“Wisdom is the skill in making moral, ethical and spiritual decisions consistent with God’s Word and will.” ( p.775 of The Daily Walk Bible NIV Bruce H. Wilkinson Executive Editor Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Wheaton, Illinois 1997).
“And if a man or a woman, boy or girl, can take the raw materials of life and shape them skillfully according to the blueprint God has provided in his Word, we say that that person is wise. It has nothing to do with IQ and everything to do with obedience. You can be wise with an IQ of 70; you can be a fool with an IQ of 170. The choice is up to you.” ( p.779 of The Daily Walk Bible NIV Bruce H. Wilkinson Executive Editor Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Wheaton, Illinois 1997)

When everything we receive from him is received and prized as fruit and pledge of his covenant love, then his bounties, instead of being set up as rivals and idols to draw our heart from him, awaken us to fresh exercises of gratitude and furnish us with fresh motives of cheerful obedience every hour.

…John Newton (1725-1807)

If the [Incarnation] happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth葉he very thing that the whole story has been about. Since it happened only once, it is by Hume’s standards infinitely improbable. But then, the whole history of the Earth has also happened only once: is it therefore incredible? Hence the difficulty, which weighs upon Christian and atheist alike, of estimating the probability of the Incarnation. It is like asking whether the existence of nature herself is intrinsically probable. That is why it is easier to argue, on historical grounds, that the Incarnation actually occurred than to show, on philosophical grounds, the probability of its occurrence.

… C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Miracles [1947]

Prayer and action, therefore, can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows in powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do indeed lead us to a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering Christ.

…Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996), Compassion [1982]

Every time we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit,’ we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.

… J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Plain Christianity [1954]

Inward rest… gives an air of leisure to [Christ’s] crowded life: above all, there is in this Man a secret and a power of dealing with the waste-products of life, the waste of pain, disappointment, enmity, death — turning to divine uses the abuses of man, transforming arid places of pain to fruitfulness, triumphing at last in death, and making a short life of thirty years or so, abruptly cut off, to be a “finished” life. We cannot admire the poise and beauty of this human life, and then ignore the things that made it.

… A. E. Whitham (1879-1938), The Discipline and Culture of the Spiritual Life [1938]

The one use of the Bible is to make us look at Jesus, that through Him we might know His Father and our Father, His God and our God. Till we thus know Him, let us hold the Bible dear as the moon of our darkness, by which we travel toward the east; not dear as the sun whence her light cometh, and towards which we haste, that, walking in the sun himself, we may no more need the mirror that reflected his absent brightness.

…George Macdonald (1824-1905), “The Higher Faith”, Unspoken Sermons [1867]

The first article of Christian faith is that man has one and only one true object of worship. There is one Holy God, creator of heaven and earth. He is Lord of all life. To Him we are beholden for our life in all its meaning and its hope. Monotheism for the Christian means that anything else which is put in the place of our loyalty to God is an idol. The worship of national power, or racial prestige, or financial success, or cultural tradition, is a violation of the one truth about life, that all created things come from God. To commit life to the one true God is to refuse to have any other gods at all. Values there are in abundance, interests, plans, programs, loyalties to family and nation. But these are not gods; they do not save us; they are not holy in themselves.

…Daniel Day Williams (1910-1973),Interpreting Theology, 1918-1952 [1953]

Meditation:

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

…Matthew 6:14,15 (KJV)

Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you — out of love — takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.

…Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961), Markings
[With thanks to Bill Blake at pilgrimwb@aol.com]