Archives by: Gary Hoag

“Look for the poor, sick and all kinds of needy, help them and let your life’s energy appear in this, so that they may enjoy your kindness, helping wherever your help is needed, as much as you possibly can with your life, property and honor. Know that to serve God is nothing else than to serve your neighbor in love, whether he be enemy or friend, or whether you can help in temporal or spiritual matters. This is serving God and doing good works.”

Martin Luther, as quoted in Devotional Readings from Luther’s Works for Every Day of the Year ed. John Sander (Rock Island, IL: Augustana Book Concern, 1915) 439-440.

“How I would like a Church that is poor and for the poor.” Pope Francis
“A Church that is poor, and for the poor — that is Francis’ desire. He begins with a challenge to the Church, not to the world.

What does Francis mean for the Church to be poor, and for the poor? In the first and most obvious sense, it means a simplicity in deportment and lifestyle. Soon after his election he wrote to the bishops of Argentina, thanking them for their support and good wishes — and asking them not to come to Rome for his inaugural Mass, but rather to give the money it would cost to the poor.

It is a challenge to the Catholics in affluent countries to live more modestly, avoiding indulgence and luxuries in order to be able to be more generous in sharing with the poor. It is even a more profound challenge, in that it raises the question of whether the Church can fully proclaim the life and message of Jesus if it becomes shaped by a culture of comfortable affluence.

Francis’ call for a Church that is poor goes farther than mere material restraint and generous almsgiving. Francis warned the cardinals on Thursday about allowing the Church to become something other than she is – namely the proclaimer of Christ’s gospel in full.”

Raymond J. de Souza on Pope Francis’ comments to the journalists in Rome on Saturday, as cited in his National Post article, March 18, 2013.

For my generosity journey, I’ve found I need Christ as proclaimed in this song. Enjoy! Listen to or freely download this song inspired by “The Breastplate Prayer of St. Patrick”

(Click on this link, then in the aLive album, scroll down to song #12, click on the arrow and then the word download and it’s yours FREE):

www.philliptelfer.com/alive.html

Lyrics:

I bind unto myself today, the power of God to hold and lead,
His eyes to watch His mind to stay, His ears to hearken to my need
The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide His shield to ward
The Word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be me guard

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself today, the strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same, the Three in One and One in Three,
Of whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word,
Praise to the God of my salvation, Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Chorus (2x)

“This is the question that hangs in the sky over our heads at the moment. Through the media we have some strange faces in our backyards whom we weren’t calling family until very recently, and we still don’t really want to. But if you’re going to enjoy having your sneakers and your jeans made by developing communities, you are already involved with those people. You cannot therefore just ignore some of the problems they’re negotiating. They’re living on your street. There was this old definition of generosity, which is at the very least the rich man looks after the poor man on his street. Guess what? [laughs] Now, that street goes round the globe.”

Bono, lead singer of U2, as cited in Bono by Michka Assayas (New York: Penguin, 2005) 219.

I beseech you, Jesus, loving Savior, to show yourself to all who seek you so that they may know and love you.

May we love you alone, desire you alone, and keep you always in our thoughts.

May love for you possess our hearts. May affection for you fill our senses, so that we may love all else in you.

Jesus, King of Glory.

You know how to give greatly. And you have promised great things.

Nothing is greater than yourself. We ask nothing else of you but yourself.

You are our life, our light, our food, and our drink, our God and our all.

Calvin Miller, Celtic Devotions: A Guide to Morning and Evening Prayer (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008) 115-116.

Our Father,

Lord, come I this day to you!

I am not a great gift to offer you, it is my coming that is my gift.

For who among us holds within themselves any worthy offering to the God who owns the universe?

To come to you while the entire world moves away from you, is our only gift of worth.

And so I come this day: ignore me or use me, save me or spend me.

Use me or set me by, I am yours.

Amen.

Calvin Miller, Celtic Devotions: A Guide to Morning and Evening Prayer (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008) 34-35.

God the Father is the shield beneath which we hide our fragile souls.

He comes both generous and large to cover us when troubles rain down upon us.

God the Son made of his own cross a place for our hard times and the wood He chose now serves our wounds.

God the Spirit lives within us like structural steel with welded braces so the pressures from without can never crush us.

We are triple-kept by Triune Love, shielded by the Three in One.

Calvin Miller, Celtic Devotions: A Guide to Morning and Evening Prayer (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008) 27.

“In our current world, a large part of the freedom that comes from frugality is freedom from the spiritual bondage caused by financial debt. This kind of debt is often incurred by buying things that are far from necessary, and its effect, when the amount is substantial, is to diminish our sense of worth, dim our hope for the future, and eliminate our sensitivity to the needs of others. Paul’s admonition, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (Rom. 13:8) is therefore good spiritual advice as well as wise financial counsel.”

Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (New York: HarperCollins, 1988) 169

“The proportion of your income that you give back to God is the one distinct indication of how much you trust Him to provide for your needs. We will give to the extent that we believe God will provide for us. The more we believe God will provide for our needs, the more we are willing to risk giving to Him. And the less we trust God, the less we will give to Him.”

Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (NavPress: Colorado Springs, 1991) 144.

“The church of our day urgently needs to heed the message of this second letter of Paul to Timothy. For all around us we see Christians relaxing their grasp of the gospel, fumbling it, in danger of letting it drop from their hands altogether. We, like Timothy, need to guard the truth of the gospel and proclaim it to the world around us.”

John Stott in 2 Timothy: Standing Firm in the Truth (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998) 6.