Being Guided by God-Listening Prayer

I have just read of a devotional book that is apparently on the bestseller list.It is written by Sarah Young.
It is called"Jesus Calling"
Here is the link to the article I read.
It has been compared to "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/october/sarah-young-still-hears-jesus-calling.html?order=&start=1

Sounds like a timely book and reading this article I am reminded of some earlier posts I have on this blog.
Because of Sarah Young's prolonged illness I am reminded of the wonderful devotional books by Amy Carmichael who herself was bed ridden for many years.
See the link to "If" and "calvary Love"  below.
Also I am reminded of the Oxford Group led by Frank Buchman last century.
There was an emphasis for those in the Group to have a daily quiet time and write down your guidance.
One of my own pastors Frank Hunting used to keep this practice and he had amazing Christian insight and was in my opinion genuinely guided by God.
I have just also been looking at this evening a book called "Forgiveness,Life and Glory" by one S.A Blackwood, compiled in 1865 from talks he gave in house meetings.
I don't doubt he kept similar practices.
I will get a copy of the latest book soon but we need to practice these things ,not just read about them.
Our lives and those around us we would be so much better if we did.

Reconciliation-Why it matters.

Reconciliation!

What a word that promises so much but seldom is carried out or witnessed.
Jesus is the great reconciler.
He alone gives us the power to be reconciled with the un-reconcileable.
Reconciliation has to go arm in arm with forgiveness.
We must not wait to feel forgiveness.
It is an act of the will.
It is not an emotion we feel.
It is something Jesus demands of us who call ourselves Christians.
If forgiveness was offerred and reconciliation sort after the world would be a vastly different place.
How much bitterness and suffering comes from those two words "Irreconcileable differences"

Take some steps today.

Make it right!

Make yourself right with God and the one who has wronged you.
Use the link below for some help on this.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00%2B10:30&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00%2B10:30&max-results=2

Calvary Love for Christian Photographers

Calvary Love for Christian Photographers

On this blog you will find the booklet "If" by Amy Carmichael.
Part 2 is particularly challenging for the Christian.

 http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/if-by-amy-carmichael-calvary-love.html

In the same spirit of this book I offer the following for Christian Photographers.
I am sure fellow Christian Photographers can come up with more "Ifs"
These are just thought starters.
I do not claim to be speaking in all authority on this subject but this is how it seems to be to me.
Note I am not speaking for or to Photographers who do not claim Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Photography can be used for much gain for Humanity but also much evil.
Where do you Christian Photographer draw the line?
It would be an interesting exercise to do this in the use of Social Media such as Facebook also.

"If I can take a photograph of someone in an unfortunate situation and all I am thinking is I can make money or win an award I know nothing of Calvary Love.

If I can ridicule or laugh at someone by publishing a photo of them then I know nothing of Calvary Love.

If I put the idea of "getting the image" above the welfare, feelings or emotions and safety of my subject and others close to them then I know nothing of Calvary Love.

If I think it ok to publish and/or take so called "fine art" photos of the naked human form and indeed "softcore" or "hardcore" pornography whether or not I have my own personal motives including voyeurism, then I know nothing of Calvary Love.(You know the type of photography I mean.)

There was a time when it was ok for  christian people  to take photographs of the naked human form but only two people had that privilege.
That was Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the Fall when they did not know they were naked.
Problem is I don't think they had cameras.
There is of course a place for medical photography for medical purposes.

If I am taking photos when my conscience tells me not too and yet I still go ahead then I am sinning and not practising Calvary Love.

If I pass off someone else's work as my own for my own gain or otherwise then I know nothing of Calvary Love.

See also my post on using your camera for God.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/using-your-camera-for-god.html

"Love" by Frank Hunting a taped address

This is one of the many Frank Hunting tapes I have in my collection that were largely sermons preached in the Church of Christ at Grote Street Adelaide in the mid 1970's. The messages, as is the Bible, are timeless.An important message on love, in particular Calvary Love for all. See my post "About Frank Hunting" for more info on Frank.There will be more forthcoming as I master the intricacies of putting audio on my blog. This is also found on my you tube channel pembridgehouse.

Burdens are Lifted at Calvary

This is the outline of a sermon I gave recently at the Parkrose Nursing Home.

SERMON PARKROSE 30112

                                                Burdens are Lifted at Calvary or

“he ain’t heavy,he’s my brother.”

On one of our recent babysitting days we had our 2 grandsons staying with us.

Lucas our almost 4 year old decided he could lift his 9 month old brother and proceeded to do so.

He struggled a bit and I had to help out.

Jaxon thought it was great but might not have been so happy if he was dropped.

It was a classic scenario I thought to try and bring in the concept which is my subject today with Lucas by telling him about the song. “He aint heavy ,he’s my brother.” (I won’t attempt to sing it for you.)

(I’ve been educating Lucas or teaching him some pop songs, mainly the Rock Island Line which he has declared that one day “grandad you and I will sing that on the stage together”.)

So today I want to talk about bearing each other’s burdens and the fact that burdens are lifted at calvary.

A friend and distant relative of ours is Graham Long who is the pastor of the wayside chapel in Kings’ Cross in Sydney.

He sends a weekly email newsletter.

I would just like to read a couple of lines from a recent newsletter.

“There is always a stream of people visiting here to check us out and they're always welcome. Just before Christmas, a man from a world-wide, well-known church agency was clearly impressed at the range of things that we do. He saw people, struggling with long-term mental health issues, working in the roof garden; he saw a small group constructing a mosaic tile artwork on the roof. He saw some people learning to cook with the herbs that they'd grown on our roof; he saw a discussion group for Aboriginal people taking place. He saw a busy cafe with people of all shapes and sizes mixing together as they ate. He saw a play group in action in our community hall. He saw young people in our youth area cooking their own breakfast. He saw street people being organised for showers and a change of clothes. As he was just about to leave, he came to me and said something like, "I love all these things that you're doing but what about God?" I was a bit taken back by the question because I guess I was wondering which part of what we do gave an impression that it wasn't about God. I've thought a lot since then about what I wished I'd said in that moment. I've come to realise that I've learned more about God in this place than I ever learned from any eminent scholar.”

I was discussing Graham’s newsletter  with a pastor friend who reminded me  that as Christians we should be about lifting people’s burdens not necessarily giving them wonderful theological sermons and teachings.

Listen to Jesus talking to the Pharisees.

Luke 11:46
Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

In a place like Parkrose, many of us, I say us because my turn may come sooner than I expect, bring many burdens of life with us.

We also have to make an enormous adjustment quite often from having our own place and being independent to being mostly dependent on others and having far less freedom than before.

For some though this place may seem like heaven compared to where they have been previously.

 

So here in Parkrose, how can we lift each other by helping to carry burdens.

For those who are able bodied and sharp of mind there is opportunity of course to call on and visit those who are not so mobile and may have few visitors.

The idea of pastoral visitation is  something that should not be expected to be only done by the Village chaplains.

You may want to share things of Faith that are uplifting but we should be careful not to expect a person to cope with deep theological insights if they are not capable of it .

By coming to this service and by encouraging others to come and worship together we may be doing wonderful things for someone.

We can be touched by the Lord Jesus and His presence here is guaranteed when we meet in His name.

Encouraging each other to take part in activities organised by the village can be very important not necessariy for the nature of the activity but because it is an opportunity for fellowship and a cuppa.

Remember when the Australian remedy for many things was a cup of tea, a bex, and a lie down?

The cuppa and lie down still appeals to me as I get older.

If we are not very mobile but able to speak fairly well and engage in conversation then we can lift burdens  by visiting.

We can stimulate conversation with each other by genuinely asking each ther about hobbies, family and life time experiences and achievements.

Many get so much out of someone just listening to them and taking the time to show their worth.

We can also create a happier environment with staff and residents by controlling our tongues

James Chapter 3:9

 “⁹ With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ¹¹ Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”

In the early days of our marriage and being Christian, if Lesley was giving me some verbal harassment I would just say “James 3!” which always went down like a lead balloon

Folks we know nothing of the Love of Jesus if we continually find fault or gossip about people. By ceasing this,by controlling our tongues, we make a much nicer place for us all to live in.

Well burdens are lifted at Calvary ie. If we claim Jesus as Lord and Saviour by what he did on the cross he can not only set us free from all of life’s pain but as we allow Him to live His life through us in the service of others, that is also the outpouring of the Cross.

Lets resolve to continue to make love our aim, Christian Love , our aim and to share it with all.

 ps  Revisit the post "If" on this blog which is all about Calvary Love.Its in the index on the righthand side.

 http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/search/label/if

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advice for Newly Weds from a Wedding Photographer

 

ADVICE TO NEWLY WEDS- from  a Wedding Photographer

Some years ago, starting out as a young married couple we were very much immersed, particularly when we had young children, in the Ministry of Dr James Dobson from Focus on the Family ,a Christian organisation that he founded.

He had a film series that was very helpful to us in the 1970’s and also had  a radio programme from which many cassettes were produced.

One of the cassettes was entitled “Advice to Newly Weds”.

It contained very good  advice for those wishing to heed it.

At one stage as a young man  starting out in  wedding photography who regarded his photography as a Christian Ministry, I had an idea of presenting the tape to all couples whose wedding I photographed.

I decided not to do that as it was not really my role as a photographer to do it, so I thought..

Sadly I am aware some of those marriages have not lasted.

Some whose weddings I did,  caused me to question the match and how long the wedding would last and thankfully some of those people proved my judgement wrong.

So now in the age of blogging I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the theme as titled.

As a wedding photographer you are given the privilege of being very involved with young couples on their special day and I am always prayerful that the marriage will be a good one and able to withstand the challenges along the way.

As wedding photographers we present the couple as atrractively as we can and try to capture the romance of their special day.

While the photos I produce , I  think are great, and as a romantic at heart I try for the  romance of the occasion, they do not depict real life in as much that after all the celebration and the honeymoon period is over, couples have to settle into the daily task of being married, working, bringing up children and interacting and relating with others. .

There are all the challenges that can happen in life;  illness, accidents, mortgages, possible unemployment periods, children difficult to handle, teenagers running off the rails, schooling difficulties, broken friendships and relationships.

The scourge of Drugs and other ills in our society.

Our family has faced  many  of these and the challenges do not go away as long as we draw breath.

So what is a plan to make your marriage work.

A young couple who recently were married in our Church were given some homework by there counsellor, to ask mature, long married couples in their Church how they had stayed married so long and what advice would we give them.

We were very touched that they asked us amongst others.

Here are some of our thoughts.

My wife and I have engraved on our wedding rings a quote from the book of Ephesians Chapter 4:2

From the Living Bible it says this.

² Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.

The following verses also are an important part of the plan as well.

³ Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. ⁴ For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. ⁵ There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all.

Be committed to your Marriage and your partner.

If you are Christians it is God’s will for you that your marriage is until death do you  part.

We try to make sure that we do things together,

        go on holidays together,

to the same concerts.

This doesn’t always happen.

I have come to enjoy operas but I doubt my wife will ever enjoy football.

At all times to always be on your guard when mixing with the opposite sex.

If you are a good listener and you care about people  you may find yourselves in a situation where the person receiving your help thinks there is more in it than you intend.

Be very judicious if you drink alcohol.

When we are intoxicated is when we are in trouble.

My preference and rule is no alcohol at all.

(Bearing in mind I don’t believe the Bible

forbids the drinking of alcohol but we are warned to  “ not let our Brother stumble.”)

The thing is you or your wife might be the one stumbling.

Do not hero worship your partner.

They are capable of letting you down as much as anyone else.

Build in to your marriage the highest aims and ideals but realise that the only perfect

human being was Jesus.

It is He we should put first and worship.

When the going gets rough in a marriage don’t be so proud as to not ask for help but

choose your counsellor wisely.

1 Corinthians Chapter 13 is often read out at weddings.

Don’t just read it claim it for your marriage.

And at verses 4-7 substitute the name Love or it with your first name.

In a marriage and in life as a Christian give up your right to yourself.

1 Corinthians 13

New Living Translation (NLT)

1 Corinthians 13

Love Is the Greatest

 ¹ If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;^[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

 ⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

 ⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages^[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

 ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

 ¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Well there is so much more.

I don’t believe marriages are made in Heaven. In fact the Bible tells us there is no marriage in Heaven.

Marriages are made here on earth and we need to fight for our marriage to be as God intends it to be.

There are high standards for marriage in the  Bible but God never asks us to do anything that He cannot or will not supply the power for us to carry it out.

The Christian family , if it is being Christian, has by virtue of Jesus , the in built ability to overcome  any challenges

If by Amy Carmichael (Calvary Love)

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In my opinion this little book is one of the most challenging ever written about true Christianity.When we see how far short we fall then we can begin to realise the enormity of what Jesus did for us on the Cross. We have no right to judge any one else re their sin. Jesus said on the cross "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."
Geoff Thompson



IF

By Amy Carmichael

Published by Christian Literature Crusade, Fort Washington, Pennsylvania 19034

No copyright

How “IF” Came to be Written

One evening a fellow-worker brought me a problem about a younger one who was missing the way of Love.  This led to a wakeful night, for the word at such times is always, “Lord, is it I?”  Have I failed her anywhere?  What do I know of Calvary Love?  And then sentence by sentence the “If’s” came, almost as if spoken aloud to the inner ear.

            Next morning they were shared with another (for they had been written down in pencil in the night), and then a few others shared.  After this some copies were printed on our little handpress for the Fellowship only; and that led to this booklet.

            At first when it was asked for, we felt, “No, it is far too private for that.”  But if it can help any to understand what the life of love means and to live that life, then it is not ours to refuse.

            Some of the “If’s” appear to be related to pride, selfishness, or cowardice, but digging deeper we come upon an unsuspected lovelessness at the root of them all.  The pages in Part II are not meant to be read one after the other.  Perhaps only one “If” here and there may have the needed word, and, leaving the others, the reader may find something in the last pages.

            And in case any true follower be troubled by the “then I know nothing,” I would say, the thought came in this form,  and I fear to weaken it.  But here, as everywhere, the letter kills.  St. Paul counted the loss of all things as nothing that he might know Him whom he already knew; and the soul, suddenly illuminated by some fresh outshining of the knowledge of the love of God shown forth on Calvary, does not stop to measure how much or how little it knew of that love before.  Penetrated, melted, broken before that vision of love, it feels that indeed all it ever knew was nothing, less than nothing.

            It is clear, I think, that such a booklet as this is not meant for everyone, but only for those who are called to be undershepherds.  And there are some of them for whom it has no word.  They have already entered into that of which I have impelled to write.       A.C.

PART I

            There are times when something comes into our lives which is charged with love in such a way that it seems to open the Eternal to us for a moment, or at least some of the Eternal Things, and the greatest of these is love.

            It may be a small and intimate touch upon us or our affairs, light as the touch of the dawn wind on the leaves of the tree, something not to be captured and told to another in words.  But we know that it is our Lord.  And then perhaps the room where we are, with its furniture and books and flowers, seems less “present” than His Presence, and the heart is drawn into that sweetness of which the old hymn sings.

                        The love of Jesus, what it is – None but His loved ones know.

Or it is the dear human love about us that bathes us as in summer seas and rests us through and through.  Can we ever cease to wonder at the love of our companions?  And then suddenly we recognize our Lord in them.  It is His love that they lavish on us.  O Love of God made manifest in Thy lovers, we worship Thee.

            Or (not often, perhaps, for dimness seems to be more wholesome for us here, but sometimes, because our Lord is very merciful) it is given to us to look up through the blue air and see the love of God.  And yet, after all, how little we see!  “That ye may be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” – the words are too great for us.  What do we comprehend, what do we know?  Confounded and abased, we enter into the Rock and hide us in the dust before the glory of the Majesty of love – the love whose symbol is the Cross.

            And a question pierces then:  What do I know of Calvary love?

PART II

            If I have not compassion on my fellow-servant even as my Lord had pity on me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “Who made thee to differ? And what has thou that thou hast not received?”  then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I can easily discuss the shortcomings and the sins of any; if I can speak in a casual way even of a child’s misdoings, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I find myself half-carelessly taking lapses for granted, “Oh, that’s what they always do,”  “Oh, of course she talks like that, he acts like that,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I enjoy a joke at the expense of another; if I can in any way slight another in conversation, or even in thought, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I can write an unkind letter, speak an unkind work, think an unkind thought without grief and shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I do not feel far more for the grieved Saviour than for my worried self when troublesome things occur, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I know little of His pitifulness (the Lord turned and looked upon Peter), if I know little of His courage of hopefulness for the truly humble and penitent (“He saith unto him, Feed My Lambs”), then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I deal with wrong for any other reason than that implied in the words, “From His right hand went a fiery law for them.  Yea, He loved the people”; if I can rebuke without a pang, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If, in dealing with one who does not respond, I weary of the strain, and slip from under the burden, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cannot bear to be like the father who did not soften the rigors of the far country; if, in this sense, I refuse to allow the law of God (the way of transgressors is hard) to take effect, because of the distress it causes me to see that law in operation, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I am perturbed by the reproach and misunderstanding that may follow action taken for the good of souls for whom I must give account; if I cannot commit the matter and go on in peace and in silence, remembering Gethsemane and the Cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cannot catch “the sound of noise of rain”* long before the rain falls, and, going to some hilltop of the spirit, as near to my God as I can, have not faith to wait there with my face between my knees, though six times or sixty times I am told “there is nothing,” till at last “there arises a little cloud out of the sea,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

*1Kings 18:41

            If my attitude be one of fear, not faith, about one who has disappointed me; if I say, “Just what I expected,” if a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I do not look with eyes of hope on all in whom there is even a faint beginning, as our Lord did, when, just after His disciples had wrangled about which of them should be accounted the greatest, He softened His rebuke with those heart-melting words, “Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I cast up a confessed, repented, and forsaken sin against another, and allow my remembrance of that sin to color my thinking and feed my suspicions, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I have not the patience of my Saviour with souls who grow slowly; if I know little of travail (a sharp and painful thing) till Christ be fully formed in them, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I sympathize weakly with weakness, and say to one who is turning back from the Cross, “Pity thyself”; if I refuse such a one the sympathy that braces and the brave and heartening word of comradeship, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I cannot keep silence over a disappointing soul (unless for the sake of that soul’s good or for the good of others it be necessary to speak), then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I can hurt another by speaking faithfully without much preparation of spirit, and without hurting myself far more than I hurt that other, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I am afraid to speak the truth, lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, “You do not understand,” or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other’s highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying “Peace, peace,” where is no peace; if I forget the poignant word “Let love be without dissimulation” and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I fear to hold another to the highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

           

            If I hold on to choices of any  kind, just because they are my choice; if I give any room to my private likes and dislikes, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I put my own happiness before the well-being of the work entrusted to me; if, though I have this ministry and have received much mercy, I faint, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I am soft to myself and slide comfortably into the vice of self-pity and self-sympathy; if I do not by the grace of God practice fortitude, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I myself dominate myself, if my thoughts revolve round myself; if I am so occupied with myself I rarely have “a heart at leisure from itself,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            IF, the moment I am conscious of the shadow of self crossing my threshold, I do not shut the door, and in the power of Him who works in us to will and to do, keep that door shut, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

           

If, when I am able to discover something which has baffled others, I forget Him who revealeth the deep and secret things, and knoweth what is in the darkness and showeth it to us; if I forget that it was He who granted that ray of light to His most unworthy servant, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I cannot be at rest under the Unexplained, forgetting the word, “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me:’ of if I can allow the least shadow of misunderstanding, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I do not give a friend “the benefit of the doubt,” but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I take offense easily, if I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, then I know nothing of Calvary love.*

            *For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water

however suddenly jolted.

            If I feel injured when another lays to my charge things that I know not, forgetting that my Sinless Saviour trod this path to the end, then I  know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I feel bitterly towards those who condemn me, as it seems to me, unjustly, forgetting that if they knew me as I know myself they would condemn me much more, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I say, “Yes, I forgive, but I cannot forget,” as though the God who twice day washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world, could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If one whose help I greatly need appears to be as content to build in wood, hay, stubble, as in gold, silver, precious stones, and I hesitate to obey my light and do without that help because so few will understand, then, I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If the care of a soul (or a community) be entrusted to me, and I consent to subject it to weakening influences, because the voice of the world – my immediate Christian world – fills my ears, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider “not spiritual work” I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If monotony tries me, and I cannot stand drudgery; if stupid people fret me and little ruffles set me on edge; if I make much of the trifles of life, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I am inconsiderate about the comfort of others, or their feelings, or even of their little weaknesses; if I am careless about their little hurts and miss opportunities to smooth their way; if I make the sweet running of household wheels more difficult to accomplish, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If interruptions annoy me, and private cares make me impatient; if I shadow the souls about me because I myself am shadowed, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If there be any reserve in my giving to Him who so loved that He gave His Dearest for me; if there be a secret “but” in my prayer, “anything but that, Lord,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I become entangled in any “inordinate affection”; if things or places or people hold me back from obedience to my Lord, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If something I am asked to do for another feels burdensome; if, yielding to an inward unwillingness, I avoid doing it, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If the praise of man elates me and his blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I crave hungrily to be used to show the way to liberty to a soul in bondage, instead of caring only that it is be delivered; if I nurse my disappointment when I fail, instead of asking that to another the word of release may be given, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I want to be known as the doer of something that has proved the right thing, or as the one who suggested that it should be done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I do not forget about such a trifle as personal success, so that it never crosses my mind, or if it does, is never given a moment’s room there; if the cup of spiritual flattery tastes sweet to me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If it be not simple and a natural thing to say, “Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            IF in the fellowship of service I seek to attach a friend to myself, so that others are caused to feel unwanted; if my friendships do not draw others deeper in, but are ungenerous (to myself, for myself), then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I refuse to allow one who is dear to me to suffer for the sake of Christ, if I do not see such suffering as the greatest honor that can be offered to any follower of the Crucified, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I slip into the place that can be filled by Christ alone, making myself the first necessity to a soul instead of leading it to fasten upon Him, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If my interest in the work of others is cool; if I think in terms of my own special work; if the burdens of others are not my burdens too, and their joys mine, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If, when an answer I did not expect comes to a prayer which I believed I truly meant, I shrink back from it; if the burden my Lord asks me to bear be not the burden of my heart’s choice, and I fret inwardly and do not welcome His will, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

           

            If I avoid being “ploughed under,” with all that such ploughing entails of rough handling, isolation, uncongenial situations, strange tests, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I wonder why something trying is allowed, and press for prayer that it may be removed; if I cannot be trusted with any disappointment, and cannot go on in peace under any mystery, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I make much of anything appointed, magnify it secretly to myself or insidiously to others; if I let them think it “hard,” if I look back longingly upon what used to be, and linger among the byways of memory, so that my power to help is weakened, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If the love that “alone maketh light of every heavy thing, and beareth evenly every uneven thing” is not my heart’s desire, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I refuse to be a corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies (“is separated from all in which it lived before”), then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I ask to be delivered from trial rather than for deliverance out of it, to the praise of His glory; if I forget that the way of the Cross leads to the Cross and not to a bank of flowers; if I regulate my life on these lines, or even unconsciously my thinking, so that I am surprised when the way is rough, and think it strange, though the word is, “Think it not strange,” “Count it all joy,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            If I covet any place on earth but the dust at the foot of the Cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

            That which I know not, teach Thou me, O lord, my God.

PART III

1

            I have felt these words scorching to write, but it is borne upon me that, in spite of all our hymns and prayers ( so many of them for love), it is possible to be content with the shallows of love, if indeed such shallows should be called love at all.

            (Perhaps prayer often needs to be followed by a little pause, that we may have time to open our hearts to that for which we have prayed.  We often rush from prayer to prayer without waiting for the word within, which says, “I have heard you, My child.”)

            The more we ponder our Lord’s words about love, and the burning words the Spirit gave to His followers to write, the more acutely do we feel our deadly lack.

            The Searchlight of the Spirit exposes us to ourselves, and such a discovery leaves us appalled.  How can even He who is the God of all patience have patience with us?  Like Job we abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes.

            But the light is not turned upon us to rob us of our hope.  There is a lifting up.  If only we desire to be purged from self with its entangling nets, its subtleties, its disguises (falsehoods truly), its facile showing of brass for gold, as the Tamil says; if, hating unlove from the ground of the heart, we cry to be delivered, then our God will be to us a God of deliverances.

           

2

            No vision of the night can show, no word declare, with what longings of love Divine love waits till the heart, all weary and sick of itself, turns to its lord and says, “Take full possession.”  There is no need to plead that the love of God shall fill our heart as though He were unwilling to fill us:  He is willing as light is willing to flood a room that is opened to its brightness; willing as water is willing to flow into an emptied channel.  Love is pressing round us on all sides like air.  Cease to resist, and instantly love takes possession.  As the 15^th century poem Quia amore langues says,

            Long and love thou never so high,

            My love is more than thine may be.

More, far more.  For as His abundance of pardon passes our power to tell it, so does His abundance of love:  it is far as the East is from the West, as high as the heaven is above the earth.  But words fail.  Love soars above them all.

            To look at ourselves leads to despair.  Thank God, the Blood cleanseth.

If thou be foul, I shall make thee clean,

            If thou be sick, I shall heal thee,

            Foundest thou ever love so real?

Never, Lord, never.

3

            Sometimes, when we are distressed by past failure and tormented by fear of failure in the future should we again set our faces toward Jerusalem, nothing helps so much as to give some familiar scripture time to enter into us and become part of our being.  The words “Grace for grace” have been a help to me since I read in a little old book of Bishop Moule’s something that opened their meaning.  (Till then I had not understood them.)

            He says “for” means simply instead:  “The image is of a perpetual succession of supply; a displacement ever going on; ceaseless changes of need and demand.

            “The picture before us is as of a river.  Stand on its banks, and contemplate the flow of waters.  A minutes passes, and another.  Is it the same stream still?  Yes.  But is it the same water?  No.  The liquid mass that passed you a few seconds ago fills now another section of the channel; new water has displaced it, or if you please replaced it;  water instead of water. And so hour by hour, and year by year, and century by century, the process holds; one stream, other waters, living, not stagnant, because always in the great identity there is perpetual exchange.  Grace takes the place of grace (and love takes the place of love); ever new, ever old, ever the same, ever fresh and young, for hour by hour, for year by year, through Christ.”

4

            There is no force strong enough to hold us together as a company, and animate all our doings, but his one force of Love; and so there is a constant attack upon the love without which we are sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.

            That explains why every now and then those who want to live the life of love seem to be constrained to seek the searchings and the cleansing of the Spirit of God, first (it has happened so) in the secret of our own hearts, and then together; and we know how graciously God has answered us, so that, though our word must always be, “not as though I had already attained,” we do, by His enabling, press onward.

            There is another reason why the adversary attacks love.  It is this:

            Far out on our uttermost rim a thing may occur which is the reflection , so to speak, of something that was nourished in the heart of one who is in the very center.  I have often known it to be so.  Perhaps, it was never expressed in act or word, the eye did not see it, the ear did not hear it.  But spiritual influences move where sight and hearing have no place; and unlove in any one of us, or even an absence of the quality of love of which we have been thinking, is enough to cause the slow stain to spread till it reaches some soul in a moment of its weakness.  And irreparable harm may result.

            O Lord, forgive:  Thy property is always to have mercy.  Give me the comfort of Thy help again.  Let it be Thy pleasure to deliver me, O Lord my God.

5

            The way of love is never the easy way.  If our hearts be set on walking in that way we must be prepared to suffer.  “It was the way the Master went; should not the servant tread it still?”  It is possible that we may be enclosed in circumstances which drain natural love, till we feel as dry as grass on an Indian hillside under a burning sun.

            We have toiled for someone dear to us, but never knew it as toil.  We have poured out stores of health never to be recovered, but did not know it, nor would we have cared if we had known it, so dearly did we love.  And all our hope was that the one so cherished would become a minister to others.  But it was not so.

            And then unwillingly we become aware of a strange unresponsiveness in the one for whom nothing had seemed too much to do, of a coldness that chilled, a hardness that pushed away as with hard hands the heart that had almost broken to save that life from destruction.

            Then (but only those who have gone through such a bereft hour will understand) a fear worse than any pain has us in its grip:  is the love of the years slipping from us?  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” – is that fading from our memory?  “Love never faileth” – is love failing now?  Shall we find ourselves meeting lovelessness with lovelessness?

            In such an hour a poem, now many years old, that expressed a desperate prayer, burned into words:

                        Deep unto deep, O Lord,

                                    Crieth in me,

                        Gathering strength, I come,

                                    Lord, unto Thee.

                        Jesus of Calvary,

                                    Smitten for me,

                        Ask what Thou wilt, but give

                                    Love to me.

Yes, ask what Thou wilt, any hopes any joys of human affection, any rewards of love, but let not love depart.  Nothing ordinary is equal to this new call; nothing in me suffices for this.  O Lord of Love and Lord of Pain, abound in me in love: Love through me, Love of God.

6

            Our dear Lord listens to the prayer that goes not out of feigned lips, and it is written for our comfort that he causes those who love Him to inherit substance, the wonderful “substance” that is “grace instead of grace,” the perpetual gift of His fullness.  This grace is no mere “impersonal substance,” but God working in us, the Lord in action in our very springs of thought and will.  God is Love; so, for us, Love is this blessed “Substance” that the children of the Father are caused to inherit.

            It is the river’s word again.  The empty river-bed “inherits” the water that pours through it from the heights; it does not create that water, it only receives it, and its treasuries are filled, its pools overflow for the blessing and refreshment of the land.  It is so with us; our treasuries of time, our years with all their months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, are filled with the flowing treasure of love that we may help others.  Who could have thought of such joy for us but He whose name is Love?  Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory.

7

            Let us end on a very simple note: Let us listen to simple words; our Lord speak simply:  “Trust Me, My child,”  He says. “Trust Me with a humbler heart and a fuller abandon to My will than ever thou didst before.  Trust Me to pour My love through thee, as minute succeeds minute.  And if thou shouldst be conscious of anything hindering that flow, do not hurt My love by going away from Me in discouragement, for nothing can hurt so much as that.  Draw all the closer to Me; come, flee unto Me to hide thee, even from thyself.  Tell Me about the trouble.  Trust Me to turn My hand upon thee and thoroughly to remove the boulder that has choked they river-bed, and take away all the sand that has silted up the channel.  I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.  I will perfect that which concerneth thee. Fear thou not, O child of My love; fear not.”

            And now…to gather all in one page:

            Beloved, let us love.

            Lord, what is love?

            Love is that which inspired My life, and led Me to My Cross, and held Me on My Cross.  Love is that which will make it thy joy to lay down thy life for thy brethren.

            Lord, evermore give me this love.

            Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after love, for they shall be filled.