January 18, 2012

Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee. -- Duet. xxvi.II

Rejoice evermore. In everything give thanks. -- I Thess. v.16, 18

Grave on thy heart each past "red-letter day"!

Forget not all the sunshine of the way

By which the Lord hath led thee; answered prayers,

And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares,

Grand promise-echoes! Thus thy life shall be

One record of His love and faithfulness to thee.

--F.R. Havergal

Gratitude consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state, and to the multitude of God's gifts, taken one by one. It fills us with a consciousness that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and the smallest need of life. It is a blessed thought, that from our childhood God has been laying His fatherly hands upon us, and always in benediction; that even the strokes of His hands are blessings, and among the chiefest we have ever received. When the feeling is awakened, the heart beats with a pulse of thankfulness. Every gift has its return of praise. It awakens an unceasing daily converse with our Father -- He speaking to us by the descent of blessings, we to Him by the ascent of thanksgiving. And all our whole life is thereby drawn under the light of His countenance, and is filled with a gladness, serenity, and peace which only thankful hearts can know.  -- H.E. Manning

January 11, 2012

I will be glad, and rejoice in Thy mercy: for Thou hast considered my trouble; Thou has known my soul in adversities. -Ps. xxxi. 7

Nay, all by Thee is ordered, chosen, planned;

Each drop that fills my daily cup Thy hand

Prescribes, for ills none else can understand;

All, all is known to Thee. --A.L. Newton

God knows us through and through. Not the most secret thought, which we most hide from ourselves, is hidden from Him. As then we come to know ourselves through and through, we come to see ourselves more as God sees us, and then we catch some little glimpse of His designs with us, how each ordering of His Providence, each check in our desires, each failure of our hopes, is just fitted for us, and for something in our own spiritual state, which others know not of, and which, till then, we knew not. Until we come to this knowledge, we must take all in faith, believing, though we know not, the goodness of God towards us. As we know ourselves, we, thus far, know God.   - E.B. Pusey

January 10, 2012

Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee.  Ps.lxiii. 3

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.  Luke xvii. 33

O Lord! my best desires fulfil,

And help me to resign

Life, health, and comfort, to Thy will,

And make Thy pleasure mine.  -Wm. Cowper

What do our heavy hearts prove but that other things are sweeter to us than His will, that we have not attained to the full mastery of our true freedom, the full perception of its power, that our sonship is yet but faintly realized, and its blessedness not yet proved and known? Our consent would turn all our trials into obedience. By consenting we make them our own and offer them with ourselves again to Him.  - H.E. Manning

Nothing is intolerable that is necessary. Now God hath bound thy trouble upon thee, with a design to try thee, and with purposes to reward and crown thee. These cords thou canst not break; and therefore lie thou down gently, and suffer the hand of God to do what He please. - Jeremy Taylor

January 7, 2012

"The exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power." Eph. i.19

The lives which seem so poor, so low,

The hearts which are so cramped and dull,

The baffled hopes, the impulse slow,

Thou takest, touchest all, and lo!

They blossom to the beautiful.

--Susan Coolidge

A root set in the finest soil, in the best climate, and blessed with all that sun and air and rain can do for it, is not in so sure a way of its growth to perfection, as every man may be, whose spirit aspires after all that which God is ready and infinitely desirous to give him. For the sun meets not the springing bud that stretches towards him with half that certainty, as God, the source of all good, communicates Himself to the soul that longs to partake of Him.--Wm. Law

If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals, we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to communicate. --T.C. Upham

January 6, 2012

"In all ages, entering into holy souls, she [Wisdom] maketh them friends of God, and prophets."  -Wisdom of Solomon vii. 27

Meanwhile with every son and saint of Thine

Along the glorious line,

Sitting by turns beneath Thy sacred feet

We'll hold communion sweet,

Know them by look and voice, and thank them all

For helping us in thrall,

For words of hope, and bright examples given

To shew through moonless skies that there

is light in heaven.   --J. Keble

If we cannot live at once and alone with Him, we may at least live with those who have lived with Him; and find, in our admiring love for their purity, their truth, their goodness, an intercession with His pity on our behalf. To study the lives, to meditate the sorrows, to commune with the thoughts, of the great and holy men and women of this rich world, is a sacred discipline, which deserves at least to rank as the forecourt of the temple of true worship, and may train the tastes, ere we pass the very gate, of heaven. We forfeit the chief source of dignity and sweetness in life, next to the direct communion with God, if we do nit seek converse with the greater minds that have left their vestiges on the world. 

--J. Martineau

Do not think it wasted time to submit yourself to any influence which may bring upon you any noble feeling. --J. Ruskin

January 5, 2012

"That he might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Eph. V.27

"Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." I Peter ii.5

One holy Church of God appears

Through every age and race,

Unwasted by the lapse of years,

Unchanged by unchanging place.

--S. Longfellow

A temple there has been upon earth, a spiritual Temple, made up of living stones; a Temple, as I may say, composed of souls; a Temple with God for its light, and Christ for the high priest; with wings of angels for its arches, with saints and teachers for its pillars, and with worshippers for its pavement. Wherever there is faith and love, this Temple is.    -- J.H. Newman

To whatever worlds He carries our souls when they shall pass out of these imprisoning bodies, in those worlds these souls of ours shall find themselves part of the same great Temple; for it belongs not to this earth alone. There can be no end of the universe where God is, to which that growing Temple does not reach--the Temple of a creation to be wrought at last into a perfect utterance of God by a prefect obedience to God.   --Phillips Brooks

January 4, 2012

"If we sin, we are Thine, knowing Thy power: but we will not sin, knowing that we are counted Thine. For to know Thee is perfect righteousness: yea, to know Thy power is the root of immortality."  Wisdom of Solomon XV. 2,3

Oh, empty us of self, the world, and sin,

And then in all Thy fullness enter in;

Take full possession, Lord, and let each thought

Into obedience unto Thee be brought;

Thine is the power, and Thine the will, that we

Be wholly sanctified, O Lord, to Thee.

--C.E.J.

Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly, by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.

Fix, by God's help, not only to root out this sin, but to set thyself to gain, by that same help, the opposite grace. If thou art tempted to be angry, try hard, by God's grace, to be very meek; if to be proud, seek to be very humble.

                                                                          -- E.B. Pusey

January 3, 2012

"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." Deut. 33:25

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:34

Oh, ask not thou, How shall I bear

The burden of to-morrow?

Sufficient for today, its care,

Its evil and its sorrow;

God imparteth by the way

Strength sufficient for the day.

--J.E. Saxby

He that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly: for this day only is ours, we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. But if we look abroad, and bring into one day's thoughts the evil of many, certain and uncertain, what will be and what will never be, our load will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable.

--Jeremy Taylor