John Newton: Strengthen the hands of those who share the gospel among poor lost souls

“People who are in danger of perishing for lack of knowledge, still are very numerous. The much which has been done, is little compared with what the Society [for Promoting Religious Knowledge among the Poor] might yet do, were the resources equal to the wishes. I trust my request, that you will strengthen their hands at this time, will not be in vain; and that the brief account I have given you of their design and progress, will render further solicitation needless.”

John Newton (1725-1807), author of Amazing Grace, said these words in his sermon preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary Woolnoth on Wednesday, November 21, 1787, on the day of the annual meeting of the Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge among the Poor. Taken from The Works of Rev. John Newton (London: Nelson and Paternoster, 1853) 849.

“Loving Lord, thank you for your generosity to me. May I realise afresh each day how gracious and generous you are. Help me to be a good steward of all that you have entrusted to me. As I exercise that stewardship, help me to reflect your generosity to the world around me. Amen.”

John Preston, National Stewardship Officer of the Church of England, in The Money Revolution: Applying Christian Principles to Handling your Money (Gloucester, UK: Gloucester Diocesan Board of Finance, 2007) 18.

“Hoarding God’s goodness is not a viable option. We must be keenly aware of our responsibility to open ourselves up to be conduits of God’s grace and abundance…

As followers of Jesus, we are to live from the abundance of our God. He has more than enough for us—and he gives us more than enough to spread around to others…

I want to stand beneath the fountain of God’s abundance and drink deeply, not so I can simply be filled but so others may be filled as well through the overflow of my life. God has everything we could ever need or desire—and he is by no means stingy.

As his people we are to personify the overflowing fountain: what God pours into us should furiously drip onto others. Though we may partake in his fountain, God created us to be fountains ourselves, not sponges.

Let God fill the empty places in your heart to the point of overflowing so that your life may touch those around you.”

Jason Chatraw in Mystics, Mavericks & Miracle Workers: A 30-day Journey with Some Saints (Boise: Ampelon, 2007) 145.

“In accordance with the will of God and the union of nature, we ought to be of mutual help one to the others, and to vie with each other in doing duties, to lay all our advantages as it were before all, and (to use the words of Scripture) to bring help one to the other from a feeling of devotion or of duty, by giving money, or by doing something, at any rate in some way or other; so that the charm of human fellowship may ever grow sweeter among us…”

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (338-397), from On the Duties of the Clergy, Book One, Chapter XXVIII.

“The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly.”

John of the Cross (1542-1591) in Ascent of Mount Carmel XI.4.

“My experience of prayer was forever changed when I came to understand that prayer is a gift which God gives rather than an obligation or task that we are bound as Christians to carry out…

When we understand this—that prayer is a gift that God gives—we see that the posture of prayer is a posture of receptivity, of awareness, of attentiveness to what God is offering us, moment by moment, day by day.

We learn to “pray without ceasing” by watching and listening for signs of God’s presence and activity, even in the very ordinary circumstances of life.

God comes to us—in a conversation with a friend, in a word from Scripture, in a moment of worship, in the beauty of nature, in the wonder of human relationships—to love us and bless us, to console us and challenge us.”

David Vryhof, Selah Faculty, in “Attentiveness” in SILENCIO, a resource of Leadership Transformations, June 2013, sixth edition.

“Let us thus think often that our only business in this life is to please God, that perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity…Let us renounce, let us generously renounce, for the love of Him, all that is not Himself; He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him perpetually. Let us put our trust in him: I doubt not but we shall soon find the effects of it, in receiving the abundance of His grace, with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nothing but sin.” (Cf. Mark 10:21)

Brother Lawrence (1611-1691) Carmelite Monk in Paris who served as a cook and learned to make his daily routine an occasion for ceaseless prayer. Excerpt from “The Ninth Letter” in The Practice the Presence of God: The Best Rule of Holy Life.

“We must never wish anything other than what happens from moment to moment, all the while, however, exercising ourselves in goodness [generosity].”

St. Catherine of Genoa in Vita 22; as quoted by Friedrich von Hügel in The Mystical Element of Religion (London: Dent, 1909) 265.

“Let your own soul first be filled with God’s Spirit; and then, and not otherwise, will you be in a situation to communicate of that divine fulness to others. No man can give what he has not; or if a man has grace, but has it in a small degree, he may, in dispensing to others, impart to them what is necessary for himself. Let him first make himself one with the great Fountain, and then he may always give, or be the instrument of giving, without being emptied.”

Madame de la Mothe Guyon (1648-1717) in Life, Religious Opinions and Experience of Madame de le Mothe Guyon by Thomas Upham (London: Sampson Low, 1858) 214.

“That is a temperate and righteous love which practices self-denial in order to minister to a brother’s necessity. So our selfish love grows truly social, when it includes our neighbors in its circle.

But if thou art reduced to want by such benevolence, what then? What indeed, except to pray with all confidence unto Him who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, who openeth His hand and filleth all things living with plenteousness.”

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) excerpt from Chapter Eight in his classic work: On Loving God.