Thomas Merton said: “The importance of detachment from things, the importance of poverty, is that we are supposed to be free from things that we might prefer to people. Wherever things have become more important than people, we are in trouble. That is the crux of the whole matter.”
1. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.” 2. “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.” 3. “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking…
Have you not heard that there is a hedge of protection around you that the enemy cannot cross? Of course, yes, whatever the enemy meant for your harm, God assuredly, destined surely to work to your advantage! That’s the assurance, the guarantee that God has a hedge of protection around you! Means, all Glory to our God in the highest heaven! Therefore, no matter what… Speak blessing at all times: over your children, speak blessings; pray for the manifestation of…
Adam Nicolson said: “The Sussex Weald, whose beauty consists in its having been handmade, still bears the memory in its bones as a place of deep poverty and hard labor. Try digging a posthole in the clay or even burying a pet or a dead lamb in the corner of a field. You soon know how intractable the land is: the deep Wealden lanes were mostly impassable all winter or would have needed a team of oxen to drag a…
1. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” 2. “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” 3. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice.” 4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds; until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive,…
Have you not heard that the Angel of Joy is holier than the Angel of Pain? Yes, the torment of affliction and of yearning, which can regularly be felt even actually, should be there, and we can’t and need not talk it away. In any case, it should be defeated without fail, and along these lines, there is a much holier holy messenger than the one of agony; that is, the one of happiness in God. Meaning, Joy defeats pain…
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “The poet Stifter once said, “Pain is a holy angel, who shows treasures to people which would otherwise remain forever hidden; through him, people have become greater than through all the joys of the world.” It must be so, and I tell myself this in my present situation over and over again. The pain of suffering and of longing, which can often be felt even physically, must be there, and we cannot and need not talk it…
1. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” 2. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” 3. “I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon them.” 4 Repay…
Friends, we may not like it, but we should not ignore it. John 3:36 tells us that this wrath ‘abideth’. We should not expect it to fade away with time. The wrath of God abides: It abides in this world because sin’s evil abides until the wrong of it is perfectly satisfied. It stakes into the next term because those who reject Jesus Christ cannot offer a perfect sacrifice acceptable to God. The wrath of God abides until the perfect payment Jesus made on the…
Cynthia R. Wallace said: “If we’re honest with ourselves, many of us are very, very tired. After more than a year of ups and downs, all of it has again begun to feel like too much. Some start to speak of the pandemic in the past tense. Still, in Canada, where I live, as in Brazil and India and parts of the United States, new Covid variants fuel exponential infection. At the same time, vaccine supplies follow lines of global…