Archives by: Gary Hoag

“With disordered hearts we are prone to crave created things instead of satisfying ourselves with the Creator. We chase after money and success; we pursue power and prestige. We cling to people and hope to find our security in them. We seek the comfortable life and search for entertainment and other stimuli of many kinds. We obsess over our body image and exercise compulsively in a futile attempt to remain young. Our desires become distracted…

Some of the things we run after are not sinful per se, but because we place them before the Lord, they corrupt our affections…

In order to grow in Christ, we need to allow him to purify our hearts and purge away all that is scattered and ignoble…

The goal of the Christian life is not to destroy desire but to allow the Holy Spirit to purify our inner desires and direct them back toward God.”

Glenn Myers in Seeking Spiritual Intimacy (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011) 57-58.

“Now someone who in spite of his past sins honestly wants to become reconciled to God may cautiously inquire, “If I come to God, how will He act toward me? What kind of disposition has He? What will I find Him to be like?”

The answer is that He will be found to be exactly like Jesus. “He that hath seen Me,” said Jesus, “hath seen the Father.” Christ walked with men on earth that He might show them what God is like and make known the true nature of God to a race that had wrong ideas about Him. This was only one of the things He did while here in the flesh, but this He did with beautiful perfection.

From Him we learn how God acts toward people. The hypocritical, the basically insincere, will find him cold and aloof, as they once found Jesus; but the penitent will find Him merciful; the self-condemned will find Him generous and kind. To the frightened He is friendly; to the poor in spirit He is forgiving; to the ignorant, considerate; to the weak, gentle; to the stranger, hospitable.”

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) in Knowledge of the Holy (HarperCollins: New York, 1964) 84.

“Nature gladly beholds things of this world; she rejoices at worldly gain, is depressed by worldly loss, and is soon shaken by a sharp word. But grace beholds lasting things, does not trust in temporal things, and is not troubled by the loss of them, or grieved by intemperate words, for grace has put her treasure in God and in spiritual things that do not perish. Nature is greedy, and takes more gladly than she gives; she loves much to have property and private possessions. But grace is sympathetic and generous to the poor, flees her own gain, is content with little, and judges that it is better to give than receive.”

Thomas à Kempis in The Imitation of Christ (New York: Image, 1989) 187.

Cyprian of Carthage laments the lost days of the apostles and the generosity of first Christians when times were tough in Carthage following the Decian persecution and a plague which had ravaged the city.

“In those days, they would sell their houses and estates…giving the money to the apostles for distribution to those in need. But now, we do not even give tithes on our patrimony, and whereas the Lord tells us to sell, we buy instead and accumulate.”

Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200-258) in De unit, 26, as cited by L. Wm. Countryman in The Rich Christian in the Church of the Early Empire (New York and Toronto: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1980) 194-195.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:13-16

“Those who have endured the labours and dangers of the sea and then amass material riches, even when they have gained much desire to gain yet more and they consider what they have at present as nothing and reach out for what they have not got. We, who have nothing of that which we desire, wish to acquire everything through the fear of God.”

Amma Syncletica (4th century) was a wealthy, beautiful young women from Alexandria, who is known for giving her entire inheritance to the poor and helping women become disciples of Jesus Christ in The Monastic Way by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 99.

“Avarice is, according to John Climacus, “a worship of idols and is the offspring of unbelief.” If a person has practiced renunciation on the way to humility, then such a one is sure to be generous. To strive against avarice and for poverty is described by John Climacus as a contest, an agonia. Accordingly, to acquire poverty or detachment is … “the fruit of practicing mourning over one’s self as the source of life and of rejoicing in the riches of God.”

John Climacus (c. 525-606) in The Fellowship of Life: Virtue Ethics and Orthodox Christianity by Joseph Woodill (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2011) 44.

“A materialistic world can never be won to Christ by a materialistic church.”

Randy Alcorn in Managing God’s Money (Carol Stream: Tyndale, 2011) 42.

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.”

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in Mere Christianity (New York, HarperCollins, 1980) 136-37.

I’d like to dedicate today’s Meditation to two friends who went home to be with the LORD this week: Doug Johnson and Kim Kopp.

May God comfort their families with the truth that they have made it safely to their true home, and may this thought by Lewis inspire each of us to make the main object of each day God grants us to press on to to our true home and help others do the same.

“Jesus’ words at the close of his time on earth should erase any doubt in our minds. He clearly wants each of us “out there,” going into “all the world” to engage in a high-risk, high-reward lifestyle to extend his kingdom on earth. He is calling and commissioning us not to retreat to safe havens but to permeate and transform every sphere into which he sends us–clothed not in our strength but in his…”

John D. Beckett, CEO and Author, quoted in NIV Stewardship Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009) 181.

I heard the sound of your first breath
A brand new life on your mother’s chest
A beating heart, expectant eyes
On the first day of your life
I saw you take your first step
And I watched you run with no regret
To chase your dreams and find true love
And the best is yet to come

So come with Me
I’ll show you life
Even better than this
Come with Me
I’ll show you love
You didn’t know could exist
Better than your first crush
Better than your first kiss
I’ll show you how to live

Remember how you felt from across the room
When you realized someone had eyes for you
And the way your heart sang cuz you believed
You were worth something

So come with me
I’ll show you life
Even better than this
Come with me
I’ll show you love
You didn’t know could exist
Better than your first crush
Better than your first kiss
I’ll show you how to live
Oh, I’ll show you how to live

Cuz I created your heart
That makes you feel
I am the love that makes it real
Oh, I am the One, I’m the One, I’m the One
I am the One, I’m the One, I’m the One

So come with Me
I’ll show you life
Even better than this
Come with Me
I’ll show you love
You didn’t know could exist
Better than your first crush
Better than your first kiss
I’ll show you how to live

Cause I am the One, I’m the One, I’m the One
I am the one, I’m the One, I’m the One

Sanctus Real: I’ll Show You How to Live. YouTube Music Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_P16SfgRWY&feature=related