Among the Watering Places with Liz

"...The material world is intended to enhance human life.      "It is also the realm or the place where we are to develop our spirit under God.  One of the main functions of matter is to mediate the presence of an infinite God to finite minds.  The Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle were divinely appointed arrangements so that God could be with human beings without destroying them.  The same is true of the coming of the Messiah as a babe in a manger.  These material realities are all graciously designed to allow for the necessary space between us and God.  In this way God can come to us and we, in turn, can come to God.  Divine realities are thus mediated to us through the finite realities of our personal histories, our social experiences, our physical bodies." Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water , p. 216 For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him might have everlasting life. John 3:16 ...

Agape is one of four Koine Greek words translated as 'love'.  Many years ago I read this challenging definition of the agape brand of God-love: the expending of energy for the benefit of another without concern for the cost to self. Pause and think deeply on that in the face of the babe given as a gift to the world, whose coming we celebrate at Christmas.

As a young vine needs a trellis to lean on, so the young believer needs specific and prescribed and external routine duties in order to bring the soul to the habits of grace. George Watson, "Coals of Fire," 1886, p. 89. My beautiful trumpet vine, 2012  

"The life of Jesus lived out in the life of His people ~ that is what perfect moral righteousness is.  It is a life of integrity.  It is a life governed by truth and honesty.  It is a life committed to godliness.  It is a life set free from selfish ambitions and vested interests.  It is a life liberated from the defilement of self-righteousness." ~ Ivor Hopkins ~ That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. 2 Cor 4:10 

"Nothing in God's Word impresses me more than the fact that God seeks men and women to whom He can say, "I am going to do certain things in you. I am going to prepare you for it, and I'm going to send you forth, and I'm going to expect you to work My works." God sends men out to do His work for Him and He expects them to do it. It is God's work, and it must be done in God's power - but it is man who must do it. Early in my Christian experience God showed me that, and the Holy Spirit laid it on my heart to try to find out how a poor sinner saved by grace was to work the works of God. The Lord is looking for men and women who will learn the secret of getting and using the equipment He has given - who know how to bring the Holy Ghost on the scene so that they can go forth and work the works of God. The world can be evangelized when God finds men and women like that. God is looking for workers who have cast their own burdens upon the Lord and have ta...

Another book I've been reading - but this one chewing it off in little pieces because the content is so personally challenging. Scott Bessenecker writes in The New Friars: The Emerging Movement Serving the World’s Poor (Downers Grove IL: IVP) not only about the grass roots modern movement, one that is not orchestrated by the institutional church , but reflects back on the examples of those saints from the monastic tradition - Franciss and Clare of Assisi, Patrick and Brigid or Ireland, the Moravians, etc. In the "Incarnational" chapter, the motivating force is the pursuit of Jesus' example in which he descended into humanity - to BE the Gospel! “But incarnation is not easy. For Faye, the glamour of a life of service among the poor, if there is such a thing, was short-lived. Her early journals betray a period of testing and complaining. Being constantly dirty, having legs peppered with bug bites, the heat, the difficulty of life without modern conveniences-all of t...

I was so delighted to read this: Charlotte Bronte once saw Queen Victoria when they happened both to be in Brussels. The author was already well known by then but the Queen passed her unknowing. CB wrote of HRH as "A little, stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed - not much dignity or pretension about her" ( Queen Victoria , Lytton Strachey, 107). I have long been dismayed by my own figure and demeanor and found this observation about a real queen most heartening!