonathon Edwards
Selflessness
"Everyone who is called by My name,
Whom I created for my glory;
I have formed him, yes, I have made him."
Isaiah 43:7
"For if self be devoted wholly to God, then there is something, above self, that overcomes it; something superior to self, that takes self, and makes an offering of it to God. A selfish principle never devotes itself to another. The nature of it is, to devote all others to self. They that have true love to God, love him as God, and as the Supreme Good; where as it is the nature of selfishness to set up self in the place of God, and to make an idol of self. That being whom men regard supremely, they devote all to. They that idolize self, devote all to self; but they that love God as God, devote all to him."
~Charity and Its Fruits
Jonathon Edwards
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
Romans 12:1
"They devote all to him: all their heart, and all their soul, and all their mind, and all their strength, or all their powers and faculties. (Mark 12:30)"
~Charity and Its Fruits
Jonathon Edwards
The quotes are from lecture eight of a series of sermons given by Jonathon Edwards in 1738. The sermons are based off of 1 Corinthians 13. Amazingly, he can take a tiny phrase of the chapter and develop a whole intricate lecture thoroughly outlining it! It's one of the most excellently written books on stirring up one to godliness I've ever read!
A New Blog =)
Thanks to a certain 4idbookworm, this is now a functioning site! :-)
I've been wanting to begin a new site for a long time; Facebook isn't really a blog and I've gotten terribly tired of my old Xanga name (especially since vacation is sounding so appealing!). My intention in starting this blog is mostly simply for favorite quotes and other odds and ends that take less time to type than write, but I definitely don't want to forget! It's more a scrapbook than my current events-- and not very original. Not really for public purposes, but I think I won't be making it private for now.
So... onto some quotes. :)
I've been wanting to begin a new site for a long time; Facebook isn't really a blog and I've gotten terribly tired of my old Xanga name (especially since vacation is sounding so appealing!). My intention in starting this blog is mostly simply for favorite quotes and other odds and ends that take less time to type than write, but I definitely don't want to forget! It's more a scrapbook than my current events-- and not very original. Not really for public purposes, but I think I won't be making it private for now.
So... onto some quotes. :)
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