Praise adds nothing to your holiness, nor does blame take anything from it. You are what you are, and you cannot be said to be better than you are in God’s sight. If you consider well what you are within, you will not care what people say about you. They look to appearances but God looks to the heart. They consider the deed but God weighs the motive.

(Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, Book 2, Chapter 6)

Is life comfortable with everything running smoothly? Then this is a time to fall humbly before God in thanksgiving and exercise faith to resist fleshly impulses. If you can “take life easy” life can be easily lost. Read more…

Is life comfortable with everything running smoothly? Then this is a time to fall humbly before God in thanksgiving and exercise faith to resist fleshly impulses. Don’t make the mistake of thinking “the good life” is where it’s at. Read more…

After we moved to the town we now live in God told me that the town was scheduled for a revival. A little later God told me which congregation would be the centre of it. Still later I preached there for some months while they went through the process to find a new minister. Read more…

“How lukewarm and negligent we are! We lose our original fervor very quickly and we even become weary of life from laziness! [Don’t] you, who have seen so many examples of the devout, fall asleep in the pursuit of virtue!” (“The Imitation of Christ”, Thomas a Kempis, translated by Aloysius Croft and Harold Bolton, Book One, Chapter 18).

“I know what you have done, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. But since you are lukewarm and not hot or cold, I’m going to spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16 God’s Word).

Even fine spiritual Followers of the Way can get swept up in the flurry of activity, parties, planning and, whatever at the end of December and to start the new calendar. As the culture-imposed hectic season begins to wind down a worthy exercise would now make sense, to assess why we do what we do the way we do. Read more…