Anselm and honor

Anselm means something very different by “honor” than we are readily equipped to understand without effort. God is not a tin-pot dictator obsessed with his privileges. On the contrary, the Trinitarian movement that Anselm always has in mind is described in Philippians 2:5-7: “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied (Greek root kenosis) himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” God’s honor is God’s righteousness, his holiness, his perfection — but it is also his love and freedom, which show themselves in the kenotic self-emptying of the Son.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 156

True Charity

514 True Charity

C. S. Lewis didn’t talk about percent giving.
He said the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.
He said our charities should pinch and hamper us.

If we live at the same level of affluence
as other people who have our level of income,
we are probably giving away too little.

Obstacles to charity include
greed for luxurious living,
greed for money itself,
fear of financial insecurity,
and showy pride.

                        —Kathryn Ann Lindskoog
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Little Is Much, When God Is in It

512 Little Is Much, When God Is in It

1 In the harvest field now ripened
   There’s a work for all to do;
   Hark! the voice of God is calling
   To the harvest calling you.

Refrain:
   Little is much when God is in it,
   Labor not for wealth or fame;
   There’s a crown, and you can win it,
   If you go in Jesus’ name.

2 Does the place you’re called to labor
   Seem too small and little known?
   It is great if God is in it,
   And He’ll not forget His own. [Refrain]

3 When the conflict here is ended
   And our race on earth is run,
   He will say, if we are faithful,
   "Welcome home, My child, well done!" [Refrain]
                         Mrs. F. W. Suffield
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Make us worthy (prayer)

506 Make Us Worthy Make us worthy, Lord,
to serve our fellow men thoughout the world
who live and die in poverty and hunger.

Give them, through our hands, this day
their daily bread, and by our understanding love give Peace and Joy.

Lord, make a channel of Thy peace,
that where there is hatred I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord,
grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand than to be understood;
to love than to be loved;
for it is by forgetting self that one finds;
is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.                         Mother Teresa
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Justice serves mercy

A psychoanalyst once explained to me that “the negative moment [in therapy] is in the service of the positive moment.” This conviction underlies a great deal of what appears in these pages concerning the justice and mercy of God. God’s justice is always in the service of his mercy.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 154 n. 18

After a bit of fame? Read this

503 Glorifying God in the Everyday

The wonder of the Incarnation slips into the Life of ordinary childhood; the marvel of the Transfiguration descends to the valley and the demon-possessed boy, and the glory of the Resurrection merges into Our Lord providing breakfast for His disciples on the sea shore in the early dawn. The tendency in early Christian experience is to look for the marvellous. We are apt to mistake the sense of the heroic for being heroes. It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but a different thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying the remotest attention to you. If we don’t want medieval haloes, we want something that will make people say-What a wonderful man of prayer he is! What a pious, devoted woman she is! If anyone says that of you, you have not been loyal to God.—Oswald Chambers
Hymns for the Family of God

Expand your understanding!

When we read of the righteousness of God, it also means the justice of God, and, most important, it means the action of God in making conditions and relationships right. “Righteousness” has the force of a verb rather than a noun; it is not a static quality but a continual going-out in power to effect what it requires. Nor is it an abstraction; it can only be understood in the context of the community called into being by God, which is itself the image, however flawed, of the new humanity. This understanding of the righteousness of God affords a greatly enlarged perspective on the cross and resurrection.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 144 (emphasis original)

Peace and abiding

499 Peace

I know not what I shall become: it seems to me that peace of soul and repose of spirit descend on me, even in sleep. To be without the sense of this peace, would be affliction indeed. . . .

I know not what God purposes with me, or keeps me for; I am in a calm so great that I fear naught. What can I fear, when I am with Him: and with Him, in His Presence, I hold myself the most I can. May all things praise Him. Amen.
                        —Brother Lawrence
                         Hymns for the Family of God

A just peace

Peace without justice is an illusory peace that sets the stage for vengeful behavior later on. The strength to persevere in the struggle is found in knowing that the wounds remaining in human society after great atrocities are the wounds of Christ himself, now risen and reigning but still the Lamb standing yet slain (Rev. 5:6).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 143 (emphasis original)

Through the Love of God, Our Savior

498 Through the Love of God, Our Savior

1 Through the love of God, our Saviour,
   all will be well.
   Free and changeless is his favour;
   all, all is well.
   Precious is the blood that healed us,
   perfect is the grace that sealed us,
   strong the hand stretched forth to shield us;
   all must be well.

2 Though we pass through tribulation,
   all will be well.
   Ours is such a full salvation,
   all, all is well.
   Happy still in God confiding,
   fruitful, if in Christ abiding,
   holy, through the Spirit’s guiding;
   all must be well.

3 We expect a bright tomorrow;
   all will be well.
   Faith can sing through days of sorrow,
   'All, all is well.'
   On our Father’s love relying,
   Jesus every need supplying,
   in our living, in our dying,
   all must be well.
                         Mary Peters
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
This hymn seemed familiar to me, even though it only occurs in about 150 hymnals. Once I read the biography, I saw why. It was included in some Plymouth Brethren hymnals. I'm sure that's where I sang it, as I was involved in a PB-style church for a few years.
</idle musing

It's not just the victims!

We arrive at a point that is all too rarely acknowledged. In the final analysis, the crucifixion of Christ for the sin of the world reveals that it is not only the victims of oppression and injustice who are in need of God’s deliverance, but also the victimizers. Each of us is capable, under certain circumstances, of being a victimizer.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 141 (emphasis original)

Tozer for Tuesday

Weed: Christ Is for Us, God Is against Us

Some say that Christ the Son differs from the God the Father. That is one weed I want you to pull out of your mind, never allowing it to grow there. The misconception is that Christ is for us and God is against us. Never was there any truth in that at all. Christ, being God, is for us. And the Father, being God, is for us. And the Holy Ghost, being God, is for us. The Trinity is for us. It was because the Father was for us that the Son came to die for us. The reason that God is for us is why the Son is at the right hand of God now, pleading for us. The Holy Spirit is in our hearts. He is our advocate within. Christ is our advocate above. And all agree. There is no disagreement between the Father and the Son over man.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 155–56

Like a River Glorious

497 Like a River Glorious

1. Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,
   Over all victorious, in its bright increase;
   Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,
   Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.

Refrain:
   Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
   Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

2. Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
   Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;
   Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
   Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

3. Every joy or trial falleth from above,
   Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love;
   We may trust Him fully all for us to do;
   They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.
                         Frances Havergal
                         Hymns for the Family of God