THE HOLY SPIRIT

'...failure to recognize the Holy Spirit as personally present in our lives is widespread in the churches today. Sometimes the lack of recognition is intentional and theologically motivated, as in Fundamentalist or confessional churches which are afraid that too much emphasis on conscious communion with the Holy Spirit will lead to a lessened regard for Christ, enthusiasm, mysticism or Pentecostalism. More often it is simply ignorance. Even when Christians know about the the Holy Spirit doctrinally, they have not necessarily made a deliberate point of getting to know him personally. They may hacve occasional experiences of his reality on a hit-and-run basis, but the fact that the pronoun "it" is so frequently used to refer to him is not accidental. It reflects the fact that he is perceived impersonally as an expression of God's power and not experienced continually as a personal God and Counselor.

A normal relationship with the Holy Spirit should at least approximate the Old Testament experience described in Psalm 139: a profound awareness that we are always face to face with God; that as we move through life the presence of his Spirit is the most real and powerful factor in our daily environment; that underneath the momentary static of events, conflicts, problems and even excursions into sin, he is always there like the continuously sounding note in a basso ostinato.

The typical relationship between believers and the Holy Spirit in today's church is too often like that between the husband and wife in a bad marriage. They live under the same roof, and the husband makes constant use of his wife's services, but he fails to communicate with her, recognize her presence and celebrate their relationship with her.'

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.130.

 

SANCTIFICATION

'The process of sanctification is broader and more subtle than our conscious efforts to mortify known patterns of sin in our lives. Much of our growth in grace is quietly effected by events and conditions God brings into our lives to perfect his work in us. We are faced with sacrificial choices, like Abram's call to leave Ur and the later command to offer up Isaac, and our positive response to such choices deepens the purity of our intention to follow Christ. We undergo painful losses and illness, or attack and persecution, and our trust and obedience to these circumstances enlarge our character and conform us to the image of Christ.'

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.117.

CHRISTIANITY

'The human conscience is very deeply disorientated in its conviction that we must have works and sanctification to recommend ourselves to God. We must carry out very deliberate replacement of this misunderstanding with the awareness that God simply wants honesty, openness and a trusting reliance on Christ our Savior.'

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.114.

GRACE

'The anesthetic of grace is constantly needed in the healing process of sanctification along with the surgical ministry of the law. For this reason, many areas of the church which contain a great deal of legal thunder and lightning, exposing at least the surfaces of sin, are full of desperately anxious and bitterly contentious people.'

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.113.

SANCTIFICATION

'...the rate and depth at which progress in sanctification takes place is determined by the Holy Spirit, the resident counselor in every believer. The process cannot be rushed by overloading the conscience with the administration of the law. God will proceed at a rate and follow a course which are ideally suited to the individual, raising successive issues over the years and making a point of need for growth in one area after another. He seldom shows us all of our needs at once; we would be overwhelmed at the sight.'

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.111.

THE LAW

'The law is like a "tracer chemical" which makes the invisible course of a disease evident or a medicine that aggravates a hidden illness until it breaks out in surface symptoms.'

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.110.

CHEAP GRACE

'...the Protestant disease of cheap grace can produce some of the most selfish and contentious leaders and lay people on earth, more difficult to bear in a state of grace than they would be in a state of nature.'

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.103.  

HAPPINESS

'All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. They will never take the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.'

Blaise Pascal in John Piper, Desiring God, p.15.

POWER

'Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.'

Henri JM Nowen in Michael S Beates, Disability & The Gospel, p.164.

DEPENDENCE

'Perhaps this is why the retarded scare us so much - namley, they remind us that for all our pretension we are as helpless as they are when all is said and done. Like them, we depend on others for our lives and for the simple things that make life liveable. We prefer to keep our dependence hidden, however, as we are under the illusion that, unlike the retarded, we are in control of our existence. Thus we label those who are so clearly dependent as "retarded" in order to mark them off from us. To Christians, such a distinction must be particularly anathema, for the very content of revelation is to teach us precisely that we are indeed a dependent people.' 

Stanley Hauerwas in Michael S Beates, Disability & The Gospel, p.150.