We beg you, Master, be our help and strength. Save those among us who are oppressed, have pity on the lowly, and lift up the fallen. Heal the sick, bring back the straying, and feed the hungry. Release those in prison, lift up those who falter, and strengthen the fainthearted. Let all nations come to know you the one God, with your Son Jesus Christ, and us your people and the sheep of your pasture. Amen.

—Clement of Rome

Paul does not forbid alcohol; he is opposed to its excessive use. Nor does he prohibit sexual intercourse; rather against fornication. What he wants to do is get rid of the deadly passions of lust and anger. Therefore he does not merely attack them but goes to their source as well.

—Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 24

The rule of love is that one should wish his friend to have all the good things he wants to have himself and should not wish the evils to befall his friend which he wishes to avoid himself.

—Augustine, Of True Religion 87

The living a life of faith is often hard labor. Who ever said this was not the case? It is often a struggle, but this is the work for which heaven is the payment. If you want to be paid, do not be lazy in your work. After all, if you had hired a workman, you would not pay him before you had put him to work. You would say, “Do the work, then you will get paid.” This is the way God deals with us.

—Augustine, Sermon 38.4

They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.” To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.”

The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The person who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

—John 3:26-36 (TNIV)

John the Baptizer points us to an essential truth here. Because we are blessed with free will, we have a choice to believe God’s promise to rescue us from our exile or think him to be a liar. We do that by whether we believe in Jesus. This requires that, like John, we are to live lives that point others to the Living Christ and not to ourselves. We do this by following him to the best of our ability and allowing him to transform us into his likeness by the power of his Spirit living in us. Tangentially, this also means we have no authority to change the meaning of God’s Word in Scripture because when we do, we in effect are saying that we do not believe God, or believe that Scripture really is his word. And as the Baptizer reminds us, the consequences of our decision are, shall we say, significant.

Complete serenity of mind is a gift of God; but this serenity is not given without our own intense effort. You will receive nothing by your own efforts alone; yet God will not give you anything, unless you work with all your strength. This is an unbreakable law.

—The Art of Prayer

Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration. The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart—this you will build your life by, this you will become.

—James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

What is your controlling desire? Your dominant aspiration? What are you becoming?

How will you be able to lift up your heart to God? Does your heart not need first to be healed before you can come to see God? Are you not revealing your pride when you cry out, “First let me see and then I will be healed”?

—Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 39, 21

God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them! No one who has faith in God’s Son will be condemned. But everyone who doesn’t have faith in him has already been condemned for not having faith in God’s only Son. The light has come into the world, and people who do evil things are judged guilty because they love the dark more than the light. People who do evil hate the light and won’t come to the light, because it clearly shows what they have done. But everyone who lives by the truth will come to the light, because they want others to know that God is really the one doing what they do.

—John 3:16-21 (CEV)

As the whole story of Christendom shows, if everything is asked for, everything—and more—will be accorded; if little, then nothing.

—Malcolm Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God

Truer words were never spoken. Christianity only fails when those who profess to believe it and proclaim it to others actually do not. Most folks instinctively know a farce when they see it and Christianity is no farce.

Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realising them as parts of one whole. If our practical life is centred on our own interests, cluttered up by possessions, distracted by ambitions, passions, wants, and worries, beset by a sense of our own rights and importance, or anxieties for our own future, or longings for our own success, we need not expect that our spiritual life will be a contrast to all this. The soul’s house is not built on such a convenient plan: there are few soundproof partitions to it.

—Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life

If you are interested in helping the people of Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake there, the Anglican Relief and Development Fund is one venue to do that. Pray too for the people of Haiti.

UPDATE: This via email from the AR&DF

January 22, 2010

Anglicans have donated more than $70,000 through the Anglican Relief and Development Fund to support immediate relief in Haiti in the first week following the earthquake that struck the impoverished island nation on January 12.

According to Nancy Norton, executive director of Anglican Relief and Development Fund, the organization is partnering with World Relief, a large and well established evangelical Christian relief agency.  Working with World Relief ensures that these donations have an immediate positive effect in Haiti, where current estimates are that more than 200,000 have died and more than a million people are without shelter in the aftermath of the earthquake.

World Relief has had a long presence in Haiti, empowering the local church with health, economic and social development projects.  World Relief’s Disaster Response team is providing urgent medical care to hundreds of injured people at the Kings Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s devastated capital.  They have also set up feeding centers in partnership with local churches, providing thousands of hot meals to hungry earthquake survivors.  Volunteers from local Haitian churches are operating the centers.  World Relief can feed a person two meals a day – lunch and dinner – for less than $2.  It costs approximately $375 to feed 200 people rice and beans at lunch and milk porridge for dinner.

“Thank you to everyone who contributed through Anglican Relief and Development to help in Haiti.  The generosity of our donors has been overwhelming.  This financial outpouring will allow us to not only assist in immediate relief work, but also to be part of the rebuilding process through development projects in Haiti later this year.  The needs in this terribly damaged nation will continue,” said Norton.

Donations for our continued work there can be made online at www.anglicanaid.net or by sending a check to the Anglican Relief and Development Fund at:

ARDF
PO Box 3830
Pittsburgh, PA 15230-3830