“It’s a rough land, but a man is better off if he rides his trail knowing there may be trouble about. It simply won’t do to get careless.” –Louis L’Amour (The Sky-Liners)
“Be alert, stand firm in the faith, act like a man, be strong.” –1 Corinthians 16:13 (HCSB)
I gave a little hint the other day concerning Christian Classics that should be read. Here is a suggested one-year reading list from Glaspey’s book.
January — The Confessions, Augustine
February — Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyon
March — Penses, Blaise Pascal
April — The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a’Kempis
The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence
May — Interior Castle, Teresa of Avila
June — The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
July — Samples from the “Theologians”, Summa Theologica (Pt 1, Questions 1:26), Thomas Aquinas
On Christian Liberty, Martin Luther
Institutes of the Christian Religion (Bk 1), John Calvin
The Journals of John Wesley, John Wesley
August — The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
September — Christian Poetry……Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Blake
Holy Sonnets, John Donne
Ash Wednesday and Four Quarters, T.S. Eliot
selected poems by George Herbert
selected poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
October — The Man Who Was Thursday and Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
November — Mere Christianity and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
December — The Way of the Heart, Henri Nouwen
The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer
(for extra credit it was suggested to read some works of John of the Cross)
Now to say that I have read all of these would not be true. I have not been able to get through them in a year either. However, there are great truths and great lessons in these books. I have read two-thirds of them. Try at least one this summer.
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D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes that “Our faith is to be a living, energetic, active faith, and we are to see that, on our part, we give all diligence to making it so: ‘add to your faith virtue.'” This word virtue simply means “excellence”. It can be rendered “courage” for to make faith alive it does take courage.
The word translated “virtue” or “courage” does indeed mean excellence, and it has two ways in which it may be seen. The first is that there is an operative or efficient excellence. This is what makes a man a good citizen and a friend. This person is an expert in the technique of living well. The second meaning is that it is not an excuse for cowardice. Faith, therefore, must issue in a life effective in the service of God and man; it must have the courage to show whose it is and whom it serves. (thoughts from William Barclay)
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I keep hearing the nonsense about people not voting because neither Clinton nor Trump are Christians. That is foolishness. First of all we live in a country, a place where God has placed us, and there is a responsibility to be governed by the rules of that country. We have an obligation to live in this country by the guidelines of the country. To not vote is to give up that responsibility. It is using the name of Christ to be a coward.
Second, to use that they are not Christians is a poor excuse. How many people in the White House were actually born-again believers? I don’t know and neither do you. We will find out one day, but for sure not all were. Then there is one more item. Look at the platform of the parties. In some cases they are similar because both have given in to the dictates of the stupidity of political correctness.
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A few more from that savvy farmer:
“Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.”
“It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.”
“You cannot unsay a cruel word.”
“Every path has a few puddles.”