Brother Lawrence

Brother Lawrence was a lay brother in the Carmelite monastery in Paris during the seventeenth century.  He is known for his classic thoughts on Practising the Presence of God.  This book is actually a record of a series of conversations with him, and fifteen letters he wrote to a friend.

It is interesting that Brother Lawrence endured a period of four years when he was riddled with insecurity about his faith.  However, he emerged from this to a faith marked by great confidence and love.  He is highly regarded by many, including Tozer (whom I am trying to focus on).  One thing that he emphasises is the need to dwell upon God during everyday activities, his job in the monastery was in the kitchen.

The following thoughts are taken from The Practise of the Presence.

In one conversation he explained that there needed neither be art nor science in going to God, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him, or for His sake, and to love him only.

In another conversation he explains that our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake, which we commonly do for our own.  He explained that the most excellent method he had found of going to God, was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing people, and (as far as we are capable) purely for the love of God.  That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is preformed.

In his letters he wrote,

'I consider myself as the most wretched of men, full of sores and corruption, and who has committed all sorts of crimes against his King; touched with a sensible regret, I confess to Him all my wickedness, I ask His forgiveness, I abandon myself in His hands that He may do what He pleases with me.  The King, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastening me, embraces me with love, makes me eat at His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the key of His treasures; He converses and delights Himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all respects as His favourite.'

'Sometimes I consider myself ... as a stone before a [sculptor], whereof He is to make a statue; presenting myself thus before God, I desire Him to form His perfect image in my soul, and make me entirely like Himself.'

'Death follows us close; let us be well prepared for it: for we die but once ... Let us live and die with God.'

'Let us thus think often that our only business in this life is to please God, and that all besides is but folly and vanity.'

He writes to his friend, also in religious orders, about an illness saying:

'I do not pray that you may be delivered from your pains, but I pray God earnestly that He would give you strength and patience to bear them as long as He pleases.  Comfort yourself with him who holds you fastened to the cross.  He will loose you when he thinks fit.  Happy those who suffer with Him: accustom yourself to suffer in that manner, and seek from Him the strength to endure as much, and as long, as He shall judge to be necessary for you ... I wish you could convince yourself that God is often (in some sense) nearer to us, and more effectually present with us, in sickness than in health ... Pains and sufferings would be a paradise to me while I should suffer with my God and the greatest pleasures would be hell to me if I could relish them without Him.'

'Let us fear to leave Him.  Let us be always with Him.  Let us live and die in His presence.'

'I hope from His mercy the favour to see Him within a few days' [Brother Lawrence took to his bed two days later and died within a week].

What the church should be like!

The church should be a healthy, fruitful vineyard that will bring honour to Christ, a church after God's own heart where He can look at the travail of His soul and be satisfied.  Among the people should be a beautiful simplicity and a radiant Christian love so it would be impossible to find gossips and talebearers.  There should be a feeling of humble reverence and an air of joyous informality, where each one esteems others better than himself or herself, where everyone is willing to serve but no one jockeys to serve.  Childlike candour without duplicity or dishonesty should mark the church, and the presence of Christ should be felt and the fragrance of His garments smelled by His beloved.  Prayers should be answered so regularly that we think nothing of it.  It would be common because God is God, and we are His people.  When necessary, miracles would not be uncommon. (Tozer, Out of the rut, into revival).

From Rut to Revival (Part 2)

In our small group John T asked if we could have a video testimony of someone who was not American.  So here you go John!

Testimony

Readings

Deuteronomy 1:6-8; Ephesians 5:13-15; 2 Timothy 1:3-8.

'In Scripture God never uses superfluous words.  He never says to a person who is wide awake, "Wake up!"  He never says to a person who is lying down, "Lie down!"  He never says to someone standing "Get up!"  And he never says to a person who is already stirred up, "Stir up!"  God never wastes His Words, and he never makes little speeches like a person called upon at the laying of a cornerstone.  Nor was Paul wasting words or giving a little talk that would be good just about anywhere.  "Stir up the gift of God that is in Thee" (KJV).  Timothy needed this, or it would not have been written' (Tozer). 

Question

Why are we so prone to getting into spiritual ruts?

Tozer points out that somebody has said that 'man is made of dust and dust tends to settle.  People tend to settle down and do the same things year in and year out, slowly going around in a circle.  When this gets into religion it is deadly and evil.'  He goes on to explain that the law of human nature suggests that 'all valid acts must arise from a natural urge or from a convinced mind.'  Therefore, 'we must present the truth and let the Holy Spirit prompt them to want to escape.'

Questions

What truths can compel us to leave our comfort zones?

How can we open ourselves to God in order that he might give us the desire to change?

Prayer

What verbs might God want to speak into our lives?  Spend some time with one word prayers.  These words are the verbs that God might be calling us to respond to. 

Song

In our studies we are exploring both stillness and striving.  Perhaps we could put it like this.  'In matters of salvation be still, in matters of sanctification be ever striving.' 
While I despair at David Archuleta's Mormonism, and the fact that Mormons lift Christian hymns as if the writers would endorse with their belief system, I nevertheless love this rendition of one of my favourite hymns.

From rut to revival (Part 1)

Jim and Barbara lent me a copy of Out of the Rut, into Revival by Tozer.  Caroline began to read it and was really impressed.  So I have based this evening's meeting (and next week's too) on the contents of this book.  But before we look at that we will begin, as usual, with a testimony.

Testimony

Readings
Matthew 5:2-12; John 14:21-24; Phil. 2:12-13; 1 John 1:8-2:2.
 
Reflection

Last week we thought about contentment.  Godliness with contentment is great gain.  But we also said that there is such a thing as godly discontentment.  Tozer picks up on this when he challenges us to move from rut to personal revival.  He explains that being in a rut is when we expect nothing from God and are happy with the way things are.  But surely every one of us wants to change.  We all know that we are not what we ought to be.  So we should be seeking God's enabling to change.  Indeed, Tozer suggests that if 'we compare what we ought to be and could be with what we are, and we don't see that we are in a rut and we are not concerned, then one of three things is wrong.'  We are either not converted, sin has blinded us temporarily from the light or we are so self-righteous that we are impervious to the work of the Holy Spirit.  'But if [we] are concerned, wounded by the Spirit's sword and are deeply dissatisfied with the religious rut, there is hope.'

Tozer warns against false solutions to the rut.  For example, some people try to work their way out of the rut but getting busy, others blame the church for their spiritual stagnation, and I have a friend who I think is simply waiting for the Holy Spirit to 'zap' him and then all will be well.  The problem with all these attitudes is that they either fail to take personal responsibility for our spiritual lives or fail to see that the problem is deeply personal and internal.

Tozer points out that it is sin that is the cause of the rut and suggests that we examine ourselves.  'An unexamined Christian lies like an unattended garden,  Let your garden go unattended for a few months, and you will not have roses and tomatoes but weeds.  An unexamined Christian life is like an unkempt house.  Lock your house up as tight as you will and leave it long enough, and when you come back you will not believe the dirt that got in from somewhere.  An unexamined Christian is like an untaught child.  A child that is not taught will be a little savage.  It takes examination, teaching, instruction, discipline, caring, tending, weeding and cultivation to keep the life right.'  He urges that have examined our lives we confess our sins and assures us that there 'is nothing, not even the devil himself, that can hinder the confessing sinner.'

He then encourages us that the fact that we want to move beyond the rut is evidence of God's work in our lives.  'And if God worked in you to want to get out, then when you ask Him to get you out, do you suppose He would not help you out?  Would God put an impulse in your heart and then refuse to accept your prayer when you came in answer to that impulse?'  

'What our Lord taught was this: when we obey the words of Jesus, in faith and in love proving that we love Him, He shows Himself to us.'  Remember, the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them (John 14:21b), without holiness no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14) and blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8).  This last verse operates on a number of levels, including on the level of personal experience.  As Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that 'there is a sense of seeing also in the sense of knowing him, a sense of feeling he is near, and enjoying his presence ...'  This sense is dependant upon our willingness to let him deal with our hearts!
                                         

We have been thinking about moving from the rut to personal revival.  We can conclude that to make progress in the Christian life we need to see that we are not what we ought to be (including asking God and his people to show us where we need to change), then we need to sincerely ask God to forgive us (delighting in the fact that his blood goes on covering us from all sin) and commit ourselves to obeying him (remembering that it his Holy Spirit that we depend on to experience real change).

Prayer
Spend time asking God to show you areas in your life where you need to change and ask him to enable you to become more like Jesus in you attitudes.

Reflection

Tozer on being filled by the Spirit

This year I am trying to read from A .W. Tozer.  So on Sunday I concluded my thoughts of John 7 as follows:
 

I want to finish with a plea to experience more of this living water that is the person of the Holy Spirit.  In a book entitled God’s Pursuit of Man A. W. Tozer writes, ‘I want to boldly assert that it is my happy belief that every Christian can have a copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a measure far beyond that received at conversion …’  The apostle Paul urges the Ephesians to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit. 

 
This filling may work in different people in different ways but it always result in them acting more like Christ.  I think of a woman people in Richhill referred to as Auntie Emma.  I first met her in a nursing home.  She was suffering with dementia.  Her short-term memory covered only a few minutes.  Her conversation was limited.  But she would quote hymns and Scripture and tell you how much she loved Jesus.  She may have had a damaged mind but it was a mind in love with God.  It was an inspiration.

   
Do we desire for the Holy Spirit to have more influence in our lives?  Do we desire that he would go on filling us?  Do we desire that he would enable us to become more like Jesus?  Surely all of us who know Jesus must desire this.  But how much do we desire it?  Tozer writes, ‘Before we can be filled by the Spirit the desire to be filled must be all-consuming … The degree of fullness in any life accords perfectly with the intensity of true desire.  We have as much of God as we actually want.’ ...