The Irresistible Community.....

A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. 

–DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Let love be genuine. . . . Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. . . . Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. . . . Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. 

–PAUL THE APOSTLE

What do you run on?

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way. . . . God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.

C S Lewis

Mere Christianity

I am not my own

The from now on to live for him.

That I am not my own, 

but belong with body and soul, 

both in life and in death, 

to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. 

He has fully paid for all my sins

with his precious blood, 

and has set me free from all the power of the devil. 

He also preserves me in such a way that 

without the will of my heavenly Father 

not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, 

all things must work together for my salvation. 

Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me 

of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready

from now on to live for him.

Divine & Heavenly Purity

Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view, that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. 

This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception—which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him; to serve and follow him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity. 

I have several other times had views very much of the same nature, and which have had the same effects.

Jonathan Edwards 

The Works of President Edwards, (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1881), 1: 21-22.