Archive for February, 2017

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” Mark 12:41-44

“How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of Heaven! It is easier to make a hundred poor men sacrifice their lives than it is to induce one rich man to sacrifice his fortune, or even a portion of it, to a cause in which, in his half-hearted fashion, he seems to believe. When I look over the roll of men and women who have given up friends, parents, home prospects, and everything they possess…

I sometimes marvel how it is that they should be so eager to give up all, even life itself, in a cause which has not power enough in it to induce any reasonable number of wealthy men to give to it the mere superfluities and luxuries of their existence. From those to whom much is given much is expected; but, alas, alas, how little is realised! It is still the widow who casts her all into the Lord’s treasury — the wealthy deem it a preposterous suggestion…

I give what I have. If you give what you have the work will be done. If it is not done, and the dark river of wretchedness rolls on, as wide and deep as ever, the consequences will lie at the door of him who holds back.”

William Booth (1829-1912) in In Darkest England and The Way Out (London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1980) 279, 285.

Few Christian authors that I have ever read match the zeal of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. In this work, which I was unaware of, until just recently, he spells out the dark difficulties of England in the late 1800’s and how God’s people were positioned to make a difference. Seriously, you need only scan the table of contents of the digital copy of this book to see his plan.

I read various sections. Best I can summarize them: he sketched practical ideas to help offer “hand ups” and not “hand outs” to those in need, while addressing various forms of corruption that were destroying lives and communities. Booth reminded people that failure to engage when positioned to make a difference would leave them responsible. Doing nothing was not an option.

Booth was moved at how common people would give cheerfully and sacrificially, and yet those who had great wealth, seemed unwilling to exchange even superfluities and luxuries for participation in God’s work. Then in the conclusion of the manuscript I located this profound statement: “the consequences will lie at the door of him who holds back.”

It struck me. The world looks at our outward appearance in giving, but God looks at our hearts. The world celebrates how much we give, but God sees who holds back. The world blames others for the problems around us, but God has situated us, the Church, to share Christ, the solution. What should we do? Let us give to God’s work cheerfully and sacrificially, and hold nothing back!

The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it. Psalm 89:11

“Absolutely essential to insure gifts adequate in amount and prompted by the right spirit is effective instruction from the pulpit on the subject of Christian stewardship and the scriptural habits of giving, especially the habit of systematic and proportionate giving, and giving as unto the Lord and not as unto men.

Such instruction should be supplemented by the use of the most effective printed matter on the subject, and, above all, by actually inducing members of the church to adopt such principles. This latter, perhaps, can best be done by means of another most fruitful method, that of a personal canvass of the entire church membership, to enlist, if possible, some gift from each member.”

John Raleigh Mott in his classic work, The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions (New York: Young People’s Missionary Movement of the United States and Canada, 1910) 141.

John Mott was a catalyst for global missions a century ago. He offers practical insights for effective instruction linked to Christian stewardship and scriptural giving: preach on it, provide printed materials for the people you serve, and personally canvass the homes of church members so that everyone understands and is enlisted to participate. I could not agree more!

This wise counsel applies for every shepherd of a flock (pastor of a church) and every steward of a constituency (administrator of a ministry). Teach your people about biblical and proportionate giving, give them printed materials to help them grasp and apply the teaching, and personally visit them to encourage their participation in the gospel out of what they have.

Do this not because of what you want from them, but because of what you want for them. Tell them that when people don’t participate in God’s work, God does not miss out, people miss out. Remind them that every gift and every giver matter to God. Instruct them that everything belongs to God, and we are merely returning to Him in proportion to His provision.

And exhort them that God cares more about the condition of their hearts than the size of their gifts. He looks not at what we give, so much as what we don’t give and why. Teach these things because you care deeply that they not become slaves to money, but so that they make money their slave as faithful servants of God. Say this lovingly to everyone you serve.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

“Now a gray, ordinary day has begun…but God’s great grace has remained in my soul. I feel I am all God’s; I feel I am His child, I feel I am wholly God’s property. I experience this in a way that can be physically sensed. I am completely at peace about everything…I am continuously united with Him. It seems to me as though Jesus could not be happy without me, nor could I, without Him. Although I understand that, being God, He is happy in Himself and has absolutely no need of any creature, still, His goodness compels Him to give Himself to the creature, and with a generosity which is beyond understanding.”

Helena Kowalska, known widely as Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) and as the Apostle of Divine Mercy, in Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul (Stockbridge: Marian Press, 2005) 89.

My friend and fellow monk, Randy Kipp, introduced me to Kowalska. In reading excerpts of her diary on this Valentine’s day, I was moved by the intimacy of this entry. Though the day was ordinary and gray, God’s grace filled Kowalska with peace. How profound God’s goodness compels Him to give Himself to you and me!

As you express your love to those around you on this special day, pause to tell Jesus how much you love Him and how happy and special He makes you feel. Though His generosity is beyond understanding, thank Him specifically for His grace, His peace, and for helping you grasp a small part of His unfathomable love for you.

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Psalm 126:3

“Act in such a way that all those who come in contact with you will go away joyful. Sow happiness about you because you have received much from God; give then, generously to others. They should take leave of you with their hearts filled with joy, even if they have no more than touched the hem of your garment. Keep well in mind the words I am telling you right now.”

Józef Andrasz (1891-1963) was the spiritual advisor to many, including Faustina Kowalska, known widely as the Apostle of Divine Mercy. Here she quotes Andrasz in Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul (Stockbridge: Marian Press, 2005) 28.

Don’t miss the biblical expression Andrasz recounts. Remember the sick woman who believed that if she only touched the cloak of Jesus in the crowds of people she could be healed (cf. Luke 8:42b-48; Matthew 9:20-22)? Not only did Jesus report that her faith healed her, we see that even a brief contact with our Lord can change a person’s life. Andrasz rightly reminds us that we can have a similar impact on those around us.

If we start each day by receiving from God, we can then, as ambassadors of His love and kindness, go forth joyfully and give generously. Often we start each week with many plans and things to do, but let us not forget that we can bless others in the most brief meetings: at a checkout counter, on a sidewalk, or in a passing conversation. “Sow happiness about you because you have received much from God.”

Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you. Psalm 37:5

“It is here that true abandonment and consecration to God should commence, by our being deeply convinced that all which happens to us moment by moment is the will of God, and therefore all that is necessary to us. This conviction will render us contented with everything, and will make us see the commonest events in God…

Practically it should be a continual loss of our own will in the will of God, a renunciation of all natural inclinations, however good they may appear, in order that we may be left free to choose only as God chooses: we should be indifferent to all things, whether temporal or spiritual, for the body or the soul; leaving the past in forgetfulness, the future to providence, and giving the present to God; contented with the present moment, which brings with it God’s eternal will for us; attributing nothing which happens to us to the creature, but seeing all things in God, and regarding them as coming infallibly from His hand, with the exception only of our own sin.

Leave yourselves, then, to be guided by God as He will, whether as regards the inner or the outward life.”

Jeanne Guyon (1648-1717) in “Abandonment to God” chapter 5 of A Short Method of Prayer (London: Sampson Low, 1875) 14-15.

On this Lord’s day, let us trust the “future to providence” while “giving the present to God” as people who are “contented with the present moment.” No one cares about us more than the LORD does! We can commit our way to Him and entrust ourselves to Him.

Many people are committed to the plan they have for their lives, their work, and their future. Others have found that abandonment to God brings peace and clarity. Afresh today, rather than strain to make life work, let us give our present and future to our generous God.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 15:7

“Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labor along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought — “I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray . . . the prayer that looks so futile is the thing God heeds more than anything else. Jesus says — “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Think what an astonishment it will be when the veil is lifted, to find the number of souls that have been reaped for Jesus because our disposition had made Him Master, and we were in the habit of taking our orders from Him.”

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) in “The Key to the Missionary Problem” in So I Send You: The Secret of the Burning Heart in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers (Grand Rapids: Discovery House Publishers, 2000) 1325.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of laboring at Denver Seminary where I shot the header photo. My work there was rewarding; however, often we find ourselves working in difficult and undesirable circumstances.

All the time we must grasp the fact that God has placed us right where He wants us. Right in that place we must labor. Should we need anything, we must pray. Our role in God’s generous design is to labor and pray. When we do this, He gets all the glory, as He works through us to accomplish purposes we often can’t see.

Rather than try to control the outcomes of our service, let’s wait until we get to the kingdom to see the results. I think all those who make Him Master will be pleasantly surprised. Our most generous act today may simply be to labor and pray faithfully right where God has placed us.

Before today’s post, I want to thank many of you for your outpouring of prayers for my mother, Patricia “Patsy” Hoag, who is in the hospital in Cleveland. While my father, John “Jack” Hoag, is by her side, doctors today will run tests today to determine the treatment for her heart murmur and valve trouble. Thanks for your prayers.

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Matthew 16:26

“And here the practical man, who has been strangely silent during the last stages of our discourse, shakes himself like a terrier which has achieved dry land again after a bath; and asks once more, with a certain explosive violence, his dear old question, “What is the use of all this?”

“You have introduced me,” he says further, “to some curious states of consciousness, interesting enough in their way; and to a lot of peculiar emotions, many of which are no doubt most valuable to poets and so on. But it is all so remote from daily life. How is it going to fit in with ordinary existence? How, above all, is it all going to help me?

Well, put upon its lowest plane, this new way of attending to life — this deepening and widening of outlook — may at least be as helpful to you as many things to which you have unhesitatingly consecrated much time and diligence in the past: your long journeys to new countries, for instance, or long hours spent in acquiring new “facts,” relabelling old experiences, gaining skill in new arts and games. These, it is true, were quite worth the effort expended on them: for they gave you, in exchange for your labour and attention, a fresh view of certain fragmentary things, a new point of contact with the rich world of possibilities, a tiny enlargement of your universe in one direction or another. Your love and patient study of nature, art, science, politics, business — even of sport — repaid you thus.

But I have offered you, in exchange for a meek and industrious attention to another aspect of the world, hitherto somewhat neglected by you, an enlargement which shall include and transcend all these; and be conditioned only by the perfection of your generosity, courage, and surrender.”

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) in Practical Mysticism (Project Gutenburg: Feedbooks, 1915) 71.

Before Spiritual Formation was a topic in seminaries, Evelyn Underhill was writing about the importance of nurturing the spiritual life, then labeled as “mysticism” in Christian circles. In this classic work, she responds to the “practical man” who wonders how deeper levels of contemplation about spiritual things fit with “ordinary existence” in daily life. What I find fascinating is her reply.

In plain terms, she states that on the lowest level, attending to the state of your soul, will help you with the common things of life. It will give you a fresh outlook on everything that most people lose themselves in seeking. But if you focus on “an enlargement” of this aspect of life which can include and transcend all the other stuff, the sky is the limit to your spiritual growth conditioned only by three things: the perfection of your generosity, courage, and surrender.

Friends, God wants us to dispense immeasurable levels of spiritual and material blessings through us, and the question we must ask ourselves is whether or not we are willing to let Him stretch and grow us as conduits of greater generosity. This requires courage and complete surrender. The paradox of spiritual life is that we must be willing to lose that which we can see and not keep, in order to gain that which we cannot see and were made to possess.

Father in heaven, lest we get lost in the things of this world, perfect our generosity, give us courage, and help us surrender our thoughts and ways and exchange them for Your thoughts and ways which are much higher than ours. Do this so that our ordinary lives are transformed and so that we can do what You redeemed us to do: show people not just how to survive life, but how to thrive in You. Make it so in the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

“Will you not learn to say from today, “Welcome every trial, for it comes from God?” If you want God to be all in all, you must see and meet God in every providence. Oh, learn to accept God’s will in everything! Come learn to say of every trial, without exception, “It is my Father who sent it. I accept it as His messenger,” and nothing in earth or hell can separate you from God. If God is to be all in all in your heart and life, I say not only, Allow Him to take His place, and accept all His will…

Trust in His power. Dear friends, it is “God who worketh to will and to do according to His good pleasure.” It is “the God of peace,” according to another passage, “who perfects you in every good thing to do His will, working in you what is well-pleasing in His sight.” You complain of weakness, of feebleness, of emptiness. Never mind; that is what you are made for – to be an emptied vessel, in which God can put His fullness and His strength. Do learn the lesson. I know it is not easy.”

Andrew Murray (1828-1917) in The Master’s Indwelling, excerpt from Chapter XIII. “That God May Be All In All” (1953).

I got up this morning at 5:00am to read Andrew Murray on Providence. This statement caught my attention. “Welcome every trial, for it comes from God?” As I kept reading it started to make sense. Then I could read no further after he made this point. “You complain of weakness, of feebleness, of emptiness. Never mind; that is what you are made for – to be an emptied vessel, in which God can put His fullness and His strength. Do learn the lesson. I know it is not easy.”

As I paused to reflect on the meaning of this, a notification flashed across the corner of my screen. I learned that my 76-year old mother, Patricia “Patsy” Hoag, had been hospitalized last night. She was recently diagnosed with a heart murmur and possible valve trouble. How about that for timing? I don’t know her condition but after reading God’s Word and considering these thoughts this morning I can do nothing but peacefully pray and “see and meet God in every providence.”

Father in heaven, thank you that nothing can separate us from your love. Though we complain of weakness, of feebleness, of emptiness, thank you that as emptied vessels you generously fill us with your fullness and strength. Would you do that afresh today for my mother and all those who are suffering? And by your Holy Spirit, please also pour out your peace in our lives so that we may dispense it wherever we go in a world filled with troubles. Hear my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.