Archives by: Gary Hoag

“First, buy things for their usefulness, rather than their status.”

Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998) 90.

“The central point for the discipline of simplicity is to seek the kingdom of God and the righteousness of the kingdom first and then everything necessary will come in its proper order….Everything hinges upon maintaining the first thing first. Nothing must come before the Kingdom of God.

To describe simplicity only as an inner reality is to say something false. The inner reality is not a reality until there is an outward expression. To experience the liberating spirit of simplicity will affect how we live.

Every attempt to give specific application to simplicity runs the risk of deteriorating into legalism. It is a risk, however, that we must take, for to refuse to discuss specifics would banish the discipline to the theoretical. After all, the writers of Scripture constantly took that risk.

And so I follow their lead and suggest ten controlling principles for the outward expression of simplicity.”

Foster’s ten simplicity principles will follow over the next ten days.

Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998) 86-90.

“We should not show favoritism and discrimination in our dealings with one another, since all gifts ultimately come from heaven as a display of divine generosity (cf. James 1:17; 2:1-7).”

17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

1My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
 5Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? James 2:1-7

Kelly Kapic in God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010) 116.

“Reshaping the stewardship culture of your congregation and reversing the trends that keep it from reaching its full potential may need to start in your own heart.”

Richard Borg in The Chief Steward: How to Lead Your Congregation to Excel in Financial Stewardship (2008) 109.

“What is the basis of our security? When we start thinking about that question, we may give many answers: success, money, friends, property, popularity, family, connections, insurance, and so on. We may not always think that any of these forms the basis of our security, but our actions or feelings may tell us otherwise. When we start losing our money, our friends, or our popularity, our anxiety often reveals how deeply our sense of security is rooted in these things.
 
A spiritual life is a life in which our security is based not in any created things, good as they may be, but in God, who is everlasting love. We probably will never be completely free from our attachment to the temporal world, but if we want to live in that world in a truly free way, we’d better not belong to it. “You cannot be the slave both of God and of money” (Luke 16:13).”

Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) in Daily Meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society on 19 February 2012.

Edwards preached it at the dedication ceremony for the new church building in his town of Northampton, MA, in December 1737.

Pews and seats had just been assigned in the new sanctuary. The town leaders used new criteria for assigning these seats, wealth being the foremost among them (for the first time in the town’s history). Edwards was something of a hierarchical guy, but he was nonetheless upset at his leading laymen for giving the best pews in church to the town’s wealthiest people, so he preached a sermon about how his people should care much more about their accommodations in heaven than about where they sit on Sunday morning.

Here’s a sample from “Many Mansions” and is based on John 14:

“Tis very little worth the while for us to pursue after honor in this world, when the greatest honor is but a bubble, and will soon vanish away. And death will level all. Some have more stately houses than others; some are in higher offices than others; and some are richer than others, and have higher seats in the meetinghouse than others. But all graves are upon a level. One rotting, putrefying corpse is as ignoble as another. The worms are as bold with one carcass as another…

if it be worth the while much to prize one seat before another in the house of worship, only because it is the pew or seat that is reckoned first in number, and to be seen here for a few days; how well it is worth the while to seek an high mansion in God’s temple above, and in that glorious palace that is the everlasting habitation of God and all his children. You that are pleased with your seats in this house, because you are seated high; or in a place that is looked upon honorable by those that sit round about, and because many sit behind you; consider how short a time you will enjoy this pleasure.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) in Works of Jonathan Edwards 19:745-746.

I dedicate today’s meditation to my earthly father, John E. Hoag, as today is his birthday, and I am thankful that he has taught me to live not for a pleasures on earth but awaiting our mansion in heaven. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Works of Mercy, or the several kinds of corporal Alms.

“The works of mercy are so many, as the affections of mercy have objects, or as the world hath kinds of misery. Men want meat, or drink, or clothes, or a house, or liberty, or attendance, or a grave. In proportion to these, seven works are usually assigned to mercy, and there are seven kinds of corporal alms reckoned.

1. To feed the hungry
2. To give drink to the thirsty.
3. Or clothes to the naked.
4. To redeem captives.
5. To visit the sick.
6. To entertain strangers.
To bury the dead

But many more may be added. Such as are:
8. To care for sick persons.
9. To bring cold and starved people to warmth and to the fire; for sometimes clothing will not do it; or this may be done when we cannot do the other.
10. To lead the blind in right ways.
11. To lend money.
12. To forgive debts.
13. To remit forfeitures.
14. To mend highways and bridges.
15. To reduce or guide wandering travellers.
16. To ease their labours by accommodating their work with apt instruments, or their journey with beasts of carriage.
17. To deliver the poor from their oppressors.
18. To die for my brother.
19. To pay maidens dowries, and to procure for them honest and chaste marriages.

Works of spiritual Alms and Mercy are:
1. To teach the ignorant.
2. To counsel doubting persons.
3. To admonish sinners diligently, prudently, seasonably, and charitably: To which also may be reduced, provoking and encouraging to good works
4. To comfort the afflicted.
5. To pardon offenders.
6. To succour and support the weak.
To pray for all estates of men, and for relief to all their necessities.

To which may be added:
8. To punish or correct refractoriness [resistance to authority].
9. To be gentle and charitable in censuring the actions of others.
10. To establish the scrupulous, wavering and inconstant spirits.
11. To confirm the strong.
12. Not to give scandal.
13. To quit a man of his fear.
14. To redeem maidens from prostitution.”

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Lord Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore in The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying (1651), London: Rivington, 1838 edition, 230-231.

“To be able to enjoy fully the many good things the world has to offer, we must be detached from them. To be detached does not mean to be indifferent or uninterested. It means to be nonpossessive. Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to.
 
A nonpossessive life is a free life. But such freedom is only possible when we have a deep sense of belonging. To whom then do we belong? We belong to God, and the God to whom we belong has sent us into the world to proclaim in his Name that all of creation is created in and by love and calls us to gratitude and joy. That is what the “detached” life is all about. It is a life in which we are free to offer praise and thanksgiving.”

Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) in Daily Meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society on 20 February 2012.

“Then let us remember that we are his stewards. Our time, our health, our strength, our talents, our all, are his, and his alone. Let us seek to remember this, and carry it out this year, and then what happy Christians shall we all be! It is a divine principle, “To him that hath shall more be given;” [Mark 5:24a] and as assuredly as we seek to make good use of that which is confided to us, more will be imparted. We shall be used of the Lord, and shall become increasingly happy in his own most blessed service. Brethren, we have only one life–one brief life; let us seek with renewed purpose of heart to consecrate that one life wholly to the Lord–day by day to live for God, and serve him with our body, soul, and spirit, which are his.”

George Mueller (1805-1898) in “The Secret of Effectual Service to God” in Friends Review: A Religious, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal, vol. XIX (1865): 275-276.

“Two Desert Fathers had been living together as hermits for many years and had never gotten into a fight. One of them said to the other, “Why don’t we do like everybody else in the world and get into a fight?” The other fellow said, “O.K., how do you do it?” He said, “Well, fights start over possessions, owning something exclusively so that the other fellow can’t have it. Let’s look around and get ourselves a possession and then have a fight over it.” So he found a brick and said, “I will put this brick between us, and I will say, ‘This is my brick,’ and you will immediately say, ‘No, it’s mine,’ and then we will get into a fight.” So the man gets the brick and puts it down between the two of them and says, “This is my brick.” And the other says, “Well, brother, if it is your brick, take it.”

Two desert fathers story retold by Thomas Merton (1915-1968) and recorded in Why We Live in Community by Eberhard Arnold (Robertsbridge, UK: Plough, 1995) 65-66.