Devotional Classics Unit One Chapter Four

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Devotional Classics

Frances de Sales

One True Devotion

     Frances de Sales was born in 1567 to a noble family in the Castle of Sales.  He attended Jesuit school and learned the classics, Hebrew, Greek, and a life of discipline.  After training in the law and the humanities he was ordained a priest in 1591.  He soon became the Bishop of Geneva.  He was a prolific writer combining spiritual depth and ethical concern which makes him distinctive as a leader of the church.  His use of metaphorical descriptions of common nature to unveil spiritual truth led many to consider him one of the "doctors of the western church".

Smith and Foster selected his Introduction to the Devout Life to inspire us in our search for true devotion.

The topics of this excerpt are:

1. Only One True Devotion
2. Phantoms of Devotion
3. Spiritual Agility
4. The Fire of Charity
5. The World Distorts Holy Devotion
6. They Change It Into Honey
7. Spiritual Sugar
8. Various Degrees of Charity
9. Angelic Hearts
10. The Scent of Sweetness
11. Every Vocation Dipped in Honey
12. Someone to Lead You

     Today's scripture reading is found in Romans 13:8-10, which is titled in my HCSB: 

     Love Our Primary Duty 

and reads 

Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.   The commandments

You shall not commit adultery,

you shall not murder,

you shall not steal,

you shall not covet,  

and if there is any other commandment--all are summed up by this:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.  Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.   

     Investigating my devotional life I find that I love reading scripture, and some writers of commentary, theology and sermons.  I do this early in my day while sitting alone and quiet.  I try to always give thanks before a meal, and enjoy involving myself in prayer groups.  One of my favorite avocations is preparing and teaching Bible Studies.  I also attend worship service and Bible Study.  One thing I think I more than most enjoy is discussing the nuances of God's word, how that affects my life and the lives of others and whether we are realizing as much of what the word has for us or are we limiting God's power by selective hearing.

    

     One of my more egregious lack of devotions is the one where I head out and think, 'I wonder who God would have me relate His love to today...", and find myself focusing largely on the task at hand so that I might return home and continue some chore I have planned.

     One of the metaphors de Sales uses to describe the phases of our devotion is the flight or lack thereof of three birds.  the ostrich of course does not fly and so is used to analogize the new christian, or one who is still struggling with unanswered questions of duty and responsibility, one who is focused primarily with everyday life.  The hen describes one who has begun to find answers and to occasionally discover that God is attainable by correct focus.  The eagle, dove and swallow then represent those who have been able to time and again respond to God's word in a positive manner with a positive attitude and realize the positive aspects of a life devoted  to God.  

     I find myself living mostly as a clumsy hen, and sometimes, though less frequently as I go along, hide my head in the sand, neglecting the very thing which I would find is necessary for me to experience the Spirit filled life.  I have, and yearn to do so more often, been swept away in a fervor for God that can best be described as soaring the heights.

     Oftentimes a non-believer sees a devout person talking the talk and walking the walk, and figures there goes a fool or someone with a guilt to work off or hypocrite with a hidden agenda.  What the non-believer does not see is the common factors both he and the devout person have in their daily life along with the gentle encouragement and sustenance of the Holy Spirit.  The rationale of the world is 'me first' and whatever is left over might be available to go to some other poor sap.  What is definitely missed by the non-believer is the strengthening and divine blessing which a devout person experiences in the sacrifice of devotion to God, His purpose and will and glorification.

     Religious devotion can be harmful if the divinity to which one is devoted is a false sum, self absorbed, man defined entity rather than the true premise which is a loving, exacting, yet forgiving God.  When religious devotion is focused on love, joy, peace,  patience, goodness, kindness, perseverance, gentleness and self control, then God becomes manifest and fulfilling and thereby edified and glorified in the devout persons life.

     Prayer, Bible reading, solitude, evangelism, fellowship, service, worship:  all work together to strengthen my faith and witness to others that God is faithful and worshipful. 

     I will work to be better at responding to God in a positive way.

     I will look for and make opportunities to be kind to a neighbor.

     I will utilize my accountability partner to the best of our abilities.

     I will share the joy of devotion with those who do not know God with the intent of dispelling the idea that 'churchies' are sour pusses, and mean.

     Richard Foster explains that if we will learn that love means doing good to all people.  If we have true devotion  then we will burn in our hearts for that relationship with God that is most satisfying and strengthens us to serve even unkind and mean spirited people.

    

Devotional Classics Unit 1: Chapter 3

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Devotional Classics
Preparing for the Spiritual Life Jonathan Edwards
Engagement of the Heart

     Edwards was born in Connecticut in1703 and died in 1758.  A Congregationalist, he was key to the Great Awakening in America.  He was educated at Yale and pastor at a church for twenty three years.  He was missionary to the Indians at Stockbridge until he was named president of Princeton Universtiy in 1758.  Edwards, the Father of Liberalism, embraced egalitarianism, fair play and Divine intent.  He believed the Christian experience was a gift of God and spent his time and effort working out how we define that experience and discern the Holy Spirit.  A central them throughout his writings revealed his thought that religious "affections"  were the passions by which we are motivated to act.

 

     This devotion is an excerpt from his Religious Affections.  The topics herein referred are:

1. Engagement of the Heart
2. Holy Affection
3. The Exercising of the Will
4. The Spring of Action
5. A Heart Deeply Affected
6. True Religion
7. Participation in the Blessings
8. A Pleasing and Acceptable Sacrifice
9. Missing from the Lukewarm

The Bible selection this week is Deuteronomy 10:12-22 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you except to fear the Lord your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, and to worship the lord your God with all your heart and all your soul?  Keep the Lord's commands and statutes I am giving you today, for your own good.  The heavens, indeed the highest heavens, belong o the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it.  Yet the Lord was devoted to your fathers and loved them.  He chose their descendants after them--He chose you out of all the peoples, as it is today.  Therefore, circumcise your hearts and don't be stiff-necked any longer.  For the Lord your God is the  God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, showing no partiality and taking no bribe.  He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreign resident, giving him food and clothing.  You also must love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt  You are to fear the Lord your God and worship Him.  Remain faithful to Him and take oaths in His name.  He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome works your eyes have seen.  Your fathers went down to Egypt, seventy people in all. and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.

     The 'spring of our actions', the source of our motivations are our affections, the basic emotions that cause us to act.  They affect us in a way that we are bodily, mentally, emotionally, or soulfully triggered to some sort of action.  These affections put us into such a state that our normal or usual and natural behaviours are affected, changed. 

     When I was just out of high school, I thought to myself, I should go and see if I do not think and feel a bit more like my other grandparents and family, those from a different denomination side of my family.  Well being things as they were I made it halfway and just quit attending church very often(and never attended the other church).  I soon learned that most people you run into out there in the secular world do  not want anything to do with a born again, Bible believing, this is who I am type of person.  Many would rather be left alone, some will even take your conversation and lifestyle as a challenge and try  to steer a person off their stated course, while most of the others have already established a personal relationship with God, and they do not figure they are in need of being spiritually coiffed, manicured and pedicured by someone whom they know very little of their spiritual background.  Those who are congenial to the Christian perspective are few and far between.  All this to say the one who trusts in God and Jesus must have as a part of his daily walk the opportunity to think and call on those he knows are of like mind, belief,  and spirit, else his walk becomes difficult and discouraging to say the least.  So the lesson, here, is that when God affects you to move, you need to go wholeheartedly with what He is leading you to do.  Today, I have set out on somewhat a similar journey, but hopefully am affected enough to go and with my wife find that church home to which we both can belong and enjoy the fellowship of each other's company in a common church where we develop relationships and friendships with people who love and respect us both for what we have to offer and the fact that God has brought us into their company.  I have some confidence in this because my wife remarked that she would like us to find a church to attend, the church I was attending was in one of its better humors, and even the preacher began a sermon about Abram and God's call to him to go to a place He would show him.  So even now we are enjoying each other's company and the followup conversations that go with the exploration of God's word in a Godly place together.

     A few years ago I had started attending once again regularly my original church and joined in some of the ministry and Bible study along with the worship and fellowship.  Suddenly circumstances were such that I felt compelled, affected to act, and I moved to the church where I now am a member.  This was not the easiest thing in the world for me, but the fear, worry, and discomfort I may have felt at the new circumstances were quickly overcome by a renewed sense of purpose, a growing number of new like minded friends and the feeling that I had reacted honestly, truthfully and correctly to God's affect on me through earlier mentioned half followed (by me) leads, emotionally difficult travels to the current church of the time, and those circumstances from completely outside the context of church which became in a sense the last straw.

     It would seem then that the affections of God are those things He requires of us.  Those things He expects of us.  Those things He would have us to do in order to be assured of His will acknowledged and accomplished in our life and usually in such a way as to affect others to the same.  This is the glorification of and submission to God our Father.  According to the scripture reference the requirements, the affections God gives us, that when we resist, ignore, or flat deny we become frustrated even embittered, are to 'fear God', 'walk in His way', 'love Him', and 'be sincere in our efforts of, for and toward Him'; which, if we will do these things then we will be in a better perspective, and mental frame, and condition of heart to receive the good things of God.

     Edwards lists nine affections which Scripture encourages us to experience to ownership.  The Godly  affections are:  holy fear, hope, love, holy desire, joy, religious sorrow, gratitude, compassion, and zeal.   I note in passing Edwards has enumerated the same number as there are Fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-26.   I myself have felt and recognized each of these affections.  Today the most noticeable ones to me in my life are hope, love and gratitude.  I have felt otherwise at other times and would love for a new bout with joy, holy desire, compassion, and zeal. 

     As I look through my days I notice that many times I seem to be motivated by meanness and selfishness such as greed or lust.  On the other hand I am sometimes affected, and joyfully so, by compassion and gratitude.

     One of the  affections of God I would have grow larger and larger in me is Holy Desire.  I say this because I have known on occasion what it means to immediately personally and personally obviously realise God's presence, love and, pleasure with me.  I am sometimes swept up in the modern, or is it post modern, thought that, "I can do absolutely nothing to effect the realization of God's presence".  Which I believe is more intended as a statement of God's hard resistance to a prideful conjurer.  On the other hand, God has always,  and does and will forever respond to the humble, compassionate and sincere request.  This is why I believe it is okay to seek to do God's will.  God's will being love, and to seek to do love cannot be any other than the thing which will reveal God in all His glory.  We will explore this further in the next lesson by Frances de Sales.

     God has done so many things for me it is hard to start a list, but looking to the fruit of the spirit I see a starting place:

When I was alone, He became my friend.

When I was sad, He filled me with joy.

When I was anguished, He gave me peace.

When I was insufferable, He showed me patience.

When I was gruff, He returned to me gentleness.

When I was bad, He was good to me.

When I was doubtful, He showed faith in me.

When I was selfish, He taught me meekness.

When I was wild, proud and rude, He stabilized my foundation.

God has been very good to me.

     I will worship God this week.  I will be in solitude with Him.  I will begin earlier and stay later at my worship of and with Him.  God's power and humility is best summed up in this:  John 18 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)  John 18:1-12

After  Jesus had said these things, He went out with His disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden, and He and His disciples went into it.  Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with His disciples.  So Judas took a company of soldiers and some temple police from the chief priests and the Pharisees and came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing everything that was about to happen to Him,  went out and said to them, "Who is it you're looking for?" "Jesus the Nazarene," they answered.  "I am He,"  Jesus told them.  Judas, who betrayed Him, was also standing with them.  When He told them, "I am He," they stepped back and fell to the ground.  Then He asked them again, "Who is it you're looking for?""Jesus the Nazarene," they said. "I told you I am [He]," Jesus replied. "So if you're looking for Me, let these men go."  This was to fulfill the words He had said: "I have not lost one of those You have given Me." Then Simon  Peter,  who had a sword,  drew it, struck the high priest's  slave, and cut off his right ear. (The slave's name was Malchus.) At that, Jesus said to Peter, "Sheathe your sword! Am I not to drink the cup  the Father has given Me?" Then the company of soldiers, the commander, and the Jewish temple police arrested Jesus and tied Him up.

God is powerful and humble at the same time.  O worship the King, lift up His name with Hossannahs and Hallelujahs!

     Richard Foster's Reflection reminds us that Edwards encourages us to understand that the intellect and passion are friends not enemies.  Tough enough to be tender, delving with the mind the depth of the heart.  Brainy and visceral worship of God.  True objectivity will unveil our passion.  Our spiritual life begs our commitment, and our commitment flows from our affection.

Where are your affections? 

    

    

Devotional Classics Review Unit One Chapter 2

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Devotional Classics

Preparing for the Spiritual Life

Dallas Willard

The Cost of Nondiscipleship

       Willard, a fatherly contemporary of many of today's readers, was born in Buffalo Missouri in 1935.  A career in academics lead him to embrace Husserlian Phenomenology, or systematic reflectiona and analysis of conciousness and the phenomena that derive thereby.  He taught at University of Wisconsin and is presently at the University of Sourthern California.
       He is distinguished as a philosopher and has over thirty publications.  He is a man of great faith and Christian conviction, who by editor R. foster's personal observation is able to share great Gospel truths with ordinary folk in a conversational manner.
       The selection for this weeks devotional comes from an appendix to his book The Spirit of the Disciplines.

Six sections include topics as follows:

1. Discipleship For Super Christians Only
2. Undiscipled Disciples
3. Great Omissions from the Great Commission
4. Discipleship Then
5. Discipleship Now
6. The Cost of Nondiscipleship

       The Bible reading is from Mathew 28:16-20 The Great Commission The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountaiin where Jesus had directed them.  When they saw Him, they worshiped, but some doubted.  Then Jesus came near and said to them, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

       When I was young, and as life would have it, alone for the first time in my life, God saw to it that I had compassionate people in my life to lead me into Bible study in a very loving and patient way so that I remained open to the blessings He had in store for me.  I say I was alone for the first time for I had up to that time had a constant companion in the form of my older brother, Tommy.  He guarded me and taught me and helped nourish me and entertained me, but alas he was taken from me very violently and abruptly via a boating accident.  I was distraught.  I was beside myself.  I was afraid.  I was angry.  I was ready to go where he was, wherever that might be.  I was lost.  My parents were sad and hurt.  My grandparents and my Great Uncle and Aunt  who most conveniently lived right next door, as well as many others, were attentative, ready and willing to respond to my plight with Bible stories and reading on a regular basis.  My aloneness was a little of my own thinking, and eventually I heard and understood that I must at some point allow Jesus to be my Lord and Saviour, at least that is what we called it, and I still do today, if I wanted to leave my angst and fear and dismay behind.        So one day, during a pause while by myself, I asked Jesus to be just that for me, Lord and Saviour.  I then, led by the Spirit, went into the next room and told my grandparents what had just transpired and they told me I should go and tell others about this development in my life.  I protested that we lived out in the country miles from anyone, reminding them how small I was, and that there were no others to tell.  So they pointed out that there might be someone next door at my home whom would like to hear such news.  Immediately it dawned on me that momma would want to know and be glad to hear it!  So scampering as a child of my size would I ran out the front door onto the porch, as I flew down the steps to the yard, not stopping for breath nor sight I was enraptured in the hand of my Saviour on my shoulder, hearing Him say to me those very words, "Lo I am with you alway."

      Today I know many churches are introducing the youngsters of their membership and even older folks, to some of these very principles, Bible Study, Evangelism, Fellowship, Prayer, et al, in classes designed to help the hopeful understand what it is they are asking God to do.  My only contrary thought here is that perhaps the vernacular should be to help them understtand what it is that God has done that they only need to accept and admit in humility, publicly.
   
    It does seem that today we focus a lot, and maybe that is changing, on making people the seed while leaving them on the hard ground or rocky soil or amongst the weeds, without encouraging them directly and obviously, that becoming saved is a matter of following Jesus.  Part of following Jesus is, especially as infants in Christ, finding the best environment for germinating seed, then sprouting into sunlight quickly, growing roots for the encouragement to grow in Christian stature, and responding to the climate and weather of life so that our trunks and stems are strengthened to hold the flower,  and the  pith  and pit of our Lord and Saviour's fruit.  For it can be mighty to signal and save others.  But God has chosen us to be vessels of communication and training for others.  Step on up!  Be Saved!  (Be disciplined!) 

     As I have grown into adulthood, and beginning with those early stories and parables, I have found some whom I admired and would be like if I could.  Of course there were the mighty men of God who stood faithful, oftentimes unflingchingly facing the most incredulous of situations.  Stephen comes to mind, Samson in the end, and David of course.  I have always tried to hear my Lord and respond to his usually gentle message while striving to understand Ephesians 6:10-20 and Galations 5:22-26.  From the pages of more recent history are George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or Winston Churchill and Mahatma Ghandi.  To emulate these I practrice honesty, courage, studiousness, egalitarianism and gentleness. Out of my contemporary life I would have been the next Bob Lilly or Tom Landry and while young and excitable I strove to be physically adept to the most stringent and active and alert bodily edifications.   

     Of course, in all things we must remember who has made us and to whom we return, and what it is He would have us to be and do.  As I alluded to earlier one of the first fruits I realized was abiding peace.  When I have forgotten that most important thing, to remember Jesus, it has cost me:

1. Abiding peace during great tumult
2. Life penetrated by love in a self centered society
3. Faith that sees everything in the light of God's goodness in a duplicitous world
4. Hopefulness in the face of frustration
5. The power to do right and stand firm in the face of evil

     Not having clairvoyance I can only guess that one of the things that might happen in my life today if I were able to completely focus on God and his intents and will and blessings in my life would be a lessening of worry and an increase of enthusiasm as well as the realization that God has the power and energy,  knowledge and wisdom, compassion and patience to accomplish all that He desires.  
 To remedy my frustration, I need to rely on God to heal me into wholesomeness by focusing on and training a yearning for peace, love, faith, hopefulness, power, and abundance of life.

I will love my enemies by praying for them, blessing those who curse me, and walking the second mile with an oppressor.
(this will not be easy!)

I will study the Bible(esp Matthew) to see what all it is that God would have me to be and do in order to be more like the loving forgiving One He is and wants for me to be.

     Richard Foster reflects that without discipline the convert to Christianity is just a member of a social club and is in effect helping rob the church of the nutrients it needs to foster lovingkindness and outreach.  He further states that we must intend to come under the tutelage of Christ and follow through with that intention.  We must live his life, not just mimic it.
Prayer, solitude, simplicity, and service will help us to follow in The Way.

I want to sing, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His marvelous grace."  Sing with me...
   

Devotional Classics Review: Unit One, Chapter One:

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Devotional Classics
Preparing for the Spiritual Life
Introduction


Foster and Smith begin the book, Devotional Classics, with an introductory and preparatory group of eight selections on spiritual development. The authors they have chosen are not given to cliche or the easy road. They know that God is not a god of half measures.

Phrases such as 'true devotion', 'complete surrender', 'a will which is no longer diveded', and 'giving all to Christ' tell us that we are going to be taught the true menaing of devotion to God. We will be taught to love god not only with the mind but with the affections as well. To 'love God for God's sake' with the aim of loving self for God's sake reminds us that love is of God. We will also be enlightened to the necessity of the 'dark night'.

Grace, while free is not cheap. Discipleship costs us everything, but the cost of nondiscipleship is far greater: 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, poe=wer to do what is right and withsatand the forces of evil....'

With one voice these writers, de Sales, Fenelon, Lewis, Edwards, Clairvaux, John of the Cross, and Bonhoeffer unveil the cost of discipleship is far better bargain than the cost of nondiscipleship.

C. S. Lewis

Giving All to Christ

Lewis was born in 1898 in Ireland. He taught meieval literature at Oxford as a Fellow of Magdalen College. At the age of 33 he was in his own words 'surprised by joy' when he became a disciple of Christ. He hung out with J. R. R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings. C. S. Lewis himself wrote The Screwtape Letters, in the 1940's he deliverd many talks on radio concerning topics of Christianity which yielded his book Mere Christianity which is the source of the selection for this devotional.

Topic titles included in this selection are
1. How Much of Myself Must I Give?
2. Two Results
3. Harder and Easier
4. The Most Dangerous Thing
5. The Almost Impossible Thing
6. Listening to that Other Voice
7. The Reason the Church Exists
8. Becoming a Part of the Plan

The Scripture used is from Luke 14:25-33(quoted here from the HCSB)

Now great crowds were traveling with Him. So He turned ansd said to them: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father nad mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, and even his own life--he cannot be My disciple. Whoever coes not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn;t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, after he has laid the foundaation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers wilol begin to make fun of him, saying, "This man started to build and wasn't able to finish."

Or what king, going to war against another king, will not first sit down and decide if he is able with 10,000 to oppose the one who comes against him with 20,000? If not, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

In the same way, therefore, every one of you who doe3s not say good-bye to all his possessions cannot be My disciple.

The most difficult area of my life to give to God, I have found, is letting go of my independence. Especially in a capitalist society we are encouraged to think as independent, responsible members of the human race. Workers who have earned their stripes. This thought plays at the back of my mind as well as in every intention. I find it most difficult to say, "God, it is all yours, and whatever you place in front of me I will thank you for and receive.

If Jesus were to come to me and say, "I want all, not so much your time or money or behaviour--I want you..."I would feel that perhaps He really did not know me that well, or that He must mean when I have time pr am ready to go forward with Him.

Many times I have thought, "Tomorrow is another day and the conditions will be so much better then", only to realize tomorrow is pretty much like today, just a little further down the time line, and gathering a list of undone intentions. The only time I have taken the 'Easy road' and it worked out for the actual ease and betterment of myself and those about me is when I believed that what Jesus wanted, and not that it made 'sense' or seemed like the easy way, was the very thing that needed to be done. Taking that road has very seldom been a road of ease or not frought with some mystery or care, but has always had the effect of growing my faith and trust in God by the knowledge and understanding that God was there and in actuality doing the thing that scared me most, so that His purposes were accomplished.

When I have tried to be morally good for the purpose of personal happiness I have often missed the real happiness(joy) that God has in store for me for being faithful and trusting. The problem with an aim of personal happiness is that some things I have learned make me happy are really very fleeting and can build frustration rather than comfort and joy. Personal happiness often runs at odds with moral behaviour and moral behaviour is very nearly always an on again off again activity muddled by the circumstances and environment in which I might find myself.

Some of the reasons I fear giving myself completely to God are that I want to fit in with the mass of humanity about me. I really want to be understood but not a sore thumb, or a stick in the mud. The area I find most difficult to surrender is that point when after striving to accomplish some 'good' I find that I am rejected, and as a reject then I think rebellion might be the best followup. So submitting to the clear apparency of God's Will when I have, by my own effort, been thwarting that Will, is the most difficult time for me to surrender--I must be victorious or else! I have sometimes been so keen on accomplishment that I do not realize that God is accomplishing His Will all about me. When I finally realize that God is in control I take the burden of that realization and hold onto it so that I might placate my ego with a 'reason' for its bruising. It is when I see that God loves me and wants me in this or that line, in the mentre of His blessings, realizing it is His fruit, fruit that He freely gives to the one who trusts Him, that the burden is relieved.

One of the ways I avoid this frustration is to check myself at the break of day and allow God's Will to override me and follow in the Way.

Richard Foster reflects that we become aware of God's Way as the Super HighWay that it is when we begin to change and transform into that being that He would have us to be, As humans in a world frought with peril and competition and at odds endeavours we naturally become defensive. Walls and shields and isolation become the norm along with hurry and worry and grasping in greed. But when we pause and reflect, studying the One who gave His all that we might become more than we could possibly imagine, then we mysteriously begin to become at first calm , then encouraged, and eventually at peace.

Devotional Classics

Preparing Spiritually

Intro to Devotional Classics from the Renovare Institute

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Devotional Classics

Richard Foster and Bryan Smith

Introduction

Beginning a couple of weeks behind seems to fit my modus operandi, but on we go. Bryan Smith has edited many of the classical devotional writers from antiquity to modern late Twentieth Century. The reasoning for this undertaking is to help the post modern person grasp the continuity and unchanging nature of God. One, by reclaiming the original meaning of the words devotional-'writings that aim at the transformation of the human personality'-and classic-'that many people over a sustained period of time have drawn strength from its insight...'. And then to make available, in one tome the resources of these accepted great theologians and writers for the modern reader to use as a convenient weekly devotional with exercises for individuals and groups and a meditation by Richard Foster in each chapter.

We are to read with the heart, slowly meditatively, without expectation of the cliched, but rather intending the lectio divina. I will not publish the selections in toto(only each chapter's scripture passage in HCSB) but rather attempt to summarize the weeks devotion with my answers to the questions found at the end of each chapter. I hope to give service to the unique character of the book, to the reader of this blogspace, and to myself as I try to utilize, develop and grow the talents God has given me, the resources He has provided me, and the blessing of His love.

The book is divided into seven major sections:

Preparing for the Spiritual Life
The Prayer Filled Life
The Virtuous Life
The Spirit Empowered Life
The Compassionate Life
The Word Centered Life
The Sacramental Life.

The first is a preparatory section with six topical sections following.

The author mentions that he has on occasion modernized the text of the original archaic words and syntax so that modern readers may have an ease and comfort in perusing the writings. He has of course endeavoured to maintain the meaning and message of the origianl author's apparent intent.

He also thanks Lynda Graybeal for her countless hours of prayerful editing of this work to ensure these words from the past might speak to today's reader.