Our Teacher Pt. 2

But we have no need to climb up to heaven on our own. The triune God has come down to earth for us. His Son has become incarnate for us, embodied for us embodied creatures. He is now available to us through His Word. The Sacred Scriptures not only teach us about eternal life but also bestow it. We also have "the real teacher of the Scriptures," the Holy Spirit, who uses the Scriptures to teach us the things of God.

Grace Upon Grace; p. 16-17

Prayer, Meditation and Temptation

Luther proposed and evangelical pattern of spirituality as reception rather than self-promotion. This involves three things: prayer, meditation, and temptation. All three revolve around ongoing, faithful attention to God's Word. The order of the list is significant, for unlike that traditional pattern of devotion, the spiritual life begins and ends here on earth. These three terms describe the life of faith as a cycle that begins with prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit, concentrates on the reception of the Holy Spirit through meditation on God's Word, and results in spiritual attack. This, in turn, leads a person back to further prayer and intensified meditation. Luther, therefore, does not envisage the spiritual life as a process of self-development, but as a process of reception from the triune God. This process of reception turns proud, self-sufficient individuals into humble beggars before God.

Grace Upon Grace: p. 16

Our Teacher pt.1

Christian spirituality presupposes that we have been given the gift of eternal life and enjoy it now here on earth. No human teacher can teach us about that because no human teacher can give us eternal life. Nor can we gain eternal life for ourselves merely be reflecting on our experience of God, or even by interpreting the Scriptures in the light of our personal experience. In fact, if we attempt to gain eternal life with God through rational speculation and spiritual self-development, we will commit spiritual suicide. Those who use their reason and intellect to make a ladder for their devotional assent into heaven will, like Lucifer, plunge themselves into hell instead.
Grace upon Grace: p. 16

Jonathan Edwards: Holy Affection

If we are not earnest in our religion, and if our wills and inclinations are not strongly exercised, we are nothing. The importance of religion is so great that no halfhearted exercise will suffice. In nothing is the state of our heart so crucial as in religion, and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious.

True religion is a powerful thing. The power of it appears, first, in the inward exercises of the heart (which is the seat of all religion). Therefore, true religion is called "the power of godliness," in contrast to the external appearances of it i.e., the mere "form":"Having the form of godliness but denying the power of it" (2 Tim. 3:5). The Spirit of God is a spirit of powerful holy affection in the lives of those who have a sound and solid religion. This is why it is written that God has given his people the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7).

When we receive the Spirit of God, we receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost who is like "fire," and along with it the sanctifying and saving influences of God. When this happens, when grace is at work within us, it sometimes "burns" within us, as it was for Jesus' disciples (Luke 24:32).

Devotional Classics: pp. 19-20

Called to Co-create

God created, and it was joy: time, space, matter. There is, and we are part of that is-ness, part of that becoming. That is our calling: co-creation. Every single one of us, without exception, is called to co-create with God. No one is too unimportant to have a share in the making or unmaking of the final showing-forth. Everything that we do either draws the Kingdom of love closer, or pushes it further off. That is a fearful responsibility, but when God made "man in our image, male and female," responsibility went with it. Too often we want to let somebody else do it, the preacher, or the teacher, or the government agency. But if we are to continue to grow in God's image, then we have to accept the responsibility.

God's image! How much of God may be seen in me, may I see in others? Try as we may, we cannot hide it completely.

Glimpses of Grace: Madeline L'Engle; Jan. 15; pp. 12-13

Dallas Willard on the costs of nondiscipleship

Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10).  -- Dallas Willard

Devotional Classics: p. 16

A Glimpse of Glory

Madeleine L'Engle wrote the following to give an example of an experience she calls an "intimation" of a life beyond this one.
  Josephine and I began to sing to the little girls, trying to lull them to sleep, taking turns in singing the old nursery and folk songs, many of which had come to us from my mother.
  Then suddenly, the world unfolded, and I moved into an indescribable place of many dimensions where colors were more brilliant and more varied than those of the everyday world.  The unfolding continued; everything deepened and opened, and I glimpsed relationships in which the truth of love was fully revealed.
   It was ineffably glorious, and then it became frightening because I knew that unless I returned to the self which was still singing to the sleeping baby it would be -- at the least -- madness, and for Josephine and Alan's sake I had to come back from the radiance...
   Was this no more than a hallucination caused by fatigue and hunger? That may have been part of it, but only a part. I offer no explanation for this vision of something far more beautiful and strange than any of the great beauties I have seen on earth. I only know that it happened to me, and I am grateful.
Glimpses of Grace: January 8, pp. 7-8

Where does Spirituality come from?

However, spiritual life does not come to us haphazardly. The Holy Spirit -- and the life the Holy Spirit brings -- is available to us only in Christ. And He gives this life to us through His Word and through faith in His Word. This means that our spirituality does not come from having spiritual powers or from our spiritual self-development but depends on our faith in Him. Because we are joined to Christ we continually receive our life from Him.
John W. Kleinig: Grace Upon Grace; pp. 10-11

Starting out in 2012 : The New Devotionals

This year I'm putting away Buechner and replacing him with Madeline L'Engle's Glimpses of Grace.  Near to the Heart of God is being replaced by Devotional Classics by Richard Foster. C.S. Lewis' Business of Heaven is being switched with Promises to Keep, a compilation by Nick Harrison.  Finally, I want to re-read Grace Upon Grace by John W. Kleinig, one of the best books on practical spirituality I've ever read.

I kind of like what I wrote on my facebook page for New Year's Eve: 

Wishing everyone a blessed new year. May we all be faithful, grateful, joyful and helpful; Understanding, honest and kind; Happy 2012.