TERMS STARTING WITH
TERMS ANYWHERE
Abru-El (“power of God”)—the Arab equi¬
BEAUTY. ::: Beauty is as much an expression of the Divine as Knowledge, Power or Ananda.
"To find highest beauty is to find God ; to reveal, to embody, to create as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and power of God.
Impersonally, the manifest power of his quality, it is his outflowing, in whatever form, of Knowledge, Energy, Love, Strength and the rest; personally, it is the mental form and the animate being in whom this power is achieved and does its great works. A pre-eminence in this inner and outer achievement, a greater power of divine quality, an effective energy is always the sign. The human vibhuti is the hero of the race’s struggle towards divine achievement, the hero in the Carlylean sense of heroism, a power of God in man.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 19, Page: 160
Madhav: “This is another key idea in Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, that Nature, what is called Prakriti in Indian philosophy, is not different, not alien to the Purusha. Nature is not foreign to the soul, to God. It is a conscious front of God. Scratch Nature, look behind the exterior of Nature and you will find God. The apparent difference, distinction between Nature and God is only a superficial appearance. Nature is really a power of God. It is devatma shakti, the self-power of God—svagunair nigudham lost in its qualitative workings. She is not separate; conscious, not something unconscious. Nature is aware that it is only a front of God behind.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Rudra2 ::: "the terrible", a Vedic deity who is "the Violent and Merciful, the Mighty One, . . . the armed, wrathful and beneficent Power of God who lifts forcibly the creation upward, smites all that opposes, scourges all that errs and resists, heals all that is wounded and suffers"; (in the plural) gods with the qualities of this deity, "the fierce, impetuous ones", such as the Maruts; in later Hinduism, a name of Śiva as the Destroyer, one of the "three Powers and Personalities of the One Cosmic Godhead", of which the other two are Brahma, the Creator, and Vis.n.u, the Preserver; in the Record of Yoga, sometimes identified with the Balarama personality of the fourfold isvara. rudra ananda
"To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to create, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and power of God.” The Human Cycle
“To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to create, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and power of God.” The Human Cycle
vibhuti ::: divine power, efflorescence of the Divine's powers, energies and magnitudes of its knowledge, love, joy, developed force of being; a power of God in man, embodied World-Force or human leader. ::: vibhuitayah [plural], master powers of the becoming.
KEYS (10k)
3 Saint Thomas Aquinas
2 Sri Aurobindo
1 SWAMI PREMANANDA
1 Pope Leo XIII
1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 Sri Ramakrishna
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
36 Anonymous
10 Andrew Murray
9 Charles Haddon Spurgeon
5 Joyce Meyer
5 John Piper
5 John F MacArthur Jr
4 Various
4 Stormie Omartian
4 Smith Wigglesworth
3 Thomas Merton
3 Sri Aurobindo
3 R C Sproul
3 Phil Pringle
3 Paul Washer
3 Paramahansa Yogananda
3 Martin Luther
3 John Calvin
3 Jeffrey R Holland
3 Donald Miller
3 Dallas Willard
1:4. every other power acts by his power ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (On the Power of God 3.7)., #KEYS
2:The creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.32.1)., #KEYS
3:In a pure body and pure mind, the power of God becomes manifest. Think and think of God; the impurities of the mind will be washed away. ~ SWAMI PREMANANDA, #KEYS
4:Man cannot teach by his own power. One cannot conquer ignorance without the power of God. He who teaches men gets his power from God. None but a man of renunciation can teach others. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
5:The principle of the spiritual life, which is a life in accord with virtue, is the order to the last end, and if this order be corrupted, it cannot be repaired by any intrinsic principle, but by the power of God alone ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.88.1)., #KEYS
6:Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. ~ Pope Leo XIII, Leonine Prayers, Prayer to Saint Michael, #KEYS
7:18. Of the devotees, who is the greatest?
He who gives himself up to the Self that is God is the most excellent devotee. Giving one's self up to God means remaining constantly in the Self without giving room for the rise of any thoughts other than that of the Self. Whatever burdens are thrown on God, He bears them. Since the supreme power of God makes all things move, why should we, without submitting ourselves to it, constantly worry ourselves with thoughts as to what should be done and how, and what should not be done and how not? We know that the train carries all loads, so after getting on it why should we carry our small luggage on our head to our discomfort, instead of putting it down in the train and feeling at ease? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Who am I,#KEYS
8:And for the same reason, because that which we are seeking through beauty is in the end that which we are seeking through religion, the Absolute, the Divine. The search for beauty is only in its beginning a satisfaction in the beauty of form, the beauty which appeals to the physical senses and the vital impressions, impulsions, desires. It is only in the middle a satisfaction in the beauty of the ideas seized, the emotions aroused, the perception of perfect process and harmonious combination. Behind them the soul of beauty in us desires the contact, the revelation, the uplifting delight of an absolute beauty in all things which it feels to be present, but which neither the senses and instincts by themselves can give, though they may be its channels, - for it is suprasensuous, - nor the reason and intelligence, though they too are a channel, - for it is suprarational, supra-intellectual, - but to which through all these veils the soul itself seeks to arrive. When it can get the touch of this universal, absolute beauty, this soul of beauty, this sense of its revelation in any slightest or greatest thing, the beauty of a flower, a form, the beauty and power of a character, an action, an event, a human life, an idea, a stroke of the brush or the chisel or a scintillation of the mind, the colours of a sunset or the grandeur of the tempest, it is then that the sense of beauty in us is really, powerfully, entirely satisfied. It is in truth seeking, as in religion, for the Divine, the All-Beautiful in man, in nature, in life, in thought, in art; for God is Beauty and Delight hidden in the variation of his masks and forms. When, fulfilled in our growing sense and knowledge of beauty and delight in beauty and our power for beauty, we are able to identify ourselves in soul with this Absolute and Divine in all the forms and activities of the world and shape an image of our inner and our outer life in the highest image we can perceive and embody of the All-Beautiful, then the aesthetic being in us who was born for this end, has fulfilled himself and risen to his divine consummation. To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to create, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and power of God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, 144, #KEYS
9:The supreme Truth aspect which thus manifests itself to us is an eternal and infinite and absolute self-existence, self-awareness, self-delight of being; this bounds all things and secretly supports and pervades all things. This Self-existence reveals itself again in three terms of its essential nature,-self, conscious being or spirit, and God or the Divine Being. The Indian terms are more satisfactory,-Brahman the Reality is Atman, Purusha, Ishwara; for these terms grew from a root of Intuition and, while they have a comprehensive preciseness, are capable of a plastic application which avoids both vagueness in the use and the rigid snare of a too limiting intellectual concept. The Supreme Brahman is that which in Western metaphysics is called the Absolute: but Brahman is at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. [...] Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists; Brahman is the force that sustains the power of God and Titan and Demon, the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and energies of Nature; Brahman is the Ananda, the secret Bliss of existence which is the ether of our being and without which none could breathe or live. Brahman is the inner Soul in all; it has taken a form in correspondence with each created form which it inhabits. The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; He is Space and all that is in Space; He is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe. These and similar statements taken together are all-comprehensive: it is possible for the mind to cut and select, to build a closed system and explain away all that does not fit within it; but it is on the complete and many-sided statement that we must take our stand if we have to acquire an integral knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 02: The Knowledge and the Ignorance - The Spiritual Evolution, Part I, The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti [336-337],#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:It's our faith that activates the power of God. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 2:Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 3:The populace judges of the power of God by the power of the priests. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 4:Some morning, get up and allow the power of God to come on you, and allow Him to bless you. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 5:The healing power of God is working in me right now. Eveyr day I get better and better in every way. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 6:In meditation... the power of God begins to reflect in the clear waters of your consciousness. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 7:The power of God is available to you today to help you do whatever you need to do and with a smile on your face! ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 8:You see, rebellion, and the disobedience it causes, keeps us from having the power of God that's available to us as Christians. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 9:Christianity takes for granted the absence of any self-help and offers a power which is nothing less than the power of God. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 10:An affirmation to say everyday: The healing power of God is working in me right now. Eveyr day I get better and better in every way. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 11:If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no further argument of His divinity. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 12:A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 13:Giving in to fear alters God's best plan for your life. So use the power of God's Word to do what He wants you to do... even if you have to do it afraid! The rewards are great. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 14:And now we beseech of Thee that we may have every day some such sense of God's mercy and of the power of God about us, as we have of the fullness of the light of heaven before us. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 15:With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 16:When God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 17:The holiest of Christians, and those who understand best the gospel of Christ, find in themselves a constant inclination to look to the power of the creature, instead of looking to the power of God and the power of God alone. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 18:But the power of God cannot be so determined and measured, for it is uncircumscribed and immeasurable, beyond and above all that is or may be. On the other hand, it must be essentially present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 19:Because when you unite, that is the power of God, you know. God love Love, which is unity. So when you unite, you get the whole power of God. That's what him want. Until Black people unite... if the Black people don't unite, the world, no one, no one can live good. ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 20:We must make a great difference between God's Word and the word of man. A man's word is a little sound, that flies into the air, and soon vanishes; but the Word of God is greater than heaven and earth, yea, greater than death and hell, for it forms part of the power of God, and endures everlastingly. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 21:There once was a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 22:The motive is this, & 23:Brethren, do something; do something, do something! While societies and unions make constitutions, let us win souls. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suvarov's idea of war is mine: `Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form a column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the center of the enemy! Our one aim is to win souls; and this we are not to talk about, but do in the power of God!' ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 24:It's a risky thing to pray and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us. The great thing in prayer is not to pray, but to go directly to God. . . . The fact is, though, that if you descend into the depths of your own spirit and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you are confronted with the inescapable truth that, at the very root of your existence, you are in constant and immediate contact with the infinite power of God. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 25:We come no nearer the infinitude of the creative power of God, if we enclose the space of its revelation within a sphere described with the radius of the Milky Way, than if we were to limit it to a ball an inch in diameter. All that is finite, whatever has limits and a definite relation to unity, is equally far removed from the infinite... Eternity is not sufficient to embrace the manifestations of the Supreme Being, if it is not combined with the infinitude of space. ~ immanuel-kant, @wisdomtrove 26:Our mistake is that we want God to send revival on our terms. We want to get the power of God into our hands, to call it to us that it may work for us in promoting and furthering our kind of Christianity. We want still to be in charge, guiding the chariot through the religious sky in the direction we want it to go, shouting "Glory to God," but modestly accepting a share of the glory for ourselves in a nice inoffensive sort of way. We are calling on God to send fire on our altars, completely ignoring the fact that they are OUR altars and not God's. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 27:I often ask myself, & *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:don’t you question the power of God! ~ E N Joy, #NFDB
2:Compassion limits even the power of God. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
3:It's our faith that activates the power of God. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
4:power of God, and many were brought to repentance, ~ Joseph Smith Jr, #NFDB
5:power of God unto salvation, and through it will come ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
6:The power of God is within me. The grace of God surrounds me. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
7:Because the power of God does not fade over time, Dr. Hawthorne, ~ Don Hoesel, #NFDB
8:learn to cooperate and become one with the power of God. Lake ~ Roberts Liardon, #NFDB
9:Grace isn’t permission to sin; it’s the power of God to sin no more. ~ Paul Ellis, #NFDB
10:The purpose of God and the power of God is available for every man. ~ G Campbell Morgan, #NFDB
11:Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
12:The populace judges of the power of God by the power of the priests. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
13:It was about realizing the power of God taking over my complete weakness. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
14:That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
15:Remove any of your fear with faith. Trust the power of God to guide you. ~ M Russell Ballard, #NFDB
16:When the POWER OF GOD is present, healing and deliverance are just like BREATHING! ~ T B Joshua, #NFDB
17:Jesus’ Cross shows the full force of evil, but also the full power of God’s mercy. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
18:The promises of God become the power of God when they are believed and acted upon. ~ Phil Pringle, #NFDB
19:Disciple : The idea is that there must be Aishwarya – power of God – in an Avatar. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
20:Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
21:[A]ll will be raised by the power of God, having spirit in their bodies, and not blood. ~ Sam Smith, #NFDB
22:You must flow with the will of God, in the service of God, to obtain the power of God. ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
23:Grace is the power of God to help us in other areas in which we cannot help ourselves. ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
24:The salvation of all the elect is not less certain than the power of God is invincible. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
25:Hearing and believing the good news will release the power of God into your situation. ~ Joseph Prince, #NFDB
26:Faith is a creative force. When we operate by faith, we employ the creative power of God. ~ Phil Pringle, #NFDB
27:The MORE you Trust in the Arm of the FLESH, the LESS you're going to see of the POWER of GOD. ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
28:Think not that the strength of man shall ever be able to overcome the power of God. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
29:But by the power of God, he'd torn himself away from his past and had gone someplace different. ~ Jody Hedlund, #NFDB
30:Regeneration is a work of the omnipotent power of God, power that nothing can overcome or resist. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
31:Our high and privileged calling is to do the will of God in the power of God for the glory of God. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
32:†For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
33:this absolute power of God over man is counterbalanced by the idea that man is God's potential rival. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
34:In meditation...the power of God begins to reflect in the clear waters of your consciousness. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
35:Nothing is impossible for the people of God who trust in the power of God to accomplish the will of God. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
36:Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God. ~ Arnold J Toynbee, #NFDB
37:It did not speak well of the power of God, in other words, if He needed a human government to prop him up. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
38:We are dependent on the power of God to convert us and give faith in Jesus Christ and the new nature. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
39:Every Word of God is Spirit and life. When you receive and obey the Word of God, the power of God works in you. ~ T B Joshua, #NFDB
40:16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
41:The power of God tenderizes and changes us, not spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines only position us to receive. ~ Mike Bickle, #NFDB
42:We must trust in the mighty power of God's mercy. We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
43:Face your fears by remembering the power of God's cleaning truth. To change the way you are, change the way you think. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
44:There’s only one power in the world great enough to help us rise above the difficult things we face: the power of God. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
45:Don't get upset with your imperfections. Surrender to the Power of God's Love, which is greater than our weakness. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
46:Everyone can relate to love, hurt, pain, learning how to forgive, needing to get over, needing the power of God in their life. ~ Tyler Perry, #NFDB
47:Fear unchecked grows exponentially. Love poured forth has the power to remove it. Thus is the power of God in our lives ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
48:When faith replaces doubt, when selfless service eliminates selfish striving, the power of God brings to pass His purposes. ~ Thomas S Monson, #NFDB
49:Do not expect God always to give you His thrilling minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
50:Worry denies the power of God and produces no good results. Worry adds no value to your life. Eliminate it with God’s help. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
51:18For the message of the cross is foolishness† to those who are perishing,† but to us who are being saved† it is the power of God.† ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
52:There is one thing the power of God and the power of Satan have in common: Neither can influence us unless we allow them to. ~ Sheri Dew, #NFDB
53:This is the wonderful power of God, that He rules over all as individuals and over individuals as all. And He knows all things. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
54:26 Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost! ~ Joseph Smith Jr, #NFDB
55:If a man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
56:We must search the scriptures, accepting them as the mind and will and voice of the Lord and the very power of God unto salvation. ~ Bruce R McConkie, #NFDB
57:We know have the power of God in many ways: the atomic bomb, the ability to create life in a test tube, cloning, artificial intelligence. ~ James Frey, #NFDB
58:With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
59:18The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
60:We must refuse to lean upon the broken staff of human wisdom & cling to the gospel alone as the power of God to save a hardened humanity. ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
61:An affirmation to say everyday:
The healing power of God is working in me right now. Eveyr day I get better and better in every way. ~ Joyce Meyer,#NFDB
62:For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
63:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
64:I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
65:In my ministry, I teach my disciples, "Power first, then the Word. Go in and prophesy first, or demonstrate the power of God first in some way." ~ Todd Bentley, #NFDB
66:Not to see the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and consequently all the other holy properties of his nature, in Christ, is to be an unbeliever. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
67:So don't be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me His prisoner. Instead, share in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
68:I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
69:The power of God unto salvation is not our passion for God, but the passion He has exhibited toward us sinners by sending his own Son to redeem us. ~ Michael Horton, #NFDB
70:Faith is the great equalizer; Faith is the great qualifier. Faith opens doors and creates opportunities for accessing the power of God against all odds. ~ Rob Reimer, #NFDB
71:I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
72:16For d I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is e the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew f first and also to g the Greek. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
73:when you courageously believe in the power of doubt instead of the power of God, you much see the works of doubt and least see the works of God ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
74:a mystic is someone who “perceives” life through the eyes of the soul, who experiences the power of God rather than speaks or debates the politics of God, ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
75:If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it - I mean really asked, expecting an answer. ~ Frederick Buechner, #NFDB
76:If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no further argument of His divinity. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
77:The dunamis power of God equipes you to unleash your visions and that is your responsibility. You can't be responsible for what you are not equipped to do ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
78:The trust that allows us to embrace uncertainty has three aspects: belief in the provision of God, belief in the promises of God, and belief in the power of God. ~ Pete Wilson, #NFDB
79:You stupid chick ... nun ... whatever. I’m a tenth-degree black belt in Korean Karate!” “But you don’t have the power of God, you uncircumcised philistine! ~ James Scott Bell, #NFDB
80:ROM1.16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
81:A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
82:Acceptance of the power of God in one's life lays the groundwork for personal commitment to both science and Christianity, which so often have been in conflict. ~ Kenneth Lee Pike, #NFDB
83:Resisting means we make a stand against temptation. We choose the pathway of Jesus. With the power of God in our lives, we deliberately decide to draw close to him. ~ Louie Giglio, #NFDB
84:God, as much as I’ve needed your power to kill the Enemy, I need your power to fix me. It’s not enough that power goes out from me; I need the power of God to work in me. ~ Louie Giglio, #NFDB
85:not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of c the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men [3] but d in the power of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
86:Were not the eye made to receive the rays of the sun, it could not behold the sun; if the peculiar power of God lay not in us, how could the godlike charm us? ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
87:The power of God is with you at all times; through the activities of mind, senses, breathing, and emotions; and is constantly doing all the work using you as a mere instrument. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
88:From the power of God we are naturally led to consider his eternity since that from which all other things derive their origin must necessarily be selfexistent and eternal. Moreover, ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
89:Making disciples is all about seeing people transformed by the power of God’s Word. If you want to see that happen in others, you need to be experiencing such transformation yourself. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
90:With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
91:And now we beseech of Thee that we may have every day some such sense of God's mercy and of the power of God about us, as we have of the fullness of the light of heaven before us. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
92:Nihil ita sublime est, supraque pericula tendit Non sit ut inferius suppositumque deo. - Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God. ~ Ovid, Tristium, IV. 8. 47, #NFDB
93:THEME OF THE GOSPEL. [Rom. 1:16, 17] For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
94:When we require that all people must say the same words or subscribe to the same creeds in order to experience God, we underestimate the scope and power of God’s activity in the world. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
95:I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
96:Lord, convert our friends that still remain unsaved. Oh mighty power of God, let none come into this house even accidentally and casually without receiving some devout impression. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
97:All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. ~ Pope Urban II, #NFDB
98:I used to tell young preachers, in order to preach you've got to have the power of God on your life. Now I tell them, in order to tie your shoes you've got to have the power of God on your life. ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
99:Let us pray to God that other gifts may not so satisfy us, that we never grasp the fact that the absence of this grace (humility) is the secret cause why the power of God cannot do its mighty work. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
100:His vision was religious and clean, and therefore his paintings were without decoration or superfluous comment, since a religious man respects the power of God's creation to bear witness for itself. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
101:I used to tell young preachers, in order to preach you've got to have the power of God on your life. Now I tell them, in order to tie your shoes you've got to have the power of God on your life. ~ Paul David Washer, #NFDB
102:We're not alone--at least, we're alone only if we choose to be alone. We're alone only if we choose to go through life relying solely on our own strength rather than learning to draw upon the power of God. ~ Sheri Dew, #NFDB
103:If by fate anyone means the will or power of God, let him keep his meaning but mend his language; for fate commonly means a necessary process which will have its way apart from the will of God and men. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
104:Many people shun an anointed atmosphere because they know that it will challenge them to change. Preferring to stay where the power of God is not moving, they are never challenged, convicted, or transformed. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
105:When I remember the promises of God, I tap into the power of God. God’s promises are always a perfect match for our problems. And our problem instigator the Devil—the lion—is no match for God’s promises. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
106:I am debt-free in Jesus’ name. I attract God-inspired ideas that produce great wealth. Opportunities and resources are headed my way now, in Jesus’ name.” Release the power of God into your pocket book. ~ Terri Savelle Foy, #NFDB
107:You were born to lead people out of the darkness into light in the power of God. Dare to rise up to this calling! Never stand low for satan to mess up your destiny. You are a pencil in the hands of God! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
108:Christianity does not think of man finally submitting to the power of God, it thinks of Him as finally surrendering to the love of God. It is not that man's will is crushed, but that man's heart is broken. ~ William Barclay, #NFDB
109:When God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
110:Miracles, or those extraordinary manifestations of the power of god, are not for the unbeliever; they are to console the Saints, and to strengthen and confirm the faith of those who love, fear, and serve God. ~ Brigham Young, #NFDB
111:the power of God came mightily upon us. Many cried out in complete joy. Others were knocked to the ground. As soon as we recovered a little from that awe and amazement at God’s presence, we broke out in praise. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
112:I meditate and pray all the time. The faith and respect that I have in the power of God in my life is what I've used to keep myself grounded, and it has allowed me to move away from the storms that were in my life. ~ Halle Berry, #NFDB
113:1CO2.4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 1CO2.5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
114:Ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur."
If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. ~ Horace,#NFDB
115:Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you do not know the Holy Writings or the power of God? 25 When people are raised from the dead, they do not marry and are not given in marriage. They are like ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
116:I don’t hesitate to say that if we truly grasped the improbability and overwhelming power of God’s love, we would be changed forever. We would think differently. Feel differently. Live differently. Nothing would be the same. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
117:For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
118:Therefore, Christians are viewed as those who have merely changed their minds rather than those who have been transformed by the power of God into new creatures with new natures resulting in new and righteous affections. ~ Paul David Washer, #NFDB
119:He who meditates on God for many days has substance in him, has divine power in him. Further, he who sings well, plays well on a musical instrument, or has mastered anyone art, has in him real substance and the power of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
120:I meet millions who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. The hope that each of us has is not in who governs us, or what laws are passed... Our hope is in the power of God working in the hearts of people. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
121:The holiest of Christians, and those who understand best the gospel of Christ, find in themselves a constant inclination to look to the power of the creature, instead of looking to the power of God and the power of God alone. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
122:18For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
123:16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, [5] as it is written, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
124:The power of God is effective when a person asks for the help from God, acknowledging his own weakness and sinfulness. This is why humility and the striving towards God are the fundamental virtues of a Christian. ~ John of Shanghai and San Francisco, #NFDB
125:But the power of God cannot be so determined and measured, for it is uncircumscribed and immeasurable, beyond and above all that is or may be. On the other hand, it must be essentially present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
126:Religion holds the solution to all problems of human relationship, whether they are between parents and children or nation and nation. Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God. ~ Arnold J Toynbee, #NFDB
127:Isn’t it amazing that when we take our eyes off our fears, doubts, and struggles to focus on someone else’s needs, we somehow forget our own? In believing the power of God’s promises for others, our confidence in His promises for us increases. ~ Renee Swope, #NFDB
128:All I have to do is keep my spirit, feelings and conscience like a sheet of blank paper, and let the Spirit and power of God write upon it what He pleases. When He writes, I will read; but if I read before He writes, I am very likely to be wrong ~ Brigham Young, #NFDB
129:Moving from unbelief, to Evangelicalism, and finally home to the Catholic Church, Professor Holly Ordway reveals how a gifted mind, longing for transcendence, can only appropriate it if it is wholly given by the reach and power of God's grace. ~ Francis J Beckwith, #NFDB
130:21 Seek not to adeclare my word, but first seek to bobtain my cword, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my dSpirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the econvincing of men. ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
131:The spiritual power in the gospel is denied when we augment or adjusting gospel into no gospel at all. When we doubt the message alone is the power of God for salvation we start adding or subtracting, trusting our own powers of persuasion or presentation. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
132:All that the Church and its members need for the manifestation of the mighty power of God in the world, is the return to our true place, the place that belongs to us, both in creation and redemption, the place of absolute and unceasing dependence upon God. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
133:Divine grace is God acting in our life to accomplish what we cannot do on our own. It informs our being and actions and makes them effective in the wisdom and power of God. Hence, grace is not opposed to effort (our actions) but to earning (our attitude). ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
134:let us learn by this example, that it is of little importance, or of no importance at all, if a man is struck with terror, when he sees before his eyes the power of God, until, after the astonishment has been abated, the fear of God remains calmly in his heart. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
135:When our faith is based primarily on the wisdom of men and not on the power of God, we've just nullified most of what God intended for our lives. When our faith is built only on a collection of doctrines, we miss out on the Person who wants to be our life. ~ Henry T Blackaby, #NFDB
136:Among the many acts of gratitude we owe to God, it may be accounted one to study and contemplate the perfections and beauties of His work of creation. Every new discovery must necessarily raise in us a fresh sense of the greatness, wisdom, and power of God. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
137:Because when you unite, that is the power of God, you know. God love Love, which is unity. So when you unite, you get the whole power of God. That's what him want. Until Black people unite...if the Black people don't unite, the world, no one, no one can live good. ~ Bob Marley, #NFDB
138:A cheap and tawdry evangelism has tended to rob the gospel which it proclaims of that invincible power which is the glory of the gospel of sovereign grace. May the church come to think and live again in terms of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. ~ John Murray, #NFDB
139:You see, darkness can’t live where music resounds. Darkness can’t live where the power of God abounds. Darkness can’t sustain itself. So, use the following meditation anytime you want to surround yourself with angels, and particularly if you’re in need of healing. ~ Sylvia Browne, #NFDB
140:But Jesus also wanted to demonstrate that a convincing argument rarely results in a changed heart. Hearts aren’t transformed through well-rehearsed speeches; they’re transformed when they see the truth and power of God demonstrated through a humble man or woman of God. ~ Tri Robinson, #NFDB
141:Faith is a key that unlocks the treasure house of God that is stocked with answered prayers. Faith is a conduit that carries the presence and power of God right into the midst of his people. Faith is a difference-maker, a future-shaper, a bondage-breaker, a Kingdom-mover. ~ Rob Reimer, #NFDB
142:His divine power is active in his Word. Do not underestimate, then, how much the power of God can do in your life through the Bible. The voice of the Lord can break down even our strongest defenses, defuse our despair, free us from guilt, and lead us to him. Prayer: ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
143:I learned that the problems that we have are not solved by blaming somebody else, and that our hope is not in who governs us as a nation. It's not in Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or Ron Paul. Our hope is in the power of God and his gospel working in the hearts of people. ~ Kirk Cameron, #NFDB
144:Thus the motivation, energy and drive for holiness are all found in the reality and power of God's grace in Christ. And so if I am to make any progress in sanctification, the place where I must always begin is the gospel of the mercy of God to me in Christ Jesus. ~ Sinclair B Ferguson, #NFDB
145:When we learn to embrace trials, anguish, and distress as friends (James 1:2–4; Romans 5:3–5) and as reminders of our own weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10), we become more dependent on the power of God and therefore more effective as leaders and witnesses for Him. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
146:If anyone cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of feeling at all. From the enduring wonder of the heavens flows all grace and power. If anyone thinks it is mindless then he himself must be out of his mind. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
147:You remember how you were taught to write. Your mother put a pencil in your hand, took your hand in hers, and began to move it. Since you did not know at all what she meant to do, you left your hand completely free in hers. This is like the power of God in our lives. ~ Anthony of Sourozh, #NFDB
148:And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God ... and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
149:7 And ye may aknow that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, baccording to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever. ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
150:16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,a for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. + 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”a ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
151:16For †I am not ashamed of the gospel cof Christ, for †it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, †for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17For †in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, †“The just shall live by faith. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
152:Easter is not about immortality but about resurrection from a death that is a real death with all its frightfulness and horrors, resurrection from a death of the body and the soul, of the whole person, resurrection by the power of God’s mighty act. This is the Easter message. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
153:I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;
I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God...
I know not where his islands lift
Their fronded palms in the air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond his love and care. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier,#NFDB
154:If we believe we are loved, we will live loved.
If we believe we are strong in the power of God, we will live strong.
If we believe Christ is with us in our fear, we will be brave.
If we believe that Christ is with us in the mornings of life, He will be there at midnight too. ~ Sheila Walsh,#NFDB
155:The power of God is the worship He inspires.... The worship of God is not a rule of safety — it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (1925), #NFDB
156:It's a loathsome tale, yet I'm proof of God's love. He seeks us out to be His very own. My life had been so horrible, but it all changed when I surrendered to Him. It's the most important decision you'll ever make, and I pray you will soon understand the power of God's unconditional love. ~ DiAnn Mills, #NFDB
157:Shame is a hold that sin uses on you. As long as you're ashamed of the sin, it has a hold on you. When you can name it and walk away from it, you're walking in the power of God. That's what the Lord wants from His people. Sin and shame have no place in the life of a man or woman of God. ~ Angela Benson, #NFDB
158:What do we want? What would we be at? What do our souls desire? Is it not that we might have a more full, clear, stable comprehension of the wisdom, love, grace, goodness, holiness, righteousness, and power of God, as declared and exalted in Christ unto our redemption and eternal salvation? ~ John Owen, #NFDB
159:What happens when we acknowledge the sovereignty and power of God without trusting in His goodness and faithfulness? A pitcher who saw God's power behind his extremely unlikely rise to the big leagues wondered if, at any difficulty he encountered there, God might be taking his ability away. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
160:If we would continuously know the power of God we should go often alone with Him, at the close of each day at least, and ask Him to show us if any sin, anything displeasing in His sight, has crept in that day, and if He shows us that there has, we should confess it and put it away then and there. ~ R A Torrey, #NFDB
161:16For d I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is e the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew f first and also to g the Greek. 17For in it h the righteousness of God is revealed i from faith for faith, [5] j as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” [6] ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
162:Therefore, sanctification is an infinite journey, because only the infinite power of God can complete it. And only the infinitely powerful priestly ministry of Christ at the right hand of God can keep us from all spiritual harm and enable us to make a single step forward in our sanctification. ~ Andrew M Davis, #NFDB
163:The life-giving preacher is a man of God, whose heart is ever athirst for God, whose soul is ever following hard after God, whose eye is single to God, and in whom by the power of God’s Spirit the flesh and the world have been crucified and his ministry is like the generous flood of a life-giving river. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
164:We must make a great difference between God's Word and the word of man. A man's word is a little sound, that flies into the air, and soon vanishes; but the Word of God is greater than heaven and earth, yea, greater than death and hell, for it forms part of the power of God, and endures everlastingly. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
165:He is a God of power and love and wisdom, and as His image bearers, we must be women of power and love and wisdom as well. In order to be who we were created to be we must not only acknowledge the brokenness of this world, we must at the same time affirm that the love and power of God is stronger still. ~ Hannah Anderson, #NFDB
166:Christ is not gloriously transported from earth into heaven. He must instead go to the cross. And precisely there, where the cross stands, the resurrection is near. Precisely here, where all lose faith in God, where all despair about the power of God, God is fully there, and Christ is alive and near. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
167:So I think it is demonstrated that the God being good, and the Lord powerful, they save with a righteousness and equality which extend to all that turn to Him, whether here or elsewhere. For it is not here alone that the active power of God is beforehand, but it is everywhere and is always at work. ~ Clement of Alexandria, #NFDB
168:The power of God is released when believers choose not to be conformed to the world’s ways but be transformed in their minds, wills, and emotions by God’s Word. Paul said in Romans 1:16 that he wasn’t ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. ~ Jentezen Franklin, #NFDB
169:The good news of the gospel [for sufferers] is not an exhortation from above to 'hang on at all costs,' or 'grin and bear it' in the midst of hardship. No, the good news is that God is hanging on to you, and in the end, when all is said and done, the power of God will triumph over every pain and loss. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
170:14I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. 16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
171:The Resurrection is not a single event, but a loosening of God's power and light into the earth and history that continues to alter all things, infusing them with the grace and power of God's own holiness. It is as though a door was opened, and what poured out will never be stopped, and that door cannot be closed. ~ Megan McKenna, #NFDB
172:It is an echo, in fact, from the last lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the lines in which Dante describes what it is to feel ecstatic bliss in the mystical union with God, to give up your entire identity and subsume it beneath the sacred power of God’s divine love, the love that moves the sun and the other stars. ~ Hubert L Dreyfus, #NFDB
173:That level of honesty is reserved for the counseling office. Church is too often a place of pretense and therefore a place without hope. When brokenness is disdained, where the real story is never told, the power of God is not felt. Where brokenness is invited and received with grace, the gospel comes alive with hope. ~ Larry Crabb, #NFDB
174:The religious need of the human mind remains alive, never more so, but it demands a teaching which can be understood. Slowly an apprehension of the intimate, usable power of God is growing among us, and a growing recognition of the only worth-while application of that power-in the improvement of the world. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman, #NFDB
175:Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we believe that God is more to be desired than life itself (Psalm 63:3). Which means that the power of sin's promise is broken by the power of God's. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
176:Can you by humble faith look to Jesus, and say, "My substitute, thou art my rock, my trust"? Then, beloved, be not afraid of God's power; for by faith you have fled to Christ for refuge, the power of God need no more terrify you, than the shield and sword of the warrior need terrify those whom he loves. Rather ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
177:Faith is lifeless unless you act on it. T.L. Osbourne says: “When the promises of God are believed and acted upon they become the power of God”. We can do all the things we have previously talked about about: desire, decision, prayer, speaking faith, seeing the answer, but if we don’t act our faith it is all to no avail. ~ Phil Pringle, #NFDB
178:Saint Michael the archangel, Defend us in battle, Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, And do Thou, oh prince of the heavenly host, By the divine power of God, Cast into Hell Satan and all evil spirits Who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. ~ Ryan Buell, #NFDB
179:Divine life is full of divine appointment and equipping, and you cannot be filled with the power of God without a manifestation. It is my prayer that we would understand that to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with manifestation, the glory of the Lord being in the midst of us, manifesting His divine power. ~ Smith Wigglesworth, #NFDB
180:Philosophy, he jeered, was incapable of proving the existence of God, or even of proving the impossibility of there being two gods. Philosophy believed in the inevitability of causes and effects, which was a diminution of the power of God, who could easily intervene to alter effects and make causes ineffectual if he so chose. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
181:ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile.[*] 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”[*] ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
182:Don't get upset with your imperfections. It's a great mistake because it leads nowhere - to get angry because you are angry, upset at being upset, depressed at being depressed, disappointed because you are disappointed. So don't fool yourself. Simply surrender to the Power of God's Love, which is always greater than our weakness. ~ Francis de Sales, #NFDB
183:Prayer is self-discipline. The effort to realize the presence and power of God stretches the sinews of the soul and hardens its muscles. To pray is to grow in grace. To tarry in the presence of the King leads to new loyalty and devotion on the part of the faithful subjects. Christian character grows in the secret-place of prayer. ~ Samuel Marinus Zwemer, #NFDB
184:Don't get upset with your imperfections. It's a great mistake because it leads nowhere - to get angry because you are angry, upset at being upset, depressed at being depressed, disappointed because you are disappointed. So don't fool yourself. Simply surrender to the Power of God's Love, which is always greater than our weakness. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
185:There are three things in the text. First, a gospel rejected — “Christ, crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness;” secondly, a gospel triumphant — “unto those which are called, both Jews and Greeks;” and thirdly, a gospel admired-it is to them who are called “the power of God; and the wisdom of God. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
186:If I were your enemy, I’d devalue your strength and magnify your insecurities until they dominate how you see yourself, disabling and disarming you from fighting back, from being free, from being who God has created you to be. I’d work hard to ensure that you never realize what God has given you so you’ll doubt the power of God within you. ~ Priscilla Shirer, #NFDB
187:Everything good that happens to you is because of God; everything bad that happens to you is on you because you made the choice not to recognize the power of God in you. It was your choice. That’s why I hate when people say they “found God.” Man, God was never lost. You were. There was never a missing person’s report out for our creator. ~ Charlamagne Tha God, #NFDB
188:The power of God is shown, not so much in his creation of the world or in any of his miracles, but rather in the fact that out of love God has “emptied himself” (Phil. 2:7), has poured himself out in generous self-giving, by his own free choice consenting to suffer and to die. And this self-emptying is a self-fulfillment: kenosis is plerosis. ~ Kallistos Ware, #NFDB
189:The power of God stands in violent contrast with the power of man. It is not external like man's power, but internal. By applying external pressure, I can make a person do what I want him to do. This is man's power. But as for making him be what I want him to be, without at the same time destroying his freedom, only love can make this happen. ~ Frederick Buechner, #NFDB
190:To materialists this world is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is just a mountain, a sunset just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and saints, the world is transparent like a window pane - it tells of something beyond....a mountain tells of the Power of God, the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
191:To deny or ignore the existence of an enemy is to give him a great chance against you; and the flesh is in the believer to the very end, a force of evil to be reckoned with continually, an evil force inside a man, and yet, thank God, a force which can be so dealt with by the power of God, that it shall have no power to defile the heart or deflect the will. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
192:Prayer is much more than just giving a list of desires to God, as if He were the great Sugar Daddy/Santa Claus in the sky. Prayer is acknowledging and experiencing the presence of God and inviting His presence into our lives and circumstances. It’s seeking the presence of God and releasing the power of God which gives us the means to overcome any problem. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
193:Sometimes I leave Christian events wondering if we resemble the prophets of Baal in I Kings 18 more than Elijah, the prophet of God. . . . We can have a great time singing and dancing ourselves into a frenzy. . . . But at the end of it, fire doesn’t come down from heaven. People leave talking about the people who led rather than the power of God. — Francis Chan ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
194:The fact that the scarab flies during the hotest part of the day made the insect to be identified with the sun, and the ball of eggs to be compared to the sun itself. The unseen power of God, made manifest under the form of the god Khepera, caused the sun to roll across the sky, and the act of rolling gave to the scarab its name kheper, i.e., “he who rolls”. ~ E A Wallis Budge, #NFDB
195:About three in the morning as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we recovered a little from the awe and amazement at the presence of His Majesty, we broke out with one voice, 'We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.' ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
196:Many pray for the power of God. More every year. Those prayers sound powerful, sincere, godly, and without ulterior motive. Hidden under such prayer and fervor, however, are ambition, a craving for fame, the desire to be considered a spiritual giant. The person who prays such a prayer may not even know it, but dark motives and desires are in his heartin your heart. ~ Gene Edwards, #NFDB
197:Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. ~ Pope Leo XIII, Leonine Prayers, Prayer to Saint Michael, #NFDB
198:Consider what it takes for successful businessmen and businesswomen, effective entrepreneurs and hardworking associates, shrewd retirees and idealistic students to combine forces with a creative pastor to grow a "successful church" today. Clearly, it doesn't require the power of God to draw a crowd in our culture. A few key elements that we can manufacture will suffice. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
199:When we pray, we bring that power to bear upon everything we are praying about, and we allow the power of God to work through our powerlessness. When we pray, we are humbling ourselves before God and saying, “I need Your presence and Your power, Lord. I can’t do this without You.” When we don’t pray, it’s like saying we have no need of anything outside of ourselves. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
200:In the final analysis, then, love of enemies is trusting God for the miracle of divine forgiveness. If God can forgive, redeem, and transform me, I must also believe that God can work such wonders with anyone. Love of enemies is seeing one's oppressors through the prism of the Reign of God--not only as they now are but also as they can become: transformed by the power of God. ~ Walter Wink, #NFDB
201:The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will which is necessary unto salvation. ~ Various, #NFDB
202:The power of God is beyond all our conception. The trouble is that we do not have the power of God in a full manifestation because of our finite thoughts, but as we go on and let God have His way, there is no limit to what our limitless God will do in response to a limitless faith. But you will never get anywhere except you are in constant pursuit of all the power of God. ~ Smith Wigglesworth, #NFDB
203:Prayer involves communication in the spiritual realm. Many prayers are answered in ways that cannot be seen in the material realm. Many prayers are answered in ways different from what we asked. For a variety of reasons, after we open our eyes we do not always see tangible evidence of our prayers. When we are not vigilant, this tempts us to doubt the power of God through prayer. ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
204:GLOSS. Secondly, the Evangelic doctrine has sublimity of strength; whence the Apostle says, The Gospel is the power of God to the salvation of all that believe. (Rom. 1:16.) The Prophet also shews this in the foregoing words, Lift up thy voice with might; which further marks out the manner of evangelic teaching, by that raising the voice which gives clearness to the doctrine. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
205:Regeneration is at the basis of all change in heart and life. It is a stupendous change because it is God’s recreative act. A cheap and tawdry evangelism has tended to rob the gospel which it proclaims of that invincible power which is the glory of the gospel of sovereign grace. May the church come to think and live again in terms of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. ~ John Murray, #NFDB
206:Ws 7:24 For wisdom is more active than all active things; and reacheth everywhere, by reason of her purity. Ws 7:25 For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emmanation of the glory of the Almighty God: and therefore no defiled thing cometh into her. Ws 7:26 For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness. ~ Various, #NFDB
207:Where is the hope? I meet millions who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. Where is the hope? The hope that each of us have is not in who governs us, or what laws are passed, or what great things that we do as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people, and that’s where our hope is in this country; that’s where our hope is in life. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
208:Just think of the Christians around you. I do not speak of nominal Christians, or of professing Christians, but I speak of hundreds and thousands of honest, earnest Christians who are not living a life in the power of God or to His glory. So little power, so little devotion or consecration to God, so little perception of the truth that a Christian is a man utterly surrendered to God’s will! Oh, ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
209:Saral came one day with a idea for drawing the women to hear the Gospel. She would teach them to knit with some pink wool she had been given, 'and they will love me more and like to listen when I talk about Jesus.'
Amy could not say yes to that. She explained that the Gospel needed no such frills. It is the power of God for salvation....There was no need for tricks which might open houses... ~ Elizabeth Elliott,#NFDB
210:For unless we pass on to his providence—however we may seem both to comprehend with the mind and to confess with the tongue—we do not yet properly grasp what it means to say: “God is Creator.” Carnal sense, once confronted with the power of God in the very Creation, stops there, and at most weighs and contemplates only the wisdom, power, and goodness of the author in accomplishing such handiwork. (These ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
211:In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to Nature, or are reflected and reverted upon himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, and Human Philosophy or Humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character of the power of God, the difference of Nature and the use of Man. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
212:We shall never want to serve God in our real and secret hearts if He looms in our subconscious mind as an arbitrary Dictator or a Spoil-sport, or as one who takes advantage of His position to make us poor mortals feel guilty and afraid. We have not only to be impressed by the "size" and unlimited power of God, we have to be moved to genuine admiration, respect, and affection, if we are ever to worship Him. ~ John Bertram Phillips, #NFDB
213:There once was a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
214:The motive is this, 'Oh! that God could be glorified, that Jesus might see the reward of his sufferings! Oh! that sinners might be saved, so that God might have new tongues to praise him, new hearts to love him! Oh! that sin were put an end to, that the holiness, righteousness, mercy, and power of God might be magnifi ed!' This is the way to pray; when thy prayers seek God's glory, it is God's glory to answer thy prayers. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
215:For believers, there is nothing that God can’t do. If He can’t do something, He can’t be God since God in their view is omnipotent—all powerful. There can be no limitation to the power of God in the eyes of the believer. There can be no natural or man-made law that can ever bind God. It is belief in the miracles that binds a devotee to Him. You remove all miracles from a scripture and it loses all its charm for the believers. ~ Awdhesh Singh, #NFDB
216:God never had to reach into the ground again, because the power to transform was intrinsically placed into man. All types of potential were locked into our spirits before birth. For the Christian, transformation at its optimum is the outworking of the internal. God placed certain things in us that must come out. We house the prophetic power of God. Every word of our personal prophetic destiny is inside us. He has ordained us to be. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
217:Notice how Christ uses that word deny twice. He said to Peter the first time, “Deny himself” (Matthew 16:24); He said to Peter the second time, “Thou shalt deny me” (Matthew 26:34). It is either of the two. There is no other choice for us; we must either deny self or deny Christ. There are two great powers fighting each other the self-nature in the power of sin, and Christ in the power of God. Either of these must rule within us. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
218:No one has ever laughed at a pun who did not see in the one word a twofold meaning. To materialists this world is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is just a mountain, a sunset just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and saints, the world is transparent like a window pane - it tells of something beyond....a mountain tells of the Power of God, the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
219:However we study or delight in the letter of the Word, it has no saving or sanctifying power without the Holy Spirit. Human wisdom and human will, however great their efforts, cannot command that power. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. It is only as the Holy Spirit teaches you as you read, only as the Gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, that you will be given, along with every command, the strength also to obey it. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
220:Brethren, do something; do something, do something! While societies and unions make constitutions, let us win souls. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suvarov's idea of war is mine: `Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form a column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the center of the enemy! Our one aim is to win souls; and this we are not to talk about, but do in the power of God!' ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
221:To lay hold of and receive the gospel by a true and saving faith is an act of the soul that has been made a new creature, which is the workmanship of God... Wherefore whoever receiveth the grace that is tendered in the gospel, they must be quickened by the power of God, their eyes must be opened, their understandings illuminated, their ears unstopped, their hearts circumcised, their wills also rectified, and the Son of God revealed in them. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
222:It is not the multitude of hard duties, it is not the constraint and contention that advance us in our Christian course. On the contrary, it is the yielding of our wills without restriction and without choice to tread cheerfully every day in the path in which Providence leads us. It is to seek nothing, to be discouraged by nothing, to see our duty in the present moment, and to trust all else without reserve to the will and power of God. ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
223:Nowhere in scripture are believers told to esteem ourselves capable of anything aside from what the power of God does within us. Philippians 4:13 says that we can do all things through Christ’s strength. Christ never said “Have faith in yourself.” He said, “Have faith in God.” (Mark 11:22). Don’t even have faith in your faith—have faith in The One who cannot fail. He called you and He is faithful to keep you (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). ~ Michelle Stimpson, #NFDB
224:So when Jesus defended his disciples for picking grain on the Sabbath, he was essentially telling his interrogators that they misunderstood God’s relationship with human beings. He was saying, in effect, Yes, there are rules, but don’t let the rules get in the way of loving God and others. And when Jesus healed a leper, he was giving an object lesson in the same: by the power of God’s Spirit, the people who have been excluded are now included. ~ Tony Jones, #NFDB
225:Reign is no doubt wording that is a little too grand for the contemporary mind, though what it refers to is what everyone actually pursues in life. We have been trained to think of “reigning” as exclusionary of others. But in the heart of the divine conspiracy, it just means to be free and powerful in the creation and governance of what is good. In the life of prayer we are training for, we reign in harmonious union with the infinite power of God. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
226:May the hope and the light glow today,
May the glory of God, come all along
May the wishes and desires be fulfilled
Let me assume, the Power of God given to me
Not for my own self, but for all those are hungry
For all those who need help, and are in pain
Today, I give you my utmost love and respect
With total care, I will always be with you
Oh my dear child...! God blessess you !...
God bless you all...! ~ Santosh Kalwar,#NFDB
227:It's a risky thing to pray and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us. The great thing in prayer is not to pray, but to go directly to God. . . . The fact is, though, that if you descend into the depths of your own spirit and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you are confronted with the inescapable truth that, at the very root of your existence, you are in constant and immediate contact with the infinite power of God. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
228:He was fine; he, that orphan that foundling that outcast; he felt himself august and strong; he looked full in the face that society from which he was banished, and into which he had so powerfully intervened; that human justice from which he had snatched its prey; all those tigers whose jaws perforce remained empty; those myrmidons, those judges, those executioners, all that royal power which he, poor, insignificant being, had foiled with the power of God. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
229:We must have faith during the period of our grief. We think that our afflictions will be greater than we can bear, but we do not know the strength of our own hearts, nor the power of God. He knows all. He knows every folding of the heart and also the extent of the sorrow that he inflicts. What we think will overwhelm us entirely only subdues and conquers our pride. Our renewed spirit rises from its subjugation with a celestial strength and consolation. ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
230:If your husband’s self-image needs a makeover, be patient. The answers don’t come overnight when a long-held pattern of thinking has to be broken. But you can appropriate the power of God to fight the enemy that feeds him familiar lies, so your husband can be free to hear His truth.
Remember that God will reveal glimpses of the key to breaking any of your husband’s bad habits. As you pray for your husband’s self-image, He will show you how to pray. ~ Stormie Omartian,#NFDB
231:For Paul this was of course the ultimately shocking and ultimately glorious thing: that in becoming human to fulfil his own promises, Israel’s God, the creator, had chosen to die on a cross. The cross became, for Paul, the fullest possible revelation of both the love and the justice of God, and then, in its outworking, the extraordinary saving power of God, defeating the powers that held people captive in pagan darkness and breaking the long entail of human sin. ~ Tom Wright, #NFDB
232:The reality of death has come upon us and a consciousness of the power of God has broken our complacency like a bullet in the side. A sense of the dramatic, of the tragic, of the infinite, has descended upon us, filling us with grief, but even above grief, wonder. Our plans were so beautifully laid out, ready to be carried to action, but with magnificent certainty God laid them aside and said, "You have forgotten - Mine?"
A meditation on her fathers death. ~ Flannery O Connor,#NFDB
233:The scandal motif in Christ's lineage was no accident. In His incarnation, Christ willingly "made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant". He became an outcast and a public disgrace, being made a curse on our behalf. He remains even now a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. The gospel message, too, is public scandal--mere foolishness and shame as far as those who perish are concerned. But to those who are saved, it is the power of God. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
234:We come no nearer the infinitude of the creative power of God, if we enclose the space of its revelation within a sphere described with the radius of the Milky Way, than if we were to limit it to a ball an inch in diameter. All that is finite, whatever has limits and a definite relation to unity, is equally far removed from the infinite... Eternity is not sufficient to embrace the manifestations of the Supreme Being, if it is not combined with the infinitude of space. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
235:It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truths announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. ~ Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation for a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer (30 March 1863), #NFDB
236:That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time, the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of GOD, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had perfectly set him loose from the world, and kindled in him such a love for GOD, that he could not tell whether it had increased in above forty years that he had lived since. ~ Brother Lawrence, #NFDB
237:Christ is the model for creation so that, “what happened between God and the world in Christ points to the future of the cosmos. It is a future that involves the radical transformation of created reality through the unitive power of God’s love.”28 This universe, therefore, has a destiny; the world will not be destroyed. Rather, “it will be brought to the conclusion which God intends for it from the beginning, which is anticipated in the mystery of the Incarnate Word and glorified Christ. ~ Ilia Delio, #NFDB
238:The power of God, the presence of God, the multiplication of the Gospel is as simple as this: a physical demonstration of the love of God. We have overcomplicated our message, thinking we were being wise. We have analyzed the Gospel to death until it doesn’t work anymore. We have made it so intensely difficult to understand that we have theologized, theorized and strategized ourselves into a corner. We have not understood that the Gospel is as simple as this: love, love, love, love, love. ~ Heidi Baker, #NFDB
239:Here the Lord is saying to us, “If any of you is fainthearted, you will not be able to stand against the enemy.” A fainthearted person cannot take much. He has to have everything a certain way or he gives up and quits. He gets discouraged and depressed quickly. He gets his feelings hurt easily. Everything bothers him. He is touchy. If that describes you, I want you to know that you don't have to stay that way. The power of God is available to you to break that fainthearted spirit off your life. In ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
240:Here is Martin Luther thinking and standing in the power of God before his examiners at Worms: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.” The earliest printed version of his statement added the famous words: “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”4 ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
241:The purpose of this hook is not to produce cookie-cutter communicators, all polished and perfect models of the manual. The purpose is to help you, within the framework of your own personality and God-given abilities, exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and communicate His truth in the most effective way. 'lhe person who knows the power of God and
is willing to give his or her potential to Him will live in the humble realization that God often allows the person with little natural ability to do His greatest work. ~ Carol J Kent,#NFDB
242:What is sin? It is the glory of God not honored. The holiness of God not reverenced. The greatness of God not admired. The power of God not praised. The truth of God not sought. The wisdom of God not esteemed. The beauty of God not treasured. The goodness of God not savored. The faithfulness of God not trusted. The commandments of God not obeyed. The justice of God not respected. The wrath of God not feared. The grace of God not cherished. The presence of God not prized. The person of God not loved. That is sin. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
243:Christianity without the cross is nothing. The cross was the fitting close of a life of rejection, scorn and defeat. But in no true sense have these things ceased or changed. Jesus is still He whom man despiseth, and the rejected of men. The world has never admired Jesus, for moral courage is yet needed in every one of its high places by him who would "confess" Christ. The "offense" of the cross, therefore, has led men in all ages to endeavor to be rid of it, and to deny that it is the power of God in the world. ~ Lord Kelvin, #NFDB
244:21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. + 22For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; + 23but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeksa foolishness, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. + 25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
245:Resurrection of the dead. They construct a hypothetical of a woman with multiple husbands due to their multiple deaths, and then ask him whose wife she is at the Resurrection,, hoping to stump Jesus on the horns of a dilemma. Jesus replies, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven (Matt. 22:29-30).” Because of this, it is alleged that angels cannot have sexual intercourse with humans. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
246:I John Hancock, . . . being advanced in years and being of perfect mind and memory-thanks be given to God-therefore calling to mind the mortality of my body and knowing it is appointed for all men once to die [Hebrews 9:27], do make and ordain this my last will and testament...Principally and first of all, I give and recommend my soul into the hands of God that gave it: and my body I recommend to the earth . . . nothing doubting but at the general resurrection I shall receive the same again by the mercy and power of God. . . ~ John Hancock, #NFDB
247:I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
248:Scripture describes God’s saving acts as words of God, speeches of God. Salvation begins when God speaks his decree before time. He executes that decree by sending the living Word, Jesus (John 1:1–14; 1 John 1:1–3). He draws us to himself by the word of effectual calling (Isa. 43:1; see chapter 4), and by the gospel. Paul says: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Rom. 1:16; cf. Phil. 2:16; 1 Thess. 1:5; 2:13; 2 Tim. 1:10) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
249:She prayed in the above manner several times daily, and her mother had a most remarkable recovery after a few days, much to the amazement of her specialist. He complimented her on her great faith in the power of God. The conclusion arrived at in the daughter’s mind set the creative law of mind in motion on the subjective side of life, which manifested itself through her mother’s body as perfect health and harmony. What the daughter felt as true about her mother was simultaneously resurrected in the experience of her mother. ~ Joseph Murphy, #NFDB
250:Our Lord Jesus Christ, a little before his departure, commissioned his apostles to Go, and teach all nations; or, as another evangelist expresses it, Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. This commission was as extensive as possible, and laid them under obligation to disperse themselves into every country of the habitable globe, and preach to all the inhabitants, without exception, or limitation. They accordingly went forth in obedience to the command, and the power of God evidently wrought with them. ~ William Carey, #NFDB
251:When we look at the cross we see the justice, love, wisdom and power of God. It is not easy to decide which is the most luminously revealed, whether the justice of God in judging sin, or the love of God in bearing the judgment in our place, or the wisdom of God in perfectly combining the two, or the power of God in saving those who believe. For the cross is equally an act, and therefore a demonstration, of God’s justice, love, wisdom and power. The cross assures us that this God is the reality within, behind and beyond the universe. ~ John Stott, #NFDB
252:Coming under others has a power to do what laws and bullets and bombs can never do—namely, bring about transformation in an enemy’s heart. This is the unique “Lamb power” of the kingdom of God, and indeed, this is the power of God Almighty. When God flexes his omnipotent muscle, it doesn’t look like Rambo or the Terminator—it looks like Calvary! And living in this Calvary-like love moment by moment, in all circumstances and in relation to all people, is the sole calling of those who are aligned with the kingdom that Jesus came to bring. ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
253:We shall have to give an account, for we are put in trust with the gospel, and woe to us if we be found unfaithful. We cannot fight a good fight, nor finish our course, unless we keep the faith. To this end the Lord must keep us: only those who are kept by the power of God unto salvation will ever be able to keep his testimonies. What a blessedness is therefore evidenced and testified by a careful belief in God's word, and a continual obedience thereunto. God has blessed them, is blessing them, and will bless them for ever. That ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
254:Here is the power of my God: it is to be found in my rotting flesh, in my weakness, in the dirt and disease of this world. You have not seen this power because it is in the people you have refused to heed; it resides in those you have tortured and put to death, those who have suffered under your hand. The power of God is to be found in the face of the widow and the orphan, in the illegal alien, and in the outstretched hand of the starving man. This weakness and fragility is the power of God, a power that can overturn the most evil of tyrants. ~ Peter Rollins, #NFDB
255:20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks* foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
256:Never admit that you live by the power of food and not by the power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He who has bestowed appetite, will certainly see that His devotee is sustained! Do not imagine that rice maintains you, or that money or men support you! Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your life-breath? They are His indirect instruments merely. Is it by any skill of yours that food digests in your stomach? Use the sword of your discrimination, Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency and perceive the Single Cause! ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
257:All of life is to be lived in the presence and power of God, not just for a few minutes or even an hour in the morning. It's as though we want to take a tiny nibble of spiritual food and hope that sustains us for a while; then we wonder why we're so weary and unable to live as Christ calls us to live. To truly enjoy the abundant life Jesus invited us into, we need to be more aware of God all the time, just as he was. We need that regular, focused quiet time, but we also need to take our awareness of and commitment to God into our more numerous "noisy times". ~ Kenneth Boa, #NFDB
258:What is sin?
It is the glory of God not honored.
The holiness of God not reverenced.
The greatness of God not admired.
The power of God not praised.
The truth of God not sought.
The wisdom of God not esteemed.
The beauty of God not treasured.
The goodness of God not savored.
The faithfulness of God not trusted.
The commandments of God not obeyed.
The justice of God not respected.
The wrath of God not feared.
The grace of God not cherished.
The presence of God not prized.
The person of God not loved.
That is sin. ~ John Piper,#NFDB
259:The power of God has not in the least bit been diminished over the past 2000 years. Our Lord still sits on His great throne and His train still fills the temple. He still walks on the wings of the wind, He still rides on the backs of the mighty cherubim, and He still is the Triumphant Champion from Calvary. All hell still bends to His will, and sin and death have lost their hold on all who rest in the shadow of His presence. And the God who calmed storms, raised up dead men to life, and multiplied fishes and loaves to feed thousands is the same God we have today. ~ Eric Ludy, #NFDB
260:Assurance grows by repeated conflict, by our repeated experimental proof of the Lord's power and goodness to save; when we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again, have given up all hope, and been suddenly snatched from danger, and placed in safety; and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God, beyond and against appearances: and this trust, when habitual and strong, bears the name of assurance; for even assurance has degrees. ~ John Newton, #NFDB
261:I often ask myself, 'Who would Jesus vote for?' Then I start to think that he wouldn't vote at all; however, it would not be out of apathy or disinterest, but out of perfection and light. As a miracle worker, I think he would, by the power of God's teachings, the perseverance and the truth, influence in a modern sense whoever is put into office how to best serve his fellow men. One, like his skeptics, may find that impractical. But there is a message in that no man in power can slow the momentum of the will of God, and the miracles of his teachings will be forever victorious. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
262:the ultimate design of God was to give salvation to the world at large. If the Jews were to have the peculiar glory of giving birth to the Saviour, and of having the Gospel first ministered to them, they were not to engross all the benefits of his mission. The Gentiles, who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, were to behold his light, and to be guided by him into the paths of peace. Wherever there is a fallen child of Adam, there is a person for whom Christ came into the world, and to whom the Gospel, if thankfully accepted, shall become the power of God unto salvation. We are ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
263:Our divine vocation is not ultimately to suffering, but to a hope that triumphs over suffering. It is the hope of our future inheritance with Christ.
This hope is no mere wish or idle longing of the soul. It is a hope that is rooted in the exceedingly great power of God. It is a hope that cannot fail. For those who embrace it, this hope will never bring shame or disappointment.
The hope of eternal joy in the presence of Christ, a hope that sustains us in the midst of temporary suffering, is the legacy of Jesus Christ. It is the promise of God to all who put their trust in Him. ~ R C Sproul,#NFDB
264:As we suggested in chapter one, the Lord expects us to speak out against sin, injustice, immorality, and ungodliness with courage and diligence. But we must do so in a law-abiding manner, according to the civil laws that legislative bodies and governing officials have established for us. The church is to be a godly society within the larger ungodly society, living peaceably and exhibiting good works through the transformed lives of its members. Only in those ways will we truly affect society and allow the Holy Spirit to draw unconverted people to the saving power of God. “Be ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
265:If anyone is going to see the gospel as true and good, satanic blindness and natural deadness must be overcome by the power of God. This is why the Bible says that even though the gospel foolishness to many, yet 'to those who are called...Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24). The 'calling' is the merciful act of God to remove natural deadness and satanic blindness, so that we see Christ as true and good. The merciful act is itself a blood-bought gift of Christ. Look to him, and pray that God would enable you to see and embrace the gospel of Christ. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
266:To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!' ... But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off ... we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because he is God, he is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. He is the power of God, he is the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
267:But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18 NLT). What was previously impossible to do in our own ability, we can now do: walk in His ways. We can now imitate God. We can now follow Jesus. To sum it up, it’s impossible to follow Jesus without denying our self (forsaking our own ways and embracing His supreme authority) and taking up the cross (incorporating its empowerment to walk away from sin and the world’s system). The life we now live is by faith in His ability working in and through us. We draw from Him. What a glorious package of salvation God has provided for us! ~ John Bevere, #NFDB
268:I have beheld the power of God manifest in my home and in my ministry. I have seen evil rebuked and the elements controlled. I know what it means to have mountains of difficulty and ominous Red Seas part. I know what it means to have the destroying angel "pass by them." To have received the authority and to have exercised the power of "the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God," is as great a blessing for me and for my family as I could ever hope for in this world. And that, in the end, is the meaning of the priesthood in everyday terms--its unequaled, unending, constant capacity to bless. ~ Jeffrey R Holland, #NFDB
269:According to each one of the different theories there are things which are impossible, whose existence cannot be admitted, and whose creation is excluded from the power of God, and the assumption that God does not change their nature does not imply weakness in God, or a limit to his power. Consequently things impossible remain impossible, and do not depend on the action of an agent. It is now clear that a difference of opinion exists only as to the question to which of the two classes anything belongs; whether to the class of the impossible, or to that of the possible. Note it. ~ Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), #NFDB
270:The Holy Spirit was poured out as the fruit of Resurrection and Ascension. And the Spirit is now the Power of God in us, working upwards towards Christ, to reproduce His life and Holiness in us, to fit us for fully receiving and showing forth Him in our lives.
We must take the lesson to heart; we can have as much of the Spirit as we are willing to have of His Holiness. Be full of the Spirit, must mean to us, Be fully holy. [. . .]
Be holy means, Be filled with the Spirit. If we inquire more closely how it is that this Holy Spirit makes holy, the answer is,—He reveals and imparts the Holiness of Christ. ~ Andrew Murray,#NFDB
271:Die, then!” This alarming counsel split the air. “Die if you must, Mukunda! Never believe that you live by the power of food and not by the power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He who has bestowed appetite, will inevitably see that His devotee is maintained. Do not imagine that rice sustains you nor that money or men support you. Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your life breath? They are His instruments merely. Is it by any skill of yours that food digests in your stomach? Use the sword of your discrimination, Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency and perceive the Single Cause! ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
272:We may desire the power of God so to operate in our lives that we may become more holy; we may ask for power to grasp the limitless dimensions of the love of God--and yet distort these good requests by envisaging their fulfillment within a framework in which the entire universe revolves around our improvement. The root sin is the kind of self-centeredness that wants to usurp God's place. How tragic then if our prayers for good things leave us still thinking of ourselves first, still thinking of God's will primarily in terms of its immediate effect on ourselves, still longing for blessings simply so that we will be blessed. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
273:I'm taking this time to create my day and I'm infecting the quantum field. Now if (it) is in fact the observer's watching me the whole time that I'm doing this and there is a spiritual aspect to myself, then show me a sign today that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won't expect, so I'm as surprised at my ability to be able to experience these things. And make it so that I have no doubt that it's come from you,' and so I live my life, in a sense, all day long thinking about being a genius or thinking about being the glory and the power of God or thinking about being unconditional love. ~ Joe Dispenza, #NFDB
274:The Power of God’s Promise.* 3 His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of hima who called us by his own glory and power.* 4 Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.b 5 * For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge,c 6 knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, 7 devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
275:4but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
276:Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptised in the Spirit - that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us - that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.
When we dare to fully trust in the power of God's Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,#NFDB
277:they had finally fallen silent themselves. Othniel had heard Joshua say, “They don’t know what to make of it. They’ll know even less on the seventh day.” Joshua was now standing on a little rise. It was just before dawn, and he was preparing the people. He spoke again of the power of God and reminded them of how God had delivered them over and over since their fathers had left Egypt, and he encouraged them to be courageous and true. After the speech he motioned to Othniel and Ardon. They came straightaway to stand before him, and he said, “Go in and bring the woman who saved you when I sent you as spies. Bring out her family and take special care of her. She has been a great blessing to Israel. ~ Gilbert Morris, #NFDB
278:The sage of Nazareth may satisfy those who have never faced the problem of evil in their own lives; but to talk about an ideal to those who are under the thralldom of sin is a cruel mockery. Yet if Jesus was merely a man like the rest of men, then an ideal is all that we have in Him. Far more is needed by a sinful world. It is small comfort to be told that there was goodness in the world, when what we need is goodness triumphant over sin. But goodness triumphant over sin involves an entrance of the creative power of God, and that creative power of God is manifested by the miracles. Without the miracles, the New Testament might be easier to believe. But the thing that would be believed would be entirely different from ~ J Gresham Machen, #NFDB
279:Accordingly, my new version of what the Bible is about reads as follows: it is about the mystery by which the power of God works to form this world into the Holy City, the New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Note, if you will, how much distance that puts between us and certain customary notions of the main subject of Scripture. It means that it is not about someplace else called heaven, nor about somebody at a distance called God. Rather, it is about this place here, in all its thisness and placiness, and about the intimate and immediate Holy One who, at
no distance from us at all, moves mysteriously to make creation true both to itself and to him. ~ Robert Farrar Capon,#NFDB
280:Every time with you,” he whispered, “is like the first time. In Yiddish there is a single word that encompasses everything that the future may hold. It has many levels of meaning, but primarily it reveals the power of God’s will. The word is bashert, and it is the basis of hope that out of the bad things that happen to us good can be born. Our meeting was predicated on your parents’ tragic deaths. I believe from the seed of that sad event our fates were sealed, and a power greater than both of us brought us together. Neither of us knew it then, but our love was as unavoidable as the inevitability of the sun to rise at dawn, and the moon to light the sky at night. That is why every time I make love to you, it’s like the first time. ~ Belle Ami, #NFDB
281:THE GROUND OF EXPERIENCE It is necessary to die in order to be reborn. As soon as you experience impermanence, non-self, and interbeing, you are born again. But if the plant does not become dormant in the winter, it cannot be reborn in the spring. Jesus said that unless you are reborn as a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Thomas Merton wrote, “The living experience of divine love and the Holy Spirit … is a true awareness that one has died and risen in Christ. It is an experience of mystical renewal, an inner transformation brought about entirely by the power of God’s merciful love, implying the ‘death’ of the self-centered and self-sufficient ego and the appearance of a new and liberated self who lives and acts in the Spirit. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
282:18. Of the devotees, who is the greatest?
He who gives himself up to the Self that is God is the most excellent devotee. Giving one's self up to God means remaining constantly in the Self without giving room for the rise of any thoughts other than that of the Self. Whatever burdens are thrown on God, He bears them. Since the supreme power of God makes all things move, why should we, without submitting ourselves to it, constantly worry ourselves with thoughts as to what should be done and how, and what should not be done and how not? We know that the train carries all loads, so after getting on it why should we carry our small luggage on our head to our discomfort, instead of putting it down in the train and feeling at ease? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Who am I,#NFDB
283:Modern science was born through the Scientific Revolution in the 11th/17th century at a time when, as we saw earlier, European philosophy had itself rebelled against revelation and the religious world view. The background of modern science is a particular philosophical outlook which sees the parameters of the physical world, that is, space, time, matter and energy to be realities that are independent of higher orders of being and cut off from the power of God, at least during the unfolding of the history of the cosmos. It views the physical world as being primarily the subject of mathematicization and quatification and, in a sense, absolutizes the mathematical study of nature relegating the non-quantifiable aspects of physical existence to irrelevance. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
284:Makes you wonder, then, why all we often tend to see when we look at ourselves are . . . flaws, inadequacies, failures, weaknesses. And sure, many of those things are really there. Left to our own devices, we really aren’t able to take it all on, not without help. But these difficulties and imperfections that can discourage us so desperately—the ones the devil wants to present as the sum total of our reality—are actually only a part of the battlefield. And that’s the part that is primed to display God’s glory. No matter what is against you, it is no match for the power and authority He’s given you access to. There may be armies standing against you, but they’re only waiting to become an unwitting witness to the overcoming power of God and the overriding ocean of His grace. ~ Priscilla Shirer, #NFDB
285:The creative power of God will work for you as you speak it. Your words based upon the authority of God's Word. This has been ordained that we might still the enemy and the avenger with words - specifically, the Word of God, for it is the power of God. Let's go back to the creation of the earth. How did God do it? With words. He had an image inside of Him of an earth that was dry and filled with light. But at that moment the earth was covered with water and darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Spirit of God was moving over the face of the water, but nothing changed until God spoke the image that was inside Him. Even though God had the image inside Him and the Spirit of God was there to cause it to come to pass, it had to be released out of His mouth before any changes could take place. ~ Charles Capps, #NFDB
286:I say it reverently, if I understand the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the vision He has given me of it: that all of heaven's ability and heaven's glory and heaven 's strength are at the disposal of the believer.
This is the most miraculous thing the world ever saw.
I believe that in the last days there is going to be an unveiling of the power of God, and multitudes will arise and live.
Weymouth's translation of Romans 5:17 tells us that we reign as Kings in the Realm of Life in Christ.
We are to absolutely reign as Christ, and with Christ. How? By faith.
Is God your righteousness?
You say, "I am trying to make Him my righteousness." Can you make Him your righteousness?
If you believe on Jesus Christ, He IS your righteousness.
Then go out and act it. Dare to let God loose in you. ~ E W Kenyon,#NFDB
287:The sage of Nazareth may satisfy those who have never faced the problem of evil in their own lives; but to talk about an ideal to those who are under the thralldom of sin is a cruel mockery. Yet if Jesus was merely a man like the rest of men, then an ideal is all that we have in Him. Far more is needed by a sinful world. It is small comfort to be told that there was goodness in the world, when what we need is goodness triumphant over sin. But goodness triumphant over sin involves an entrance of the creative power of God, and that creative power of God is manifested by the miracles. Without the miracles, the New Testament might be easier to believe. But the thing that would be believed would be entirely different from that which presents itself to us now. Without the miracles we should have a teacher; with the miracles we have a Savior. ~ J Gresham Machen, #NFDB
288:The covenant of grace describes the road by which elect people attain their destiny; it is the channel by which the stream of election flows toward eternity. Christ sends his Spirit to instruct and enable his own so that they consciously and voluntarily consent to this covenant. The covenant of grace comes with the demand of faith and repentance, which may in some sense be said to be its “conditions.” Yet, this must not be misunderstood. God himself supplies what he demands; the covenant of grace is thus truly unilateral—it comes from God, who designed, defines, maintains, and implements it. It is, however, designed to become bilateral, to be consciously and voluntarily accepted by believers in the power of God. In the covenant of grace, God’s honor is not at the expense of but for the benefit of human persons by renewing the whole person and restoring personal freedom and dignity. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
289:DECEMBER 21 Peace in the House Fill up and complete my joy by living in harmony and being of the same mind and one in purpose, having the same love, being in full accord and of one harmonious mind and intention. PHILIPPIANS 2:2 When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to do miracles, signs, and wonders, in essence He said to them, “Go and find a house and say, ‘Peace be unto you.’ And if your peace settles on that house, you can stay there. If it doesn’t, shake the dust off your feet and go on” (see Mark 6:7-11). One day God showed me what Jesus was really saying to them: “I want you to go out with the anointing, but to do that you need to have peace in the house.” You need to do whatever you can to maintain peace in your home because it dramatically affects the anointing and power of God that rests on your life. Keep the strife out of your life! No peace, no power! Know peace, know power! ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
290:To those of you who have been blessed by the gospel for many years because you were fortunate enough to find it early, to those of you who have come to the gospel by stages and phases later, and to those of you—members and not yet members—who may still be hanging back, to each of you, one and all, I testify of the renewing power of God’s love and the miracle of His grace. His concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there. So if you have made covenants, keep them. If you haven’t made them, make them. If you have made them and broken them, repent and repair them. It is never too late so long as the Master of the vineyard says there is time. Please listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit telling you right now, this very moment, that you should accept the atoning gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of His labor. Don’t delay. It’s getting late. ~ Jeffrey R Holland, #NFDB
291:I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.
I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding you love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.
God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us. ~ Donald Miller,#NFDB
292:Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding." In all religion we have to use these two powers. The mind as to gather knowledge from God’s word, and prepare the food by which the heart with the inner life is to be nourished. But here comes in a terrible danger, of our leaning to our own understanding, and trusting in our apprehension of divine things. People imagine that if they are occupied with the truth, the spiritual life will as a matter of course be strengthened. And this is by no means the case. The understanding deals with conceptions and images of divine things, but it cannot reach the real life of the soul. Hence the command, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding." It is with the heart man believeth, and comes into touch with God. It is in the heart God has given His Spirit, to be there to us the presence and the power of God working in us. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
293:Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let him wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine point in comparison with that described by the stars in their revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of conception than nature that of supplying material for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. It is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God, that imagination loses itself in that thought. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
294:[T]he mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of Holiness: the Glory and the Power of the Trinity is the Glory and Power of God who makes us holy. There is God dwelling in light inaccessibly, a consuming fire of Holy Love, destroying all that resists, glorifying into its own purity all that yields. There is the Son, casting Himself into that consuming fire, whether in its eternal blessedness in heaven, or its angry wrath on earth, a willing sacrifice, to be its food and its satisfaction, as well as the revelation of its power to destroy and to save. And there is the Spirit of Holiness, the flames of that mighty fire spreading on every side, convicting and judging as the Spirit of Burning, and then transforming into its own brightness and holiness all that it can reach. All the relations of the Three Persons to each other and to us have their root and their meaning in the revelation of God as the Holy One. As we know and partake of Him, we shall know and partake of Holiness. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
295:After debating with a religious scholar you leave the room but suddenly you are pushed and about to hit the ground.
If you fall and hit the ground; they will tell you, you saw the power of God he made you fall and now you are on the ground.
If you fall but not hit the ground; they will tell you he just gave you a warning, he pushed you but later stopped you from hitting to ground to prove you his power.
If you fall but not hurt; they will tell you, he hit you to the ground and as he is kind he didn’t let you to be hurt.
If you fall and hurt; they will tell you, you saw the power of God, how he teaches the hypocrites, he just punished you by hitting you to the ground.
If you even didn’t fall and walked away; they will tell everyone, God will show him one day his power; and certainly we all fall one day or another.
The foundation of religion is on misbelieve and misunderstanding of the reality of nature and physics; it is not the God that changes things, but the one who takes the credit. ~ M F Moonzajer,#NFDB
296:Now, the atonement of Christ is the most basic and fundamental doctrine of the gospel, and it is the least understood of all our revealed truths.
Many of us have a superficial knowledge and rely upon the Lord and his goodness to see us through the trials and perils of life.
But if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.
May I invite you to join with me in gaining a sound and sure knowledge of the Atonement.
We must cast aside the philosophies of men and the wisdom of the wise and hearken to that Spirit which is given to us to guide us into all truth.
We must search the scriptures, accepting them as the mind and will and voice of the Lord and the very power of God unto salvation.
As we read, ponder, and pray, there will come into our minds a view of the three gardens of God—the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Garden of the Empty Tomb where Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. ~ Bruce R McConkie,#NFDB
297:It is a mistake to confound Alchemy with Chemistry. Modern Chemistry is a science which deals merely with the external forms in which the element of matter is manifesting itself. It never produces anything new. We may mix and compound and decompose two or more chemical bodies an unlimited number of times, and cause them to appear under various different forms, but at the end we will have no augmentation of substance, nor anything more than the combinations of the substances that have been employed at the beginning. Alchemy does not mix or compound anything, it causes that which already exists in a latent state to become active and grow. Alchemy is, therefore, more comparable to botany or agriculture than to Chemistry; and, in fact, the growth of a plant, a tree, or an animal is an alchemical process going on in the alchemical laboratory of nature, and performed by the great Alchemist, the power of God acting in nature. ~ Franz Hartmann, in In the Pronaos of the Temple of Wisdom, containing the History of the True and the False Rosicrucians (1890), p. 129, #NFDB
298:Speech-act theory makes a convincing case that our words not only convey information, they get things done. However, God’s words have a power infinitely beyond our own. Timothy Ward’s book Words of Life argues that God’s words are identical with his actions.104 He quotes Genesis 1:3, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Ward observes that the passage does not say that first God spoke and then he proceeded to do what he said he would do. No, his word itself brought the light about. When God names someone, his very word also constitutes the person. When he renames Abram to be Abraham—“father of a multitude”—that word makes the aged man and his wife biologically and spiritually capable of being the progenitors of a whole race (Gen 17:5). Psalm 29 is an entire hymn of praise of the power of God’s voice. “The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars—the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert—the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh” (Ps 29:5, 8). We see again that what God’s voice does, God does. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
299:29But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, v because you know neither the Scriptures nor w the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither x marry nor x are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31And as for the resurrection of the dead, y have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 z ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33And when the crowd heard it, a they were astonished at his teaching. The Great Commandment 34[†] b But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced c the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 d And one of them, e a lawyer, asked him a question f to test him. 36“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And he said to him, g “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And h a second is like it: i You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 j On these two commandments depend k all the Law and the Prophets. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
300:The solar orb, like the nature of man, was divided by the ancient sages into three separate bodies. According to the mystics, there are three suns in each solar system, analogous to the three centers of life in each individual constitution. These are called three lights: the spiritual sun, the intellectual or soular sun, and the material sun (now symbolized in Freemasonry by three candles). The spiritual sun manifests the power of God the Father; the soular sun radiates the life of God the Son; and the material sun is the vehicle of manifestation for God the Holy Spirit. Man's nature was divided by the mystics into three distinct parts: spirit, soul, and body. His physical body was unfolded and vitalized by the material sun; his spiritual nature was illuminated by the spiritual sun; and his intellectual nature was redeemed by the true light of grace--the soular sun. The alignment of these three globes in the heavens was one explanation offered for the peculiar fact that the orbits of the planets are not circular but elliptical. ~ Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, #NFDB
301:Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various atrials, 7so that the bproof of your faith, being more precious than gold which cis perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 8and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and dfull of glory, 9obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of eyour souls. [6 aOr temptations 7 bOr genuineness cLit perishes 8 dLit glorified 9 eOne early ms does not contain your] ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
302:We have a problem, Lieutenant.” Taylor started to sit, and Delores tsk’ed at her. Taylor raised an eyebrow and sat anyway, crossing her arms across her chest. The Oompa was still forced to look up at her, maliciousness sparking in her eyes. Power hungry bitch, Taylor thought. “And what problem would that be?” “I’ve been looking over the reports on the Harris suicide. According to the EMT report on Michelle Harris, there was a chance her life could have been saved. Instead, you and your boyfriend interrogated the suspect, allowed her to continue drinking. Is this true?” “Let me see. Yes, we interrogated her. It’s called solving a case. As for whether she would have died or not, only God can tell us that.” “So you’ve imbued yourself with the power of God now?” “Captain Norris, what do you want? I’m tired. The cases are closed. Satisfactorily to all involved, I must say.” “I have a choice to make, Lieutenant. Seeing as there is yet another complaint against you, I could suspend you pending the outcome of the investigation into your actions.” “You’re kidding me. I’ve done nothing wrong. ~ J T Ellison, #NFDB
303:can’t help it if that gospel offends a society awash in self-love. And I know this: the preaching of the truth truly influences the world and genuinely changes one soul at a time. And that happens only by the life-giving, light-sending, soul-transforming power of the Holy Spirit, in perfect fulfillment of the eternal plan of God. Your opinion or my opinion is not part of the equation. The kingdom does not advance by human cleverness. It does not advance because we have gained positions of power and influence in the culture. It doesn’t advance thanks to media popularity or opinion polls. It doesn’t advance on the back of public favor. The kingdom of God advances by the power of God alone, in spite of public hostility. When we truly proclaim it in its fullness, the saving message of Jesus Christ is, frankly, outrageously offensive. We proclaim a scandalous message. From the world’s perspective, the message of the cross is shameful. In fact, it is so shameful, so antagonizing, and so offensive that even faithful Christians struggle to proclaim it, because they know it will bring resentment and ridicule. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
304:Faith, Gratitude, and Rest So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy), but in the power of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:5 Faith allows us to rest—both mentally and emotionally. Even our will gets a rest when we have faith in God. We don’t worry or reason, we are not upset or downcast, and we are not trying to make something happen that is not God’s will—we are thankful that God is in control so that we can rest! Paul sang praises to God while he was in jail. Jesus prayed for others while He was being crucified. Joseph decided that if he was going to be a slave, he would be the best slave his owner ever had. All throughout Scripture, we see the connection between faith, gratitude, and rest. We need to be honest about what the real cause of our stress is. Is it really our circumstances in life, or is it the way we respond to the circumstances? There is a rest that comes with gratitude and faith. This is a rest we can live in every day. Prayer of Thanks I thank You today, Father, that I can live in rest. I don’t have to worry or be downcast when I face challenges. Thank You that I can have faith, knowing that You are the One in control. ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
305:God is the source of primary causality; in other words, He is the first cause. He is the Author of all that is, and He continues to be the primary cause of human events and of natural occurrences. However, His primary causality does not exclude secondary causes. Yes, when the rain falls, the grass gets wet, not because God makes the grass wet directly and immediately, but because the rain applies moisture to the grass. But the rain could not fall apart from the causal power of God that stands over and above every secondary causal activity. Modern man, however, is quick to say, “The grass is wet because the rain fell,” and he looks no further for a higher, ultimate cause. Twenty-first-century people seem to think we can get along just fine with secondary causes and give no thought to the primary cause. The basic concept here is that what God creates, He sustains. So, one of the important subdivisions in the doctrine of providence is the concept of divine sustenance. Simply put, this is the classical Christian idea that God is not the great Watchmaker who builds the watch, winds it up, and then steps out of the picture. Instead, what He makes, He preserves and sustains. We ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
306:On the other hand, it is God the Son who performs the commands of the Father.When God the Father said, “Let there be light,” God the Son came and performed it.Then, God the Holy Spirit brought the light. Let me illustrate it this way. If I asked you, “Please turn on the light,” three forces would be involved. First, I would be the one who gave the command. Second, you would be the one who walks to the switch and flips it. In other words, you are the performer of the command. But finally, who brings on the light? It is not me, and it is not you. It is the power—the electricity—that produces light. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. He is the power of the Father and of the Son. He is the one who brings into action the performance of the Son. Yet He is a person. He has emotions which are expressed in a way unique among the Trinity. I’ve been asked,“Benny, aren’t you forgetting the importance of Christ in all of this?” Never! How could I forget the One who loved and died for me? But some people are so focused on the Son that they forget the Father—the one who loved them and sent His Son. I cannot forget the Father nor the Son. But I cannot be in touch with the Father and the Son without the Holy Spirit (see Eph. 2:18). ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
307:PROBLEMS IN YOUR LIFE. Though many things feel random and wrong, remember that I am sovereign over everything. I can fit everything into a pattern for good, but only to the extent that you trust Me. Every problem can teach you something, transforming you little by little into the masterpiece I created you to be. The very same problem can become a stumbling block over which you fall, if you react with distrust and defiance. The choice is up to you, and you will have to choose many times each day whether to trust Me or defy Me. The best way to befriend your problems is to thank Me for them. This simple act opens your mind to the possibility of benefits flowing from your difficulties. You can even give persistent problems nicknames, helping you to approach them with familiarity rather than with dread. The next step is to introduce them to Me, enabling Me to embrace them in My loving Presence. I will not necessarily remove your problems, but My wisdom is sufficient to bring good out of every one of them. We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. ROMANS 8 : 28 (AMP) But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 1 : 23 – 24 ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
308:MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE PROBLEMS IN YOUR LIFE. Though many things feel random and wrong, remember that I am sovereign over everything. I can fit everything into a pattern for good, but only to the extent that you trust Me. Every problem can teach you something, transforming you little by little into the masterpiece I created you to be. The very same problem can become a stumbling block over which you fall if you react with distrust and defiance. The choice is up to you, and you will have to choose many times each day whether to trust Me or defy Me. The best way to befriend your problems is to thank Me for them. This simple act opens your mind to the possibility of benefits flowing from your difficulties. You can even give persistent problems nicknames, helping you to approach them with familiarity rather than with dread. The next step is to introduce them to Me, enabling Me to embrace them in My loving Presence. I will not necessarily remove your problems, but My wisdom is sufficient to bring good out of every one of them. We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. —ROMANS 8:28 AMP But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. —1 CORINTHIANS 1:23–24 ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
309:When a loving person dies, God sends angels to escort them on their journey to heaven. Angels are the messengers of God. They could be relatives or friends, but they will be exactly the right persons who represent God’s love to the individual. The persons you long for, who have gone to heaven before you, will be waiting for you when you die. They will be ready to comfort you and escort you to heaven. They will take you from the reality of this physical universe and transport you to a new reality where you get your first introduction to the wonder and power of God. There are as many entry points into heaven as there are individuals. Each person is escorted toward heaven according to his or her life, culture, and spiritual level. One person may be in a beautiful field, another may be in a magnificent castle, another in a setting similar to their grandparents’ home. God and the angels, for the specific comfort and beginning edification of that person, individually create each setting. It is difficult for us to understand and believe how much God cares about and respects our individuality. The angel guardians begin the process of explaining to the person that they have left the world and are beginning life. Everything behind was preparation for real life. What we call death is actually being born into a new life beyond our imagination. We will grow and be transformed. We will meet the personification of God, and eventually we will come before the very presence of God. ~ Howard Storm, #NFDB
310:1PE1.5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1PE1.6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 1PE1.7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 1PE1.8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: 1PE1.9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. 1PE1.10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 1PE1.11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 1PE1.12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. 1PE1.13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 1PE1.14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
311:Not everything in life is so black and white, but the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and its keystone role in our religion seem to be exactly that. Either Joseph Smith was the prophet he said he was, a prophet who, after seeing the Father and the Son, later beheld the angel Moroni, repeatedly heard counsel from Moroni's lips, and eventually received at his hands a set of ancient gold plates that he then translated by the gift and power of God, or else he did not. And if he did not, he would not be entitled to the reputation of New England folk hero or well-meaning young man or writer of remarkable fiction. No, nor would he be entitled to be considered a great teacher, a quintessential American religious leader, or the creator of great devotional literature. If he had lied about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he would certainly be none of these...
If Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon as a work of ancient origin, then I would move heaven and earth to meet the "real" nineteenth-century author. After one hundred and fifty years, no one can come up with a credible alternative candidate, but if the book were false, surely there must be someone willing to step forward-if no one else, at least the descendants of the "real" author-claiming credit for such a remarkable document and all that has transpired in its wake. After all, a writer that can move millions can make millions. Shouldn't someone have come forth then or now to cashier the whole phenomenon? ~ Jeffrey R Holland,#NFDB
312:MSB: You're saying, then, that the coming of Christ, by fatally undermining the regime of violence, ought to have the consequence either that from now on heaven and earth are separate, ushering in the Apocalypse, or, to the contrary, that the immanence of the divine order, in the Hegelian sense, must now be considered to have been made actual? RG: It's not clear. Sacrificial interpretations are always interesting, because they take into account what you have just said: they reflect the power of God in a world that, from the historical point of view, obviously remains pre-apocalyptic. Attempts will continue to be made, one after the other, to establish a divine order on earth. The error of idealists is to unfailingly believe that these attempts will succeed—whereas violence remains embedded in the world. The triumph of the Cross is the unfinished work of a tiny minority. Even if Satan is conquered each time an individual is saved, his power endures. It's my Jansenism coming out, you see. Satan has been conquered. But humanity, instead of bringing into existence the order of things that it desires, threatens to completely destroy the world instead. This order of things is historical. Luke calls it “the times of the Gentiles,”8 which is to say the age of those who are going to convert, only in the wrong way. Ignoring the apocalypse of the Revelation to John amounts to converting to Pelagianism—you know, the theory of that old Englishman who believed in the excellence of the world and who took issue with the doctrine of original sin and of grace. MSB ~ Ren Girard, #NFDB
313:The main thing is to abhor dishonesty, any kind of dishonesty, but above all, dishonesty with regard to your own self. Be aware of your dishonesty and ponder it every hour, every minute of the day. Never be squeamish, both with regard to yourself and others; what appears to you disgusting in yourself is cleansed by the very fact that you have acknowledged it within yourself. Avoid giving in to fear too, since all fear is only the consequence of falsity. Never be afraid of your own faint-heartedness in the endeavour to love, nor even too fearful of any bad actions that you may commit in the course of that endeavour. I am sorry I cannot say anything more comforting to you, for active love compared with contemplative love is a hard and awesome business. Contemplative love seeks a heroic deed that can be accomplished without delay and in full view of everyone. Indeed, some people are even ready to lay down their lives as long as the process is not long drawn out but takes place quickly, as though it were being staged for everybody to watch and applaud. Active love, on the other hand, is unremitting hard work and tenacity, and for some it is a veritable science. But let me tell you in advance: even as you may realize with horror that, in spite of your best efforts, not only have you not come any nearer to your goal, but you may even have receded from it, it is precisely at that moment, I tell you, that you will suddenly reach your goal and clearly behold the wondrous power of God, who has at all times loved you, at all times mysteriously guided you. I am sorry ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
314:Preaching that confronts racism: • Speaks up and speaks out. • Sees American racism as an opportunity for Christians honestly to name our sin and to engage in acts of detoxification, renovation, and reparation. • Is convinced that the deepest, most revolutionary response to the evil of racism is Jesus Christ, the one who demonstrates God for us and enables us to be for God. • Reclaims the church as a place of truth-telling, truth-embodiment, and truth enactment. • Allows the preacher to confess personal complicity in and to model continuing repentance for racism. • Brings the good news that Jesus Christ loves sinners, only sinners. • Enjoys the transformative power of God’s grace. • Listens to and learns from the best sociological, psychological, economic, artistic, and political insights on race in America, especially those generated by African Americans. • Celebrates the work in us and in our culture of a relentlessly salvific, redemptive Savior. • Uses the peculiar speech of scripture in judging and defeating the idea of white supremacy. • Is careful in its usage of color-oriented language and metaphors that may disparage blackness (like “washed my sins white as snow,” or “in him there is no darkness at all”). • Narrates contemporary Christians into the drama of salvation in Jesus Christ and thereby rescues them from the sinful narratives of American white supremacy. • Is not silenced because talk about race makes white Christians uncomfortable. • Refuses despair because of an abiding faith that God is able and that God will get the people and the world that God wants. ~ William H Willimon, #NFDB
315:Let’s come back to the question of the gospel of grace causing division. Is it possible to preach the gospel of grace and cause division to the extent that people would even want to kick you out of their cities? Yes! This happened in the early church. Paul was “speaking boldly in the Lord” and preaching “the word of His grace” when in the very next verse, you find that “the multitude of the city was divided: part sided with the Jews, and part with the apostles”8. There was even a “violent attempt… made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to abuse and stone them”9. Thus, it is clear that when you preach the same good news that Paul preached, it doesn’t mean that everybody will be united and say, “Hallelujah!” There will be those who would want to kick you out of their cities and say all kinds of things about you to assassinate your character. But just because there was division, it certainly did not mean that what Paul preached was not true. That is precisely why Paul warned that even when God declares something so good, there are those who will refuse to believe — “you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you”. If you are believing the Lord for a miraculous breakthrough, then be sure that you are hearing “the word of His grace” and not the word of His law. That is why the gospel that Paul preached is not a man-pleasing gospel. Paul did not preach to be welcomed everywhere he went. He preached the truth of the gospel even if it meant being stoned by his opponents and being expelled from cities. He did it because the gospel is THE POWER OF GOD to salvation! ~ Joseph Prince, #NFDB
316:When people say you can’t argue anyone into the kingdom, they usually have an alternative approach in mind. They might be thinking that a genuine expression of love, kindness, and acceptance, coupled with a simple presentation of the gospel, is a more biblical approach. If you are tempted to think this way, let me say something that may shock you: You cannot love someone into the kingdom. It can’t be done. In fact, the simple gospel itself is not even adequate to do that job. How do I know? Because many people who were treated with sacrificial love and kindness by Christians never surrendered to the Savior. Many who have heard a clear explanation of God’s gift in Christ never put their trust in him. In each case something was missing that, when present, always results in conversion. What’s missing is that special work of the Father that Jesus referred to, drawing a lost soul into his arms. Of this work Jesus also said, “Of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39). According to Jesus, then, two things are true. First, there is a particular work of God that is necessary to bring someone into the kingdom. Second, when present, this work cannot fail to accomplish its goal. Without the work of the Spirit, no argument — no matter how persuasive — will be effective. But neither will any act of love nor any simple presentation of the gospel. Add the Spirit, though, and the equation changes dramatically. Here’s the key principle: Without God’s work, nothing else works; but with God’s work, many things work. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, love persuades. By the power of God, the gospel transforms. And with Jesus at work, arguments convince. God is happy to use each of these methods. ~ Gregory Koukl, #NFDB
317:Plenty of tolerant people out there say, “Okay, you’re into this cross thing, and Jesus being crucified, and that’s your truth. Good for you—we are an inclusive people. You’re welcome to your foolish view of religion, your foolish perspective, your simple, silly story of a crucified Jew, and that’s fine if that’s your truth. But that’s not our truth.” Well, here’s the rub: It is your truth. It’s everybody’s truth. It’s the only truth. The power of the crucified Christ is the only power of God by which He saves. Salvation comes only through a belief in that gospel, the gospel of Jesus. No gospel, no salvation. The absolute exclusivity of it has always been a shameful, embarrassing, inconvenient message to worldly-wise sinners, but the truth is nonnegotiable. Other religions are not truth and lead only to eternal damnation. Islam is a damning system. Buddhism is a damning system. Hinduism is a damning system. Simply not believing the gospel is itself enough to damn a person. People in false religions do not worship the true God by another name, as some suggest. They unwittingly worship Satan’s demons. Here is what the Bible says: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20). Even so, a book called The Christ of Hinduism actually exists, and it argues that Hinduism’s symbols and doctrines contain the Christian message. But there is no Christ of Hinduism, nor has the true God any part in Hinduism. Christ is the only way to the one true God, and biblical Christianity is the only way to the one true Christ. Misguided people who recognize any other god and engage in any other religion are not worshipping and sacrificing to God, but to demons. I didn’t make this up. This isn’t my theology. This is Christianity 101. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
318:March 19 MORNING “Strong in faith.” — Romans 4:20 CHRISTIAN, take good care of thy faith; for recollect faith is the only way whereby thou canst obtain blessings. If we want blessings from God, nothing can fetch them down but faith. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God’s throne except it be the earnest prayer of the man who believes. Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and the Lord Jesus in glory. Let that angel be withdrawn, we can neither send up prayer, nor receive the answers. Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven — on which God’s messages of love fly so fast, that before we call He answers, and while we are yet speaking He hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we receive the promise? Am I in trouble? — I can obtain help for trouble by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy? — my soul on her dear Refuge leans by faith. But take faith away — in vain I call to God. There is no road betwixt my soul and heaven. In the deepest wintertime faith is a road on which the horses of prayer may travel — ay, and all the better for the biting frost; but blockade the road, and how can we communicate with the Great King? Faith links me with divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith ensures every attribute of God in my defence. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I receive anything of the Lord? Let not him that wavereth — who is like a wave of the Sea — expect that he will receive anything of God! O, then, Christian, watch well thy faith; for with it thou canst win all things, however poor thou art, but without it thou canst obtain nothing. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
319:July 28, 1849, my second child, James Edson White, was born. When he was six weeks old we went to Maine. September 14, a meeting was appointed at Paris. Those who observed the Sabbath of the Lord had not had a meeting for one year and a half. Brethren Bates, Chamberlain and Ralph were present, also brethren and sisters from Topsham. One F. T. Howland, a notable fanatic, was present. He had long troubled God’s children {261} with his errors and harsh spirit. Honest souls whom the Lord loved, but who had long been in error, were at the meeting. While engaged in prayer the Spirit of the Lord rested upon Brother S. Howland. His face was white, and a light seemed to rest upon it. He went towards F. T. Howland, and in the name of the Lord bid him leave the assembly of the saints. Said he, ‘You have torn the hearts of God’s children and made them bleed. Leave the house, or God will smite you.’ That rebellious spirit, never before known to fear or to yield, sprang for his hat and in terror left the house. The power of God descended something as it did on the day of Pentecost, and five or six who had been deceived and led into error and fanaticism, fell prostrate to the floor. Parents confessed to their children, and children to their parents, and to one another. Brother J. N. Andrews with deep feeling exclaimed, ‘I would exchange a thousand errors for one truth.’ Such a scene of confessing and pleading with God for forgiveness we have seldom witnessed. That meeting was the beginning of better days to the children of God in Paris, to them a green spot in the desert. The Lord was bringing out Brother Andrews to fit him for future usefulness, and was giving him an experience that would be of great value to him in his future labors. He was teaching him that he should not be influenced by the experience of others, but decide for himself concerning the work of God. ~ James White, #NFDB
320:1. TO YOU HE WHO SPOKE and wrote this message will be greatly disappointed if it does not lead many to the Lord Jesus. It is sent forth in childlike dependence upon the power of God the Holy Ghost, to use it in the conversion of millions, if so He pleases. No doubt many poor men and women will take up this little volume, and the Lord will visit them with grace. To answer this end, the very plainest language has been chosen, and many homely expressions have been used. But if those of wealth and rank should glance at this book, the Holy Ghost can impress them also; since that which can be understood by the unlettered is none the less attractive to the instructed. Oh that some might read it who will become great winners of souls! Who knows how many will find their way to peace by what they read here? A more important question to you, dear reader, is this- Will you be one of them? A certain man placed a fountain by the wayside, and he hung up a cup near to it by a little chain. He was told some time after that a great art-critic had found much fault with its design. "But," said he, "do many thirsty persons drink at it?" Then they told him that thousands of poor people, men, women, and children, slaked their thirst at this fountain; and he smiled and said, that he was little troubled by the critic's observation, only he hoped that on some sultry summer's day the critic himself might fill the cup, and he refreshed, and praise the name of the Lord. Here is my fountain, and here is my cup: find fault if you please; but do drink of the water of life. I only care for this. I had rather bless the soul of the poorest crossing-sweeper, or rag-gatherer, than please a prince of the blood, and fail to convert him to God. Reader, do you mean business in reading these pages? If so, we are agreed at the outset; but nothing short of your finding Christ and Heaven is the business aimed at here. Oh that we may seek this together! ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
321:I come to call you Home.
Those who resonate with my words and follow them internally, will find that place and know It's completeness, its joy and fullness.
I have come to call you away from suffering, from fear and from a life of sorrow and into your own, divine Being.
I did not come here to give you decorative stories, to excite your imagination, or sign you up for some long program but to show you how available Truth is, and to remind you that you are never separate from It.
No person on this planet is apart from the Truth in the Heart and yet the world is so vast and varied in expression.
The greatest good and greatest evil is here.
In this forest of duality and complexity you must find your way Home.
You must win your Self back. Wisdom and trust will be your compass.
Many voices came to call us but we are here today because we are freshly called by the voice of God, Love, Truth.
Do not come half way home, but fully home.
I know the voice that called you is true and Truth and that where you are being called to is also Real.
It is inside your own Heart.
It is what gives me the strength to be here.
I love to see the beings being set free from the hypnosis of conditioning; from fears, false projection and the grip of ego.
And I know that to be liberated is not difficult.
It requires only openness and the sincere desire to be free.
I don't need to hear anything about your past.
Your stories are of no interest to me.
That is not how I know you.
I know you only through your Heart.
That is my true connection with you -
the living power of God.
It is That which I respond to in you
and it is only This that I know.
I can only keep reminding you of It by pointing you again and again to the obvious in yourself.
Now you must respond to my pointing.
This will complete this yoga of seeing.
Find and be one with That which is imperishable.
Be merged in the Absolute.
Don't go to sleep. ~ Mooji,#NFDB
322:I want you to see that the Master’s idea was of a river flowing through everyone who comes to Him. Whatever you think about it, Jesus wants your salvation to be like a river, and I am sure that Jesus is the ideal for us all. The lack today is the lack of understanding of that blessed fullness of Christ. He came to do nothing less than to embody us with the same manifestation that He had: the manifestation of “doing.” Turning for a moment to Jesus’ attitude in the Holy Spirit, I would like you to see a plan there. In Acts 1, we find that Jesus “began both to do and teach” (v. 1); the believer should always be so full of the Holy Spirit that he begins to “do,” and then he can “teach.” He must be ready for the man in the street. He must be instantly ready, flowing like a river. He must have three things: ministration, operation, and manifestation, and these three things must always be forthcoming. We ought to be so full of the manifestation of the power of God that, in the name of Jesus, we can absolutely destroy the power of Satan. We are in the world—not of it (John 17:11, 14). Jesus overcame the world (John 16:33), and we are in the world to subdue it unto God—as overcomers. We are nothing in ourselves, but in Christ “we are more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37) through the blood of Jesus—more than a match for satanic powers in every way. Therefore, may the Lord let us see that we must be loosed from ourselves. For if you examine yourself, you will be natural, but if you look at God, you will be supernatural. If you have a great God, you will have a little Devil; and if you have a big Devil, you will have a little god. May the Lord let us see that we must be so full of the order of the Spirit of life that we are always overcoming “him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). Jesus was only laying a foundation, which is the new birth unto righteousness. It is the drink at the well; it is receiving Him, and by receiving Him, you may have power to become children of God. For as many as receive Him become the children of God (John 1:12). ~ Smith Wigglesworth, #NFDB
323:If a man is to be saved it will be through faith, or not at all. But because he is spiritually lifeless (Eph. 2:1-2), he must first be made alive by the power of God's grace before he is able to repent and believe. Perhaps the best way to drive home this point is with an illustration. It comes from the pen of that great British evangelist of the eighteenth century, George Whitefield: "Come, ye dead, Christless, unconverted sinners, come and see the place where they laid the body of the deceased Lazarus; behold him laid out, bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths, locked up and stinking in a dark cave, with a great stone placed on the top of it. View him again and again; go nearer to him; be not afraid; smell him. Ah! How he stinketh. Stop there now, pause a while; and whilst thou art gazing upon the corpse of Lazarus, give me leave to tell thee with great plainness, but greater love, that this dead, bound entombed, stinking carcase, is butd a faith representation of thy poor soul in its natural state: for, whether thou believest or n ot, thy spirit which thou bearest about with thee, sepulchred in flesh and blood, is as literally dead to God, and as truly dead in trespasses and sins, as the body of Lazarus was in the cave. Was he bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths? So art thou bound hand and foot with thy corruptions: and as a stone was laid on the sepulchre, so is there a stone of unbelief upon thy stupid heart. Perhaps thou hast lain in this state, not only four days, but many years, stinking in God's nostrils. And, what is still more effecting thou art as unable to raise thyself out of this loathsome, dead state, to a life of righteousness and true holiness, as ever Lazarus was to raise himself from the cave in which he lay so long. Thou mayest try the power of thy own boasted free-will, and the force and energy of moral persuasion and rational arguments (which, without all doubt, have their proper place in religion); but all thy efforts, exerted with never so much vigour, will prove quite fruitless and abortive, till that same Jesus, who said 'Take away the stone'; and cried, 'Lazarus, come forth' also quicken you ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
324:And for the same reason, because that which we are seeking through beauty is in the end that which we are seeking through religion, the Absolute, the Divine. The search for beauty is only in its beginning a satisfaction in the beauty of form, the beauty which appeals to the physical senses and the vital impressions, impulsions, desires. It is only in the middle a satisfaction in the beauty of the ideas seized, the emotions aroused, the perception of perfect process and harmonious combination. Behind them the soul of beauty in us desires the contact, the revelation, the uplifting delight of an absolute beauty in all things which it feels to be present, but which neither the senses and instincts by themselves can give, though they may be its channels, - for it is suprasensuous, - nor the reason and intelligence, though they too are a channel, - for it is suprarational, supra-intellectual, - but to which through all these veils the soul itself seeks to arrive. When it can get the touch of this universal, absolute beauty, this soul of beauty, this sense of its revelation in any slightest or greatest thing, the beauty of a flower, a form, the beauty and power of a character, an action, an event, a human life, an idea, a stroke of the brush or the chisel or a scintillation of the mind, the colours of a sunset or the grandeur of the tempest, it is then that the sense of beauty in us is really, powerfully, entirely satisfied. It is in truth seeking, as in religion, for the Divine, the All-Beautiful in man, in nature, in life, in thought, in art; for God is Beauty and Delight hidden in the variation of his masks and forms. When, fulfilled in our growing sense and knowledge of beauty and delight in beauty and our power for beauty, we are able to identify ourselves in soul with this Absolute and Divine in all the forms and activities of the world and shape an image of our inner and our outer life in the highest image we can perceive and embody of the All-Beautiful, then the aesthetic being in us who was born for this end, has fulfilled himself and risen to his divine consummation. To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to create, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and power of God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, 144, #NFDB
325:We owe all to Jesus crucified. What is your life, my brethren, but the cross? Whence comes the bread of your soul but from the cross? What is your joy but the cross? What is your delight, what is your heaven, but the Blessed One, once crucified for you, who ever liveth to make intercession for you? Cling to the cross, then, Put both arms around it! Hold to the Crucified, and never let Him go. Come afresh to the cross at this moment, and rest there now and for ever! Then, with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross! Tell out the story of the bleeding Lamb. Repeat the wondrous tale, and nothing else. Never mind how you do it, only proclaim that Jesus died for sinner.
The cross held up by a babe’s hands is just as powerful as if a giant held it up. The power lies in the word itself, or rather in the Holy Spirit who works by it and with it. O glorious Christ, when I have had a vision of Thy cross, I have seen it at first like a common gibbet, and Thou wast hanging on it like a felon; but, as I have looked, I have seen it begin to rise, and tower aloft till it has reached the highest heaven, and by its mighty power has lifted up myriads to the throne of God. I have seen its arms extend and expand until they have embraced all the earth. I have seen the foot of it go down deep as our helpless miseries are; and what a vision I have had of Thy magnificence, O Thou crucified One! Brethren, believe in the power of the cross for the conversion of those around you. Do not say of any man that he cannot be saved. The blood of Jesus is omnipotent. Do not say of any district that it is too sunken, or of any class of men that they are too far gone: the word of the cross reclaims the lost. Believe it to be the power of God, and you shall find it so.
Believe in Christ crucified, and preach boldly in His name, and you shall see great and gladsome things. Do not doubt the ultimate triumph of Christianity. Do not let a mistrust flit across your soul. The cross must conquer; it must blossom with a crown, a crown commensurate with the person of the Crucified, and the bitterness of His agony. His reward shall parallel His sorrows. Trust in God, and lift you banner high, and now with psalms and songs advance to battle, for the Lord of hosts is with us, the Son of the Highest leads our van. Onward, with blast of silver trumpet and shout of those that seize the spoil. Let no man’s heart fail him! Christ hath died! Atonement is complete! God is satisfied! Peace is proclaimed! Heaven glitters with proofs of mercy already bestowed upon ten thousand times ten thousand! Hell is trembling, heaven adoring, earth waiting. Advance, ye saints, to certain victory! You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,#NFDB
326:We owe all to Jesus crucified. What is your life, my brethren, but the cross? Whence comes the bread of your soul but from the cross? What is your joy but the cross? What is your delight, what is your heaven, but the Blessed One, once crucified for you, who ever liveth to make intercession for you? Cling to the cross, then, put both arms around it! Hold to the Crucified, and never let Him go. Come afresh to the cross at this moment, and rest there now and for ever! Then, with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross! Tell out the story of the bleeding Lamb. Repeat the wondrous tale, and nothing else. Never mind how you do it, only proclaim that Jesus died for sinner.
The cross held up by a babe’s hands is just as powerful as if a giant held it up. The power lies in the word itself, or rather in the Holy Spirit who works by it and with it. O glorious Christ, when I have had a vision of Thy cross, I have seen it at first like a common gibbet, and Thou wast hanging on it like a felon; but, as I have looked, I have seen it begin to rise, and tower aloft till it has reached the highest heaven, and by its mighty power has lifted up myriads to the throne of God. I have seen its arms extend and expand until they have embraced all the earth. I have seen the foot of it go down deep as our helpless miseries are; and what a vision I have had of Thy magnificence, O Thou crucified One! Brethren, believe in the power of the cross for the conversion of those around you. Do not say of any man that he cannot be saved. The blood of Jesus is omnipotent. Do not say of any district that it is too sunken, or of any class of men that they are too far gone: the word of the cross reclaims the lost. Believe it to be the power of God, and you shall find it so.
Believe in Christ crucified, and preach boldly in His name, and you shall see great and gladsome things. Do not doubt the ultimate triumph of Christianity. Do not let a mistrust flit across your soul. The cross must conquer; it must blossom with a crown, a crown commensurate with the person of the Crucified, and the bitterness of His agony. His reward shall parallel His sorrows. Trust in God, and lift your banner high, and now with psalms and songs advance to battle, for the Lord of hosts is with us, the Son of the Highest leads our van. Onward, with blast of silver trumpet and shout of those that seize the spoil. Let no man’s heart fail him! Christ hath died! Atonement is complete! God is satisfied! Peace is proclaimed! Heaven glitters with proofs of mercy already bestowed upon ten thousand times ten thousand! Hell is trembling, heaven adoring, earth waiting. Advance, ye saints, to certain victory! You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,#NFDB
327:There are people who begin waiting on God, and they do not know what they are waiting for—they have no idea. I believe that God is making the thing so that you cannot get out of it. You may refuse it, and you may come within its reach and come outside the boundaries of it, but it is for you. It is a personal baptism—it is not a church baptism. It is for the body of believers who are to be clothed with the power and unction, or anointing, of the Spirit by this glorious waiting. What do I mean by saying it is not a “church” baptism? Why, I mean that people get their minds on a building when I say “church.” You see, it is the believers who compose the “body” —believers in the Lord Jesus Christ—whatever sect or creed or denomination they are. I also tell you that Paul went so far as to say that some people have very strange ideas of who will be ready for the coming of the kingdom. All in Christ will be ready, and you have to decide whether you are in Christ or not. The Scripture says, in the first verse of Romans 8, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” If you are there—praise the Lord! That is a good position. I ask the Lord that He will bring us all into that place. What a wonder it will be. I want you to see that the Master’s idea was of a river flowing through everyone who comes to Him. Whatever you think about it, Jesus wants your salvation to be like a river, and I am sure that Jesus is the ideal for us all. The lack today is the lack of understanding of that blessed fullness of Christ. He came to do nothing less than to embody us with the same manifestation that He had: the manifestation of “doing.” Turning for a moment to Jesus’ attitude in the Holy Spirit, I would like you to see a plan there. In Acts 1, we find that Jesus “began both to do and teach” (v. 1); the believer should always be so full of the Holy Spirit that he begins to “do,” and then he can “teach.” He must be ready for the man in the street. He must be instantly ready, flowing like a river. He must have three things: ministration, operation, and manifestation, and these three things must always be forthcoming. We ought to be so full of the manifestation of the power of God that, in the name of Jesus, we can absolutely destroy the power of Satan. We are in the world—not of it (John 17:11, 14). Jesus overcame the world (John 16:33), and we are in the world to subdue it unto God—as overcomers. We are nothing in ourselves, but in Christ “we are more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37) through the blood of Jesus—more than a match for satanic powers in every way. Therefore, may the Lord let us see that we must be loosed from ourselves. For if you examine yourself, you will be natural, but if you look at God, you will be supernatural. If you have a great God, you will have a little Devil; and if you have a big Devil, you will have a little god. May the Lord let us see that we must be so full of the order of the Spirit of life that we are always overcoming “him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. ~ Smith Wigglesworth, #NFDB
328:The supreme Truth aspect which thus manifests itself to us is an eternal and infinite and absolute self-existence, self-awareness, self-delight of being; this bounds all things and secretly supports and pervades all things. This Self-existence reveals itself again in three terms of its essential nature,-self, conscious being or spirit, and God or the Divine Being. The Indian terms are more satisfactory,-Brahman the Reality is Atman, Purusha, Ishwara; for these terms grew from a root of Intuition and, while they have a comprehensive preciseness, are capable of a plastic application which avoids both vagueness in the use and the rigid snare of a too limiting intellectual concept. The Supreme Brahman is that which in Western metaphysics is called the Absolute: but Brahman is at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. [...] Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists; Brahman is the force that sustains the power of God and Titan and Demon, the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and energies of Nature; Brahman is the Ananda, the secret Bliss of existence which is the ether of our being and without which none could breathe or live. Brahman is the inner Soul in all; it has taken a form in correspondence with each created form which it inhabits. The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; He is Space and all that is in Space; He is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe. These and similar statements taken together are all-comprehensive: it is possible for the mind to cut and select, to build a closed system and explain away all that does not fit within it; but it is on the complete and many-sided statement that we must take our stand if we have to acquire an integral knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 02: The Knowledge and the Ignorance - The Spiritual Evolution, Part I, The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti [336-337],#NFDB
329:Romans 1:
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;
10 Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.
11 For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;
12 That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.
13 Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
14 I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
330:Gnothi Seauton
I
If thou canst bear
Strong meat of simple truth
If thou durst my words compare
With what thou thinkest in my souls free youth,
Then take this fact unto thy soul,-----
God dwells in thee.
It is no metaphor nor parable,
It is unknown to thousands, and to thee;
Yet there is God.
II
He is in thy world,
But thy world knows him not.
He is the mighty Heart
From which lifes varied pulses part.
Clouded and shrouded there doth sit
The Infinite
Embosomed in a man;
And thou art stranger to thy guest
And knowst not what thou doth invest.
The clouds that veil his life within
Are thy thick woven webs of sin,
Which his glory struggling through
Darkens to thine evil hue.
III
Then bear thyself, O man!
Up to the scale and compass of thy guest;
Soul of thy soul.
Be great as doth beseem
The ambassador who bears
The royal presence where he goes.
IV
Give up to thy soul-----
Let it have its way-----
It is, I tell thee, God himself,
The selfsame One that rules the Whole,
Tho he speaks thro thee with a stifled voice,
And looks through thee, shorn of his beams.
But if thou listen to his voice,
If thou obey the royal thought,
It will grow clearer to thine ear,
More glorious to thine eye.
The clouds will burst that veil him now
And thou shalt see the Lord.
V
Therefore be great,
Not proud,-----too great to be proud.
Let not thine eyes rove,
Peep not in corners; let thine eyes
Look straight before thee, as befits
The simplicity of Power.
And in thy closet carry state;
Filled with light, walk therein;
And, as a king
Would do no treason to his own empire,
So do not thou to thine.
VI
This is the reason why thou dost recognize
Things now first revealed,
Because in thee resides
The Spirit that lives in all;
And thou canst learn the laws of nature
Because its author is latent in thy breast.
VII
Therefore, O happy youth,
Happy if thou dost know and love this truth,
Thou art unto thyself a law,
And since the soul of things is in thee,
Thou needest nothing out of thee.
The law, the gospel, and the Providence,
Heaven, Hell, the Judgement, and the stores
Immeasurable of Truth and Good,
All these thou must find
Within thy single mind,
Or never find.
VIII
Thou art the law;
The gospel has no revelation
Of peace and hope until there is response
From the deep chambers of thy mind thereto,-----
The rest is straw.
It can reveal no truth unknown before.
The Providence
Thou art thyself that doth dispense
Wealth to thy work, want to thy sloth,
Glory to goodness, to neglect, the moth.
Thou sowst the wind, the whirlwind reapest,
Thou payest the wages
Of thy own work, through all ages.
The almighty energy within
Crowneth virtue, curseth sin.
Virtue sees by its own light;
Stumbleth sin in self-made night.
IX
Who approves thee doing right?
God in thee.
Who condemns thee doing wrong?
God in thee.
Who punishes thine evil deed?
God in thee.
What is thine evil meed?
Thy worse mind, with error blind
And more prone to evil
That is, the greater hiding of the God within:
The loss of peace
The terrible displeasure of this inmate
And next the consequence
More faintly as more distant wrot
Upon our outward fortunes
Which decay with vice
With Virtue rise.
X
The selfsame God
By the same law
Makes the souls of angels glad
And the souls of devils sad
See
There is nothing else but God
Where e'er I look
All things hasten back to him
Light is but his shadow dim.
XI
Shall I ask wealth or power of God, who gave
An image of himself to be my soul?
As well might swilling ocean ask a wave,
Or the starred firmament a dying coal,-----
For that which is in me lives in the whole.
by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gnothi Seauton
,#NFDB
331:Passing Through
"Earth is the birth of the blues," sang Yellow Bertha,
as she chopped cotton beside Mama Rose.
It was as hot as any other summer day,
when she decided to run away.
Folks say she made a fortune
running a whorehouse in New Orleans,
but others say she's buried somewhere out west,
her grave unmarked,
though you can find it in the dark
by the scent of jasmine and mint,
but I'm getting ahead of myself.
If it wasn't for hell,
we'd all be tapdancing with the devil
Mama Rose used to say,
but as it is, we just stand and watch,
while someone else burns up before salvation.
"People desire damnation, Bertha," she said,
unwrapping the rag from her head
to let the sweat flow down the corn rows,
plaited as tightly as the night coming down
on the high and mighty on judgment day.
They say she knew what was coming,
because she threw some bones that morning.
She bent down to pick up her rag which had fallen
and when she straightened up, her yellow gal
had gone down the road.
"Go then," she called out, "I didn't want you no how."
Then she started talking to herself
about how Old White John caught her milking cows.
"He wrestled me to the ground and did his nastiness."
He said, "your daddy was a slave and his daddy
and I'm claiming back what's mine."
It was July. I remember fireworks going off outside.
When Bertha come, so white
she liked to scared me to death,
I let her suckle my breast
and I said, "All right, little baby,
maybe I'll love you. Maybe."
Mama Rose said she did her best,
18
but it's hard to raise a gal like that
with everybody thinking she's giving them the high hat,
because she's so light and got those green eyes
that look right through you. She frightens people.
Even men, who're usually wanting to saddle up
and ride that kind of mare, can't abide her.
They're afraid if they try her, they'll never be the same.
The only ones willing are white.
They're watching her day and night,
but they know John swore to kill any man
who touched her,
because lo and behold, he owns up to her.
He's proud of her. Nobody can believe it.
He's even at her baptism.
He buys her cheap dresses and candy at the store.
He hands it to her out the door,
because she can't go in.
He won't, he won't stop looking at her
like it's some kind of miracle she was born
looking so much like him and his people.
It's a warning, or something.
"It's evil turning back on itself," said the preacher
the Sunday cut clean through by the truth,
by the living proof, as Old John stood up in church
and testified to the power of God,
who spoke to him that morning,
telling him he was a sinner.
He died that winter. Horrible suffering, they say.
He had a stroke on the way to town.
His car ran off the road and he drowned.
They say Bertha found him.
They say she ran all the way to town for the doctor,
who told her, "I am not a colored doctor,"
so she went and got the sheriff.
He listened for a while, then he locked her in a cell.
He said he knew she was guilty of something.
Well, after a while, Rose went down there
and I swear she nearly had a fit.
"Get my daughter out here," she said.
"How can you lock up your own brother's child?"
The sheriff knew it was true, so finally he said,
"You take her and don't ever cross my path again."
19
When Bertha passed him on the way out,
he tripped her with his foot.
When she got off the floor, she said,
"Every dog has its day."
From that time to this is a straight line,
pointing at a girl,
who doesn't even have shoes anymore,
as she runs down the road,
throwing off her ragged clothes, as she goes,
until she's as naked as the day she was born.
When she comes to washing hanging on the line,
she grabs a fine dress and keeps on running.
She's crying and laughing at the same time.
Along comes a truck that says J. GOODY on the side.
The man driving stops to give her a ride.
He swings the door open on the passenger side,
but Bertha says, "Move over, I'll drive."
When she asks him why he stopped,
he says, "I know white trash, when I see it.
You're just like me, but you're a girl. You're pretty.
You can free yourself. All you have to do
is show a little leg and some titty in the big city."
He gave her fifty cents and a wink
and she started thinking she might as well turn white.
She got a job waiting table in a dance hall.
One night, the boss heard her
singing along with the band.
He said, "Why don't you go up on stage,"
and she said, "I play piano too."
He said, "Howdy do."
From then on, she made everybody pay
one way, or another.
She got hard. She took lovers—
fathers, sons, and husbands.
It didn't matter,
but once in a while, she heard her mother's voice,
saying, "You made the wrong choice,"
and she felt the blues
and she let loose with a shout.
"Lordy," said the boss, "you sound colored."
More and more people came to hear her sing,
20
but they kind of feared her too.
They said, she was too white to sing the blues like that.
It wasn't right.
One night, she got to talking with the boss.
He walked round and round the office, shaking his head,
saying how much he'd lose,
if she stopped singing the blues.
"How often can you find a treasure like mine," he said,
laying his hand on her shoulder,
then he said, "If I weren't so old,"
and his voice dropped off to a whisper,
then he said, "I got the answer now, sweet Roberta.
Go on down to the dressing room and wait."
It didn't take long.
He came in and set a jar on the table.
"What do I do with this?" Asked Bertha.
He said, "you're going to pass for colored."
Suddenly, she was wearing blackface.
Suddenly, she was safe on the other side
of the door she slammed on the past
and it was standing open at last.
She could come and go as she pleased
and no one saw her enter, or leave.
She was free, she was freed,
but she didn't feel it
and she needed it to be real.
She went on, though. She flowed like a river,
carrying the body of a man,
who had himself a nigger, because he could.
She lived. She got old.
She almost froze one cold spell
and she got up from her sickbed
and told her daughter
she got during the change of life
it was time to go.
She sewed a note to her ragged coat.
It said, "This is the granddaughter of Mama Rose."
She put fifty cents in her hand
and went to stand with her at the bus stop.
She would not return, but her child
had earned the right to go home.
21
When I got off the bus,
a hush fell over the people waiting there.
I was as white as my mother,
but my eyes were gray, not green.
I had hair down to my waist and braids so thick
they weighed me down.
Mother said, my father was a white musician
from another town,
who found out her secret
and left her and me to keep it.
Mama Rose knew me, though, blind as she was.
"What color are you, gal?" She asked
and I told her, "I'm as black as last night."
That's how I passed, without asking permission.
~ Ai Ogawa,#NFDB
332:Jubilate Agno: Fragment A
Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb.
Nations, and languages, and every Creature, in which is the breath of Life.
Let man and beast appear before him, and magnify his name together.
Let Noah and his company approach the throne of Grace, and do homage to the
Ark of their Salvation.
Let Abraham present a Ram, and worship the God of his Redemption.
Let Isaac, the Bridegroom, kneel with his Camels, and bless the hope of his
pilgrimage.
Let Jacob, and his speckled Drove adore the good Shepherd of Israel.
Let Esau offer a scape Goat for his seed, and rejoice in the blessing of God his
father.
Let Nimrod, the mighty hunter, bind a Leopard to the altar, and consecrate his
spear to the Lord.
Let Ishmael dedicate a Tyger, and give praise for the liberty, in which the Lord
has let him at large.
Let Balaam appear with an Ass, and bless the Lord his people and his creatures
for a reward eternal.
Let Anah, the son of Zibion, lead a Mule to the temple, and bless God, who
amerces the consolation of the creature for the service of Man.
Let Daniel come forth with a Lion, and praise God with all his might through faith
in Christ Jesus.
Let Naphthali with an Hind give glory in the goodly words of Thanksgiving.
Let Aaron, the high priest, sanctify a Bull, and let him go free to the Lord and
Giver of Life.
32
Let the Levites of the Lord take the Beavers of the brook alive into the Ark of the
Testimony.
Let Eleazar with the Ermine serve the Lord decently and in purity.
Let Ithamar minister with a Chamois, and bless the name of Him, which
cloatheth the naked.
Let Gershom with an Pygarg Hart bless the name of Him, who feedeth the
hungry.
Let Merari praise the wisdom and power of God with the Coney, who scoopeth
the rock, and archeth in the sand.
Let Kohath serve with the Sable, and bless God in the ornaments of the Temple.
Let Jehoida bless God with an Hare, whose mazes are determined for the health
of the body and to parry the adversary.
Let Ahitub humble himself with an Ape before Almighty God, who is the maker of
variety and pleasantry.
Let Abiathar with a Fox praise the name of the Lord, who ballances craft against
strength and skill against number.
Let Moses, the Man of God, bless with a Lizard, in the sweet majesty of goodnature, and the magnanimity of meekness.
Let Joshua praise God with an Unicorn -- the swiftness of the Lord, and the
strength of the Lord, and the spear of the Lord mighty in battle.
Let Caleb with an Ounce praise the Lord of the Land of beauty and rejoice in the
blessing of his good Report.
Let Othniel praise God with the Rhinoceros, who put on his armour for the reward
of beauty in the Lord.
Let Tola bless with the Toad, which is the good creature of God, tho' his virtue is
in the secret, and his mention is not made.
Let Barak praise with the Pard -- and great is the might of the faithful and great
is the Lord in the nail of Jael and in the sword of the Son of Abinoam.
33
Let Gideon bless with the Panther -- the Word of the Lord is invincible by him
that lappeth from the brook.
Let Jotham praise with the Urchin, who took up his parable and provided himself
for the adversary to kick against the pricks.
Let Boaz, the Builder of Judah, bless with the Rat, which dwelleth in hardship and
peril, that they may look to themselves and keep their houses in order.
Let Obed-Edom with a Dormouse praise the Name of the Lord God his Guest for
increase of his store and for peace.
Let Abishai bless with the Hyaena -- the terror of the Lord, and the fierceness, of
his wrath against the foes of the King and of Israel.
Let Ethan praise with the Flea, his coat of mail, his piercer, and his vigour, which
wisdom and providence have contrived to attract observation and to escape it.
Let Heman bless with the Spider, his warp and his woof, his subtlety and
industry, which are good.
Let Chalcol praise with the Beetle, whose life is precious in the sight of God, tho
his appearance is against him.
Let Darda with a Leech bless the Name of the Physician of body and soul.
Let Mahol praise the Maker of Earth and Sea with the Otter, whom God has given
to dive and to burrow for his preservation.
Let David bless with the Bear -- The beginning of victory to the Lord -- to the
Lord the perfection of excellence -- Hallelujah from the heart of God, and from
the hand of the artist inimitable, and from the echo of the heavenly harp in
sweetness magnifical and mighty.
Let Solomon praise with the Ant, and give the glory to the Fountain of all
Wisdom.
Let Romamti-ezer bless with the Ferret -- The Lord is a rewarder of them, that
diligently seek him.
Let Samuel, the Minister from a child, without ceasing praise with the Porcupine,
34
which is the creature of defence and stands upon his arms continually.
Let Nathan with the Badger bless God for his retired fame, and privacy
inaccessible to slander.
Let Joseph, who from the abundance of his blessing may spare to him, that
lacketh, praise with the Crocodile, which is pleasant and pure, when he is
interpreted, tho' his look is of terror and offence.
Let Esdras bless Christ Jesus with the Rose and his people, which is a nation of
living sweetness.
Let Mephibosheth with the Cricket praise the God of chearfulness, hospitality,
and gratitude.
Let Shallum with the Frog bless God for the meadows of Canaan, the fleece, the
milk and the honey.
Let Hilkiah praise with the Weasel, which sneaks for his prey in craft, and
dwelleth at ambush.
Let Job bless with the Worm -- the life of the Lord is in Humiliation, the Spirit
also and the truth.
Let Elihu bless with the Tortoise, which is food for praise and thanksgiving.
Let Hezekiah praise with the Dromedary -- the zeal for the glory of God is
excellence, and to bear his burden is grace.
Let Zadoc worship with the Mole -- before honour is humility, and he that looketh
low shall learn.
Let Gad with the Adder bless in the simplicity of the preacher and the wisdom of
the creature.
Let Tobias bless Charity with his Dog, who is faithful, vigilant, and a friend in
poverty.
Let Anna bless God with the Cat, who is worthy to be presented before the
throne of grace, when he has trampled upon the idol in his prank.
Let Benaiah praise with the Asp -- to conquer malice is nobler, than to slay the
35
lion.
Let Barzillai bless with the Snail -- a friend in need is as the balm of Gilead, or as
the slime to the wounded bark.
Let Joab with the Horse worship the Lord God of Hosts.
Let Shemaiah bless God with the Caterpiller -- the minister of vengeance is the
harbinger of mercy.
Let Ahimelech with the Locust bless God from the tyranny of numbers.
Let Cornelius with the Swine bless God, which purifyeth all things for the poor.
Let Araunah bless with the Squirrel, which is a gift of homage from the poor man
to the wealthy and increaseth good will.
Let Bakbakkar bless with the Salamander, which feedeth upon ashes as bread,
and whose joy is at the mouth of the furnace.
Let Jabez bless with Tarantula, who maketh his bed in the moss, which he
feedeth, that the pilgrim may take heed to his way.
Let Jakim with the Satyr bless God in the dance. -Let Iddo praise the Lord with the Moth -- the writings of man perish as the
garment, but the Book of God endureth for ever.
Let Nebuchadnezzar bless with the Grashopper -- the pomp and vanities of the
world are as the herb of the field, but the glory of the Lord increaseth for ever.
Let Naboth bless with the Canker-worm -- envy is cruel and killeth and preyeth
upon that which God has given to aspire and bear fruit.
Let Lud bless with the Elk, the strenuous asserter of his liberty, and the
maintainer of his ground.
Let Obadiah with the Palmer-worm bless God for the remnant that is left.
Let Agur bless with the Cockatrice -- The consolation of the world is deceitful,
and temporal honour the crown of him that creepeth.
36
Let Ithiel bless with the Baboon, whose motions are regular in the wilderness,
and who defendeth himself with a staff against the assailant.
Let Ucal bless with the Cameleon, which feedeth on the Flowers and washeth
himself in the dew.
Let Lemuel bless with the Wolf, which is a dog without a master, but the Lord
hears his cries and feeds him in the desert.
Let Hananiah bless with the Civet, which is pure from benevolence.
Let Azarias bless with the Reindeer, who runneth upon the waters, and wadeth
thro the land in snow.
Let Mishael bless with the Stoat -- the praise of the Lord gives propriety to all
things.
Let Savaran bless with the Elephant, who gave his life for his country that he
might put on immortality.
Let Nehemiah, the imitator of God, bless with the Monkey, who is work'd down
from Man.
Let Manasses bless with the Wild-Ass -- liberty begetteth insolence, but necessity
is the mother of prayer.
Let Jebus bless with the Camelopard, which is good to carry and to parry and to
kneel.
Let Huz bless with the Polypus -- lively subtlety is acceptable to the Lord.
Let Buz bless with the Jackall -- but the Lord is the Lion's provider.
Let Meshullam bless with the Dragon, who maketh his den in desolation and
rejoiceth amongst the ruins.
Let Enoch bless with the Rackoon, who walked with God as by the instinct.
Let Hashbadana bless with the Catamountain, who stood by the Pulpit of God
against the dissensions of the Heathen.
Let Ebed-Melech bless with the Mantiger, the blood of the Lord is sufficient to do
37
away the offence of Cain, and reinstate the creature which is amerced.
Let A Little Child with a Serpent bless Him, who ordaineth strength in babes to
the confusion of the Adversary.
Let Huldah bless with the Silkworm -- the ornaments of the Proud are from the
bowells of their Betters.
Let Susanna bless with the Butterfly -- beauty hath wings, but chastity is the
Cherub.
Let Sampson bless with the Bee, to whom the Lord hath given strength to annoy
the assailant and wisdom to his strength.
Let Amasiah bless with the Chaffer -- the top of the tree is for the brow of the
champion, who has given the glory to God.
Let Hashum bless with the Fly, whose health is the honey of the air, but he feeds
upon the thing strangled, and perisheth.
Let Malchiah bless with the Gnat -- it is good for man and beast to mend their
pace.
Let Pedaiah bless with the Humble-Bee, who loves himself in solitude and makes
his honey alone.
Let Maaseiah bless with the Drone, who with the appearance of a Bee is neither a
soldier nor an artist, neither a swordsman nor smith.
Let Urijah bless with the Scorpion, which is a scourge against the murmurers -the Lord keep it from our coasts.
Let Anaiah bless with the Dragon-fly, who sails over the pond by the wood-side
and feedeth on the cressies.
Let Zorobabel bless with the Wasp, who is the Lord's architect, and buildeth his
edifice in armour.
Let Jehu bless with the Hornet, who is the soldier of the Lord to extirpate
abomination and to prepare the way of peace.
Let Mattithiah bless with the Bat, who inhabiteth the desolations of pride and
38
flieth amongst the tombs.
Let Elias which is the innocency of the Lord rejoice with the Dove.
Let Asaph rejoice with the Nightingale -- The musician of the Lord! and the
watchman of the Lord!
Let Shema rejoice with the Glowworm, who is the lamp of the traveller and mead
of the musician.
Let Jeduthun rejoice with the Woodlark, who is sweet and various.
Let Chenaniah rejoice with Chloris, in the vivacity of his powers and the beauty of
his person.
Let Gideoni rejoice with the Goldfinch, who is shrill and loud, and full withal.
Let Giddalti rejoice with the Mocking-bird, who takes off the notes of the Aviary
and reserves his own.
Let Jogli rejoice with the Linnet, who is distinct and of mild delight.
Let Benjamin bless and rejoice with the Redbird, who is soft and soothing.
Let Dan rejoice with the Blackbird, who praises God with all his heart, and
biddeth to be of good cheer.
~ Christopher Smart,#NFDB
333:Gotham - Book Ii
How much mistaken are the men who think
That all who will, without restraint may drink,
May largely drink, e'en till their bowels burst,
Pleading no right but merely that of thirst,
At the pure waters of the living well,
Beside whose streams the Muses love to dwell!
Verse is with them a knack, an idle toy,
A rattle gilded o'er, on which a boy
May play untaught, whilst, without art or force,
Make it but jingle, music comes of course.
Little do such men know the toil, the pains,
The daily, nightly racking of the brains,
To range the thoughts, the matter to digest,
To cull fit phrases, and reject the rest;
To know the times when Humour on the cheek
Of Mirth may hold her sports; when Wit should speak,
And when be silent; when to use the powers
Of ornament, and how to place the flowers,
So that they neither give a tawdry glare,
'Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air;'
To form, (which few can do, and scarcely one,
One critic in an age, can find when done)
To form a plan, to strike a grand outline,
To fill it up, and make the picture shine
A full and perfect piece; to make coy Rhyme
Renounce her follies, and with Sense keep time;
To make proud Sense against her nature bend,
And wear the chains of Rhyme, yet call her friend.
Some fops there are, amongst the scribbling tribe,
Who make it all their business to describe,
No matter whether in or out of place;
Studious of finery, and fond of lace,
Alike they trim, as coxcomb Fancy brings,
The rags of beggars, and the robes of kings.
Let dull Propriety in state preside
O'er her dull children, Nature is their guide;
Wild Nature, who at random breaks the fence
Of those tame drudges, Judgment, Taste, and Sense,
Nor would forgive herself the mighty crime
38
Of keeping terms with Person, Place, and Time.
Let liquid gold emblaze the sun at noon,
With borrow'd beams let silver pale the moon;
Let surges hoarse lash the resounding shore,
Let streams meander, and let torrents roar;
Let them breed up the melancholy breeze,
To sigh with sighing, sob with sobbing trees;
Let vales embroidery wear; let flowers be tinged
With various tints; let clouds be laced or fringed,
They have their wish; like idle monarch boys,
Neglecting things of weight, they sigh for toys;
Give them the crown, the sceptre, and the robe,
Who will may take the power, and rule the globe.
Others there are, who, in one solemn pace,
With as much zeal as Quakers rail at lace,
Railing at needful ornament, depend
On Sense to bring them to their journey's end:
They would not (Heaven forbid!) their course delay,
Nor for a moment step out of the way,
To make the barren road those graces wear
Which Nature would, if pleased, have planted there.
Vain men! who, blindly thwarting Nature's plan,
Ne'er find a passage to the heart of man;
Who, bred 'mongst fogs in academic land,
Scorn every thing they do not understand;
Who, destitute of humour, wit, and taste,
Let all their little knowledge run to waste,
And frustrate each good purpose, whilst they wear
The robes of Learning with a sloven's air.
Though solid reasoning arms each sterling line,
Though Truth declares aloud, 'This work is mine,'
Vice, whilst from page to page dull morals creep,
Throws by the book, and Virtue falls asleep.
Sense, mere dull, formal Sense, in this gay town,
Must have some vehicle to pass her down;
Nor can she for an hour insure her reign,
Unless she brings fair Pleasure in her train.
Let her from day to day, from year to year,
In all her grave solemnities appear,
And with the voice of trumpets, through the streets,
Deal lectures out to every one she meets;
Half who pass by are deaf, and t' other half
39
Can hear indeed, but only hear to laugh.
Quit then, ye graver sons of letter'd Pride!
Taking for once Experience as a guide,
Quit this grand error, this dull college mode;
Be your pursuits the same, but change the road;
Write, or at least appear to write, with ease,
'And if you mean to profit, learn to please.'
In vain for such mistakes they pardon claim,
Because they wield the pen in Virtue's name:
Thrice sacred is that name, thrice bless'd the man
Who thinks, speaks, writes, and lives on such a plan!
This, in himself, himself of course must bless,
But cannot with the world promote success.
He may be strong, but, with effect to speak,
Should recollect his readers may be weak;
Plain, rigid truths, which saints with comfort bear,
Will make the sinner tremble and despair.
True Virtue acts from love, and the great end
At which she nobly aims is to amend.
How then do those mistake who arm her laws
With rigour not their own, and hurt the cause
They mean to help, whilst with a zealot rage
They make that goddess, whom they'd have engage
Our dearest love, in hideous terror rise!
Such may be honest, but they can't be wise.
In her own full and perfect blaze of light,
Virtue breaks forth too strong for human sight;
The dazzled eye, that nice but weaker sense,
Shuts herself up in darkness for defence:
But to make strong conviction deeper sink,
To make the callous feel, the thoughtless think,
Like God, made man, she lays her glory by,
And beams mild comfort on the ravish'd eye:
In earnest most, when most she seems in jest,
She worms into, and winds around, the breast,
To conquer Vice, of Vice appears the friend,
And seems unlike herself to gain her end.
The sons of Sin, to while away the time
Which lingers on their hands, of each black crime
To hush the painful memory, and keep
The tyrant Conscience in delusive sleep,
Read on at random, nor suspect the dart
40
Until they find it rooted in their heart.
'Gainst vice they give their vote, nor know at first
That, cursing that, themselves too they have cursed;
They see not, till they fall into the snares,
Deluded into virtue unawares.
Thus the shrewd doctor, in the spleen-struck mind,
When pregnant horror sits, and broods o'er wind,
Discarding drugs, and striving how to please,
Lures on insensibly, by slow degrees,
The patient to those manly sports which bind
The slacken'd sinews, and relieve the mind;
The patient feels a change as wrought by stealth,
And wonders on demand to find it health.
Some few, whom Fate ordain'd to deal in rhymes
In other lands, and here, in other times,
Whom, waiting at their birth, the midwife Muse
Sprinkled all over with Castalian dews,
To whom true Genius gave his magic pen,
Whom Art by just degrees led up to men;
Some few, extremes well shunn'd, have steer'd between
These dangerous rocks, and held the golden mean;
Sense in their works maintains her proper state,
But never sleeps, or labours with her weight;
Grace makes the whole look elegant and gay,
But never dares from Sense to run astray:
So nice the master's touch, so great his care,
The colours boldly glow, not idly glare;
Mutually giving and receiving aid,
They set each other off, like light and shade,
And, as by stealth, with so much softness blend,
'Tis hard to say where they begin or end:
Both give us charms, and neither gives offence;
Sense perfects Grace, and Grace enlivens Sense.
Peace to the men who these high honours claim,
Health to their souls, and to their memories fame!
Be it my task, and no mean task, to teach
A reverence for that worth I cannot reach:
Let me at distance, with a steady eye,
Observe and mark their passage to the sky;
From envy free, applaud such rising worth,
And praise their heaven, though pinion'd down to earth!
Had I the power, I could not have the time,
41
Whilst spirits flow, and life is in her prime,
Without a sin 'gainst Pleasure, to design
A plan, to methodise each thought, each line
Highly to finish, and make every grace,
In itself charming, take new charms from place.
Nothing of books, and little known of men,
When the mad fit comes on, I seize the pen,
Rough as they run, the rapid thoughts set down.
Rough as they run, discharge them on the town.
Hence rude, unfinish'd brats, before their time,
Are born into this idle world of Rhyme,
And the poor slattern Muse is brought to bed
'With all her imperfections on her head.'
Some, as no life appears, no pulses play
Through the dull dubious mass, no breath makes way,
Doubt, greatly doubt, till for a glass they call,
Whether the child can be baptized at all;
Others, on other grounds, objections frame,
And, granting that the child may have a name,
Doubt, as the sex might well a midwife pose,
Whether they should baptize it Verse or Prose.
E'en what my masters please; bards, mild, meek men,
In love to critics, stumble now and then.
Something I do myself, and something too,
If they can do it, leave for them to do.
In the small compass of my careless page
Critics may find employment for an age:
Without my blunders, they were all undone;
I twenty feed, where Mason can feed one.
When Satire stoops, unmindful of her state,
To praise the man I love, curse him I hate;
When Sense, in tides of passion borne along,
Sinking to prose, degrades the name of song,
The censor smiles, and, whilst my credit bleeds,
With as high relish on the carrion feeds
As the proud earl fed at a turtle feast,
Who, turn'd by gluttony to worse than beast,
Ate till his bowels gush'd upon the floor,
Yet still ate on, and dying call'd for more.
When loose Digression, like a colt unbroke,
Spurning Connexion and her formal yoke,
Bounds through the forest, wanders far astray
42
From the known path, and loves to lose her way,
'Tis a full feast to all the mongrel pack
To run the rambler down, and bring her back.
When gay Description, Fancy's fairy child,
Wild without art, and yet with pleasure wild,
Waking with Nature at the morning hour
To the lark's call, walks o'er the opening flower
Which largely drank all night of heaven's fresh dew,
And, like a mountain nymph of Dian's crew,
So lightly walks, she not one mark imprints,
Nor brushes off the dews, nor soils the tints;
When thus Description sports, even at the time
That drums should beat, and cannons roar in rhyme,
Critics can live on such a fault as that
From one month to the other, and grow fat.
Ye mighty Monthly Judges! in a dearth
Of letter'd blockheads, conscious of the worth
Of my materials, which against your will
Oft you've confess'd, and shall confess it still;
Materials rich, though rude, inflamed with thought,
Though more by Fancy than by Judgment wrought
Take, use them as your own, a work begin
Which suits your genius well, and weave them in,
Framed for the critic loom, with critic art,
Till, thread on thread depending, part on part,
Colour with colour mingling, light with shade,
To your dull taste a formal work is made,
And, having wrought them into one grand piece,
Swear it surpasses Rome, and rivals Greece.
Nor think this much, for at one single word,
Soon as the mighty critic fiat's heard,
Science attends their call; their power is own'd;
Order takes place, and Genius is dethroned:
Letters dance into books, defiance hurl'd
At means, as atoms danced into a world.
Me higher business calls, a greater plan,
Worthy man's whole employ, the good of man,
The good of man committed to my charge:
If idle Fancy rambles forth at large,
Careless of such a trust, these harmless lays
May Friendship envy, and may Folly praise.
The crown of Gotham may some Scot assume,
43
And vagrant Stuarts reign in Churchill's room!
O my poor People! O thou wretched Earth!
To whose dear love, though not engaged by birth,
My heart is fix'd, my service deeply sworn,
How, (by thy father can that thought be borne?-For monarchs, would they all but think like me,
Are only fathers in the best degree)
How must thy glories fade, in every land
Thy name be laugh'd to scorn, thy mighty hand
Be shorten'd, and thy zeal, by foes confess'd,
Bless'd in thyself, to make thy neighbours bless'd,
Be robb'd of vigour; how must Freedom's pile,
The boast of ages, which adorns the isle
And makes it great and glorious, fear'd abroad,
Happy at home, secure from force and fraud;
How must that pile, by ancient Wisdom raised
On a firm rock, by friends admired and praised,
Envied by foes, and wonder'd at by all,
In one short moment into ruins fall,
Should any slip of Stuart's tyrant race,
Or bastard or legitimate, disgrace
Thy royal seat of empire! But what care,
What sorrow must be mine, what deep despair
And self-reproaches, should that hated line
Admittance gain through any fault of mine!
Cursed be the cause whence Gotham's evils spring,
Though that cursed cause be found in Gotham's king.
Let War, with all his needy ruffian band,
In pomp of horror stalk through Gotham's land
Knee-deep in blood; let all her stately towers
Sink in the dust; that court which now is ours
Become a den, where beasts may, if they can,
A lodging find, nor fear rebuke from man;
Where yellow harvests rise, be brambles found;
Where vines now creep, let thistles curse the ground;
Dry in her thousand valleys be the rills;
Barren the cattle on her thousand hills;
Where Power is placed, let tigers prowl for prey;
Where Justice lodges, let wild asses bray;
Let cormorants in churches make their nest,
And on the sails of Commerce bitterns rest;
Be all, though princes in the earth before,
44
Her merchants bankrupts, and her marts no more;
Much rather would I, might the will of Fate
Give me to choose, see Gotham's ruin'd state
By ills on ills thus to the earth weigh'd down,
Than live to see a Stuart wear a crown.
Let Heaven in vengeance arm all Nature's host,
Those servants who their Maker know, who boast
Obedience as their glory, and fulfil,
Unquestion'd, their great Master's sacred will;
Let raging winds root up the boiling deep,
And, with Destruction big, o'er Gotham sweep;
Let rains rush down, till Faith, with doubtful eye,
Looks for the sign of mercy in the sky;
Let Pestilence in all her horrors rise;
Where'er I turn, let Famine blast my eyes;
Let the earth yawn, and, ere they've time to think,
In the deep gulf let all my subjects sink
Before my eyes, whilst on the verge I reel;
Feeling, but as a monarch ought to feel,
Not for myself, but them, I'll kiss the rod,
And, having own'd the justice of my God,
Myself with firmness to the ruin give,
And die with those for whom I wish to live.
This, (but may Heaven's more merciful decrees
Ne'er tempt his servant with such ills as these!)
This, or my soul deceives me, I could bear;
But that the Stuart race my crown should wear,
That crown, where, highly cherish'd, Freedom shone
Bright as the glories of the midday sun;
Born and bred slaves, that they, with proud misrule,
Should make brave freeborn men, like boys at school,
To the whip crouch and tremble--Oh, that thought!
The labouring brain is e'en to madness brought
By the dread vision; at the mere surmise
The thronging spirits, as in tumult, rise;
My heart, as for a passage, loudly beats,
And, turn me where I will, distraction meets.
O my brave fellows! great in arts and arms,
The wonder of the earth, whom glory warms
To high achievements; can your spirits bend,
Through base control (ye never can descend
So low by choice) to wear a tyrant's chain,
45
Or let, in Freedom's seat, a Stuart reign?
If Fame, who hath for ages, far and wide,
Spread in all realms the cowardice, the pride,
The tyranny and falsehood of those lords,
Contents you not, search England's fair records;
England, where first the breath of life I drew,
Where, next to Gotham, my best love is due;
There once they ruled, though crush'd by William's hand,
They rule no more, to curse that happy land.
The first, who, from his native soil removed,
Held England's sceptre, a tame tyrant proved:
Virtue he lack'd, cursed with those thoughts which spring
In souls of vulgar stamp, to be a king;
Spirit he had not, though he laugh'd at laws.
To play the bold-faced tyrant with applause;
On practices most mean he raised his pride,
And Craft oft gave what Wisdom oft denied.
Ne'er could he feel how truly man is blest
In blessing those around him; in his breast,
Crowded with follies, Honour found no room;
Mark'd for a coward in his mother's womb,
He was too proud without affronts to live,
Too timorous to punish or forgive.
To gain a crown which had, in course of time,
By fair descent, been his without a crime,
He bore a mother's exile; to secure
A greater crown, he basely could endure
The spilling of her blood by foreign knife,
Nor dared revenge her death who gave him life:
Nay, by fond Pear, and fond Ambition led,
Struck hands with those by whom her blood was shed.
Call'd up to power, scarce warm on England's throne,
He fill'd her court with beggars from his own:
Turn where you would, the eye with Scots was caught,
Or English knaves, who would be Scotsmen thought.
To vain expense unbounded loose he gave,
The dupe of minions, and of slaves the slave;
On false pretences mighty sums he raised,
And damn'd those senates rich, whom poor he praised;
From empire thrown, and doom'd to beg her bread,
On foreign bounty whilst a daughter fed,
He lavish'd sums, for her received, on men
46
Whose names would fix dishonour on my pen.
Lies were his playthings, parliaments his sport;
Book-worms and catamites engross'd the court:
Vain of the scholar, like all Scotsmen since,
The pedant scholar, he forgot the prince;
And having with some trifles stored his brain,
Ne'er learn'd, nor wish'd to learn, the art to reign.
Enough he knew, to make him vain and proud,
Mock'd by the wise, the wonder of the crowd;
False friend, false son, false father, and false king,
False wit, false statesman, and false everything,
When he should act, he idly chose to prate,
And pamphlets wrote, when he should save the state.
Religious, if religion holds in whim;
To talk with all, he let all talk with him;
Not on God's honour, but his own intent,
Not for religion's sake, but argument;
More vain if some sly, artful High-Dutch slave,
Or, from the Jesuit school, some precious knave
Conviction feign'd, than if, to peace restored
By his full soldiership, worlds hail'd him lord.
Power was his wish, unbounded as his will,
The power, without control, of doing ill;
But what he wish'd, what he made bishops preach,
And statesmen warrant, hung within his reach
He dared not seize; Fear gave, to gall his pride,
That freedom to the realm his will denied.
Of treaties fond, o'erweening of his parts,
In every treaty of his own mean arts
He fell the dupe; peace was his coward care,
E'en at a time when Justice call'd for war:
His pen he'd draw to prove his lack of wit,
But rather than unsheath the sword, submit.
Truth fairly must record; and, pleased to live
In league with Mercy, Justice may forgive
Kingdoms betray'd, and worlds resign'd to Spain,
But never can forgive a Raleigh slain.
At length, (with white let Freedom mark that year)
Not fear'd by those whom most he wish'd to fear,
Not loved by those whom most he wish'd to love,
He went to answer for his faults above;
To answer to that God, from whom alone
47
He claim'd to hold, and to abuse the throne;
Leaving behind, a curse to all his line,
The bloody legacy of Right Divine.
With many virtues which a radiance fling
Round private men; with few which grace a king,
And speak the monarch; at that time of life
When Passion holds with Reason doubtful strife,
Succeeded Charles, by a mean sire undone,
Who envied virtue even in a son.
His youth was froward, turbulent, and wild;
He took the Man up ere he left the Child;
His soul was eager for imperial sway,
Ere he had learn'd the lesson to obey.
Surrounded by a fawning, flattering throng,
Judgment each day grew weak, and humour strong;
Wisdom was treated as a noisome weed,
And all his follies left to run to seed.
What ills from such beginnings needs must spring!
What ills to such a land from such a king!
What could she hope! what had she not to fear!
Base Buckingham possess'd his youthful ear;
Strafford and Laud, when mounted on the throne,
Engross'd his love, and made him all their own;
Strafford and Laud, who boldly dared avow
The traitorous doctrine taught by Tories now;
Each strove to undo him in his turn and hour,
The first with pleasure, and the last with power.
Thinking (vain thought, disgraceful to the throne!)
That all mankind were made for kings alone;
That subjects were but slaves; and what was whim,
Or worse, in common men, was law in him;
Drunk with Prerogative, which Fate decreed
To guard good kings, and tyrants to mislead;
Which in a fair proportion to deny
Allegiance dares not; which to hold too high,
No good can wish, no coward king can dare,
And, held too high, no English subject bear;
Besieged by men of deep and subtle arts,
Men void of principle, and damn'd with parts,
Who saw his weakness, made their king their tool,
Then most a slave, when most he seem'd to rule;
Taking all public steps for private ends,
48
Deceived by favourites, whom he called friends,
He had not strength enough of soul to find
That monarchs, meant as blessings to mankind,
Sink their great state, and stamp their fame undone,
When what was meant for all, they give to one.
Listening uxorious whilst a woman's prate
Modell'd the church, and parcell'd out the state,
Whilst (in the state not more than women read)
High-churchmen preach'd, and turn'd his pious head;
Tutor'd to see with ministerial eyes;
Forbid to hear a loyal nation's cries;
Made to believe (what can't a favourite do?)
He heard a nation, hearing one or two;
Taught by state-quacks himself secure to think,
And out of danger e'en on danger's brink;
Whilst power was daily crumbling from his hand,
Whilst murmurs ran through an insulted land,
As if to sanction tyrants Heaven was bound,
He proudly sought the ruin which he found.
Twelve years, twelve tedious and inglorious years,
Did England, crush'd by power, and awed by fears,
Whilst proud Oppression struck at Freedom's root,
Lament her senates lost, her Hampden mute.
Illegal taxes and oppressive loans,
In spite of all her pride, call'd forth her groans;
Patience was heard her griefs aloud to tell,
And Loyalty was tempted to rebel.
Each day new acts of outrage shook the state,
New courts were raised to give new doctrines weight;
State inquisitions kept the realm in awe,
And cursed Star-Chambers made or ruled the law;
Juries were pack'd, and judges were unsound;
Through the whole kingdom not one Pratt was found.
From the first moments of his giddy youth
He hated senates, for they told him truth.
At length, against his will compell'd to treat,
Those whom he could not fright, he strove to cheat;
With base dissembling every grievance heard,
And, often giving, often broke his word.
Oh, where shall hapless Truth for refuge fly,
If kings, who should protect her, dare to lie?
Those who, the general good their real aim,
49
Sought in their country's good their monarch's fame;
Those who were anxious for his safety; those
Who were induced by duty to oppose,
Their truth suspected, and their worth unknown,
He held as foes and traitors to his throne;
Nor found his fatal error till the hour
Of saving him was gone and past; till power
Had shifted hands, to blast his hapless reign,
Making their faith and his repentance vain.
Hence (be that curse confined to Gotham's foes!)
War, dread to mention, Civil War arose;
All acts of outrage, and all acts of shame,
Stalk'd forth at large, disguised with Honour's name;
Rebellion, raising high her bloody hand,
Spread universal havoc through the land;
With zeal for party, and with passion drunk,
In public rage all private love was sunk;
Friend against friend, brother 'gainst brother stood,
And the son's weapon drank the father's blood;
Nature, aghast, and fearful lest her reign
Should last no longer, bled in every vein.
Unhappy Stuart! harshly though that name
Grates on my ear, I should have died with shame
To see my king before his subjects stand,
And at their bar hold up his royal hand;
At their commands to hear the monarch plead,
By their decrees to see that monarch bleed.
What though thy faults were many and were great?
What though they shook the basis of the state?
In royalty secure thy person stood,
And sacred was the fountain of thy blood.
Vile ministers, who dared abuse their trust,
Who dared seduce a king to be unjust,
Vengeance, with Justice leagued, with Power made strong,
Had nobly crush'd--'The king could do no wrong.'
Yet grieve not, Charles! nor thy hard fortunes blame;
They took thy life, but they secured thy fame.
Their greatest crimes made thine like specks appear,
From which the sun in glory is not clear.
Hadst thou in peace and years resign'd thy breath
At Nature's call; hadst thou laid down in death
As in a sleep, thy name, by Justice borne
50
On the four winds, had been in pieces torn.
Pity, the virtue of a generous soul,
Sometimes the vice, hath made thy memory whole.
Misfortunes gave what Virtue could not give,
And bade, the tyrant slain, the martyr live.
Ye Princes of the earth! ye mighty few!
Who, worlds subduing, can't yourselves subdue;
Who, goodness scorn'd, wish only to be great;
Whose breath is blasting, and whose voice is fate;
Who own no law, no reason, but your will,
And scorn restraint, though 'tis from doing ill;
Who of all passions groan beneath the worst,
Then only bless'd when they make others cursed;
Think not, for wrongs like these, unscourged to live;
Long may ye sin, and long may Heaven forgive;
But when ye least expect, in sorrow's day,
Vengeance shall fall more heavy for delay;
Nor think that vengeance heap'd on you alone
Shall (poor amends!) for injured worlds atone;
No, like some base distemper, which remains,
Transmitted from the tainted father's veins,
In the son's blood, such broad and general crimes
Shall call down vengeance e'en to latest times,
Call vengeance down on all who bear your name,
And make their portion bitterness and shame.
From land to land for years compell'd to roam,
Whilst Usurpation lorded it at home,
Of majesty unmindful, forced to fly,
Not daring, like a king, to reign or die,
Recall'd to repossess his lawful throne,
More at his people's seeking than his own,
Another Charles succeeded. In the school
Of Travel he had learn'd to play the fool;
And, like pert pupils with dull tutors sent
To shame their country on the Continent,
From love of England by long absence wean'd,
From every court he every folly glean'd,
And was--so close do evil habits cling-Till crown'd, a beggar; and when crown'd, no king.
Those grand and general powers, which Heaven design'd,
An instance of his mercy to mankind,
Were lost, in storms of dissipation hurl'd,
51
Nor would he give one hour to bless a world;
Lighter than levity which strides the blast,
And, of the present fond, forgets the past,
He changed and changed, but, every hope to curse,
Changed only from one folly to a worse:
State he resign'd to those whom state could please;
Careless of majesty, his wish was ease;
Pleasure, and pleasure only, was his aim;
Kings of less wit might hunt the bubble Fame;
Dignity through his reign was made a sport,
Nor dared Decorum show her face at court;
Morality was held a standing jest,
And Faith a necessary fraud at best.
Courtiers, their monarch ever in their view,
Possess'd great talents, and abused them too;
Whate'er was light, impertinent, and vain,
Whate'er was loose, indecent, and profane,
(So ripe was Folly, Folly to acquit)
Stood all absolved in that poor bauble, Wit.
In gratitude, alas! but little read,
He let his father's servants beg their bread-His father's faithful servants, and his own,
To place the foes of both around his throne.
Bad counsels he embraced through indolence,
Through love of ease, and not through want of sense;
He saw them wrong, but rather let them go
As right, than take the pains to make them so.
Women ruled all, and ministers of state
Were for commands at toilets forced to wait:
Women, who have, as monarchs, graced the land,
But never govern'd well at second-hand.
To make all other errors slight appear,
In memory fix'd, stand Dunkirk and Tangier;
In memory fix'd so deep, that Time in vain
Shall strive to wipe those records from the brain,
Amboyna stands--Gods! that a king could hold
In such high estimate vile paltry gold,
And of his duty be so careless found,
That when the blood of subjects from the ground
For vengeance call'd, he should reject their cry,
And, bribed from honour, lay his thunders by,
Give Holland peace, whilst English victims groan'd,
52
And butcher'd subjects wander'd unatoned!
Oh, dear, deep injury to England's fame,
To them, to us, to all! to him deep shame!
Of all the passions which from frailty spring,
Avarice is that which least becomes a king.
To crown the whole, scorning the public good,
Which through his reign he little understood,
Or little heeded, with too narrow aim
He reassumed a bigot brother's claim,
And having made time-serving senates bow,
Suddenly died--that brother best knew how.
No matter how--he slept amongst the dead,
And James his brother reigned in his stead:
But such a reign--so glaring an offence
In every step 'gainst freedom, law, and sense,
'Gainst all the rights of Nature's general plan,
'Gainst all which constitutes an Englishman,
That the relation would mere fiction seem,
The mock creation of a poet's dream;
And the poor bards would, in this sceptic age,
Appear as false as _their_ historian's page.
Ambitious Folly seized the seat of Wit,
Christians were forced by bigots to submit;
Pride without sense, without religion Zeal,
Made daring inroads on the Commonweal;
Stern Persecution raised her iron rod,
And call'd the pride of kings, the power of God;
Conscience and Fame were sacrificed to Rome,
And England wept at Freedom's sacred tomb.
Her laws despised, her constitution wrench'd
From its due natural frame, her rights retrench'd
Beyond a coward's sufferance, conscience forced,
And healing Justice from the Crown divorced,
Each moment pregnant with vile acts of power,
Her patriot Bishops sentenced to the Tower,
Her Oxford (who yet loves the Stuart name)
Branded with arbitrary marks of shame,
She wept--but wept not long: to arms she flew,
At Honour's call the avenging sword she drew,
Turn'd all her terrors on the tyrant's head,
And sent him in despair to beg his bread;
Whilst she, (may every State in such distress
53
Dare with such zeal, and meet with such success!)
Whilst she, (may Gotham, should my abject mind
Choose to enslave rather than free mankind,
Pursue her steps, tear the proud tyrant down,
Nor let me wear if I abuse the crown!)
Whilst she, (through every age, in every land,
Written in gold, let Revolution stand!)
Whilst she, secured in liberty and law,
Found what she sought, a saviour in Nassau.
~ Charles Churchill,#NFDB
13 Christianity
11 Yoga
4 Integral Yoga
3 Psychology
3 Baha i Faith
2 Sufism
2 Occultism
1 Poetry
1 Philsophy
1 Fiction
17 Sri Aurobindo
12 Sri Ramakrishna
6 Anonymous
4 Saint Augustine of Hippo
3 Baha u llah
2 Jordan Peterson
2 Al-Ghazali
2 A B Purani
11 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
9 The Bible
3 Savitri
3 Essays On The Gita
3 City of God
2 The Life Divine
2 The Book of Certitude
2 The Alchemy of Happiness
2 Talks
2 Maps of Meaning
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge luminous triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the Anahata Sabda, the great sound Om, of which the innumerable sounds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power, at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of the head. He further saw that as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances. Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various movements of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The awaken- ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in samadhi, is the consummation of the Tantrik disciplines.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
As if a torch held by a Power of God,
The radiant world of the everlasting Truth
03.04 - The Vision and the Boon, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Omnipotence, girdle with the Power of God
Movements and moments of a mortal will,
1.01 - On knowledge of the soul, and how knowledge of the soul is the key to the knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
The science of the structure of the body is called anatomy : it is a great science, but most men are heedless of it. If any study it, it is only for the purpose of acquiring skill in medicine, and not for the sake of becoming acquainted with the perfection of the Power of God. But whoever will occupy himself with anatomy, and therein contemplate the wonders of the works of God, will reap three advantages. The first advantage will be, that in learning the composition of the thing made, and thereby gaining a comprehensive and condensed view of all other things like it he will see that it is impossible to discover imperfection or incompetence in the being who has created him in such perfection. The Creator himself will be acknowledged to be almighty and perfect. The second advantage will be, that he will see that it is impossible that a being who has created an organization so intelligent, capable of comprehension, endowed with beauty, and useful, should be otherwise than perfect in knowledge himself. And lastly, we shall understand the mercy, favor and perfect compassion of God towards us. Nothing that is either useful or ornamental has been omitted in the framing of our bodies, whether it be such things as are the sources of life, like the spirit and the head; or such as sustain life, as the hand, the foot, the mouth and the teeth : or such as are a means of ornament, as the beard, elegance of form, black hair and the lips. It is to be observed that similar organs have been provided not only for man, but for all creatures, so that nothing is wanting to initiate and sustain life in the mouse, the wasp, the snake and the ant. God has done all things perfectly, and may his name be glorified !
The investigator of truth this fact well knows,
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
For she is a breath of the Power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
1.02 - On the Knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
It has been shown that man from his own existence, knows the existence of his creator, that from his analysis of the materials of which his body is composed and of its distinctive characters he understands the almighty Power of God, that from the uses, the arrangement and the combination of his organs, he knows the omniscient wisdom of God, and that his clemency and compassion extend to [45] all. He knows, also, that these many mercies and bounties are bestowed upon him without his seeking or care, from God's rich and overflowing grace. Now in this way it is possible that the knowledge of the soul should become the key to the knowledge of God. For just as from a survey of your own being and attributes, you have in a contracted form learned the being and attributes of God, it is also possible to understand how the freedom and the holiness of God, bear a resemblance to the freedom of your soul.
Know, that God exists exempt from and independent of the notions that enter the mind, and the forms that are produced in the imagination, that he is not subjected to reasoning, and time and place cannot be ascribed to him. Still his exercise of power and the manifestation of his glory are not independent of place. But in the same manner, this independence and freedom is possible in your soul. The spirit, for example, which we call heart is exempt from the entrance of fancies and imaginations, and also from size and divisibility. Nor has it form or color, for if it had, it could be seen by the eye, and would enter into the sphere of fancy and imagination, and its beauty or ugliness, its greatness or littleness would be known. If any one ask you about your soul, you may answer, "It exists by the will of God: it has neither quantity or physical quality; it is exempt from being known." Beloved, since you are incapable of knowing the spirit which is in your body, how should it be possible for you to know God, who created spirits, bodies and all things, who is himself foreign to all of them, and who is not of their class and kind ? It is one of the most important things, yea, a most necessary duty, to treat of God as holy, independent and free.
--
Still the miserable naturalist, who ascribes effects to the influences of nature, speaks correctly. For, if natural causes had no operation, the art of medicine would have been useless, and the holy law would not have allowed to have recourse to medical treatment. The mistake which the naturalist makes, is that he contracts his sphere of vision, and is like the lame ass, that left his load at the first stopping place. He does not know that nature also is subjected to the hand of the Power of God, and is a kind of humble servant, such as a shoe is to the ass. The astrologer also says, that the sun is a star, which causes heat and light upon the earth. If there had been no sun, the distinction between day and night would not have existed, and vegetables and grain could not have been produced. The moon also is a star, and if there bad been no moon, how many things connected with the requirements of the Law of the Koran, would have been impracticable, such as fasting, alms and pilgrimage, since there would have been no distinction of weeks, months and years. The colors and perfumes of herbs and fruits exist also from its influence. The sun is warm and dry; the moon is cold and moist. Saturn [52] is cold and dry, Venus is warm and moist. And the school of astrologers is to be credited in these representations; but when they ascribe all events to influences proceeding from the heavenly bodies, they are liars. They do not perceive that they all alike are subject to the almighty Power of God as God says in his word: "And the sun, moon and stars are subject to his command." 1 There is also an influence exercised by the stars, which resembles the control, exercised by the nerve that comes from the brain over the finger in writing; while the force of nature is like the control exerted upon the pen by the finger....
When the health of a person undergoes a change, and he becomes the prey of melancholy and suspicion, and the pleasures of the world become distasteful, so that from disgust with it, he withdraws from all society, his physician says, "this person is diseased with melancholy; he must take an infusion of dodder, of thyme and bark of endive as a medicine." The naturalist says: "As this person's malady is of a dry nature, it arises from a predominance of dryness, which has settled on the brain. The occasion of his having a dry temperament is the season of winter. Until spring comes, and dry weather predominates, there is no possibility of a cure." The astrologer says, "this person being under the influence of melancholy, which arises from a hurtful conjunction between Mars and Jupiter, there will be no favorable change in his health until the conjunction of Jupiter with Venus shall have reached the Trine." Now know, beloved, that the language of all these persons is correct, for they all speak and believe according to the degree and reach of their reason and understanding. However, the real and essential cause of the malady may be stated thus. When fortune is favorable to any person, and the Deity desires to guide him into the [53] possession of it, he deputes two powerful ministers to that effect, Jupiter and Mars. These in turn, control the light footed ministers, the elements, and command dryness, for example, to fasten its bridle to the neck of the person, and cause dryness to attack his head and brain. He is thus made to become weary of the world by means of the scourge of melancholy and suspicion, and so with the bridle of the will may be impelled towards the Deity. These circumstances can never be understood in this sense, either by medicine, or by nature, or by the stars. One may, however, learn to understand them by knowledge and the prophetic power combined. For they embrace the whole kingdom of the universe with its deputies and servants, and possess the knowledge of the end for which everything was created: they know to whose command all things are subjected, to what men are invited and what they are forbidden to do.
1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Brahmanaspati is the Creator; by the word, by his cry he creates - that is to say he expresses, he brings out all existence and conscious knowledge and movement of life and eventual forms from the darkness of the Inconscient. Rudra, the Violent and Merciful, the Mighty One, presides over the struggle of life to affirm itself; he is the armed, wrathful and beneficent Power of God who lifts forcibly the creation upward, smites all that opposes, scourges all that errs and resists, heals all that is wounded and suffers and complains and submits. Vishnu of the vast pervading motion holds in his triple stride all these worlds; it is he that makes a wide room for the action of Indra in our limited mortality; it is by him and with him that we rise into his highest seats where we find waiting for us the Friend, the Beloved, the Beatific Godhead.
Our earth shaped out of the dark inconscient ocean of existence lifts its high formations and ascending peaks heavenward; heaven of mind has its own formations, clouds that give out their lightnings and their waters of life; the streams of the clarity and the honey ascend out of the subconscient ocean below and seek the superconscient ocean above; and from above that ocean sends downward its rivers of the light and truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus in images of physical Nature the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension.
1.03 - Meeting the Master - Meeting with others, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: The word 'egoism' is used in a very limited sense in English, it means anything for the self. That which is not done for the self is regarded as unegoistic. But that is not so in Yoga. One can do all unselfish actions and have full egoism in him. He will have the egoism of the doer. Nishkama Karma means first desirelessness. You have to first establish that condition in which good or bad desires are absent. You must realise that it is the Power of God, His Shakti, that does the work in reality. All work, good and bad, in you and in the world, is Her work.
G: If a man takes up that attitude he may go on indiscriminately doing good or bad actions and say that God is doing them.
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Indra and Varuna are called to give victory, because both of them are samrat. The words samrat & swarat have in Veda an ascertained philosophical sense.One is swarat when, having self-mastery & self-knowledge, & being king over his whole system, physical, vital, mental & spiritual, free in his being, [one] is able to guide entirely the harmonious action of that being. Swarajya is spiritual Freedom. One is Samrat when one is master of the laws of being, ritam, rituh, vratani, and can therefore control all forces & creatures. Samrajya is divine Rule resembling the Power of God over his world. Varuna especially is Samrat, master of the Law which he follows, governor of the heavens & all they contain, Raja Varuna, Varuna the King as he is often styled by Sunahshepa and other Rishis. He too, like Indra & Agni & the Visvadevas, is an upholder & supporter of mens actions, dharta charshaninam. Finally in the fifth sloka a distinction is drawn between Indra and Varuna of great importance for our purpose. The Rishi wishes, by their protection, to rise to the height of the inner Energies (yuvaku shachinam) and have the full vigour of right thoughts (yuvaku sumatinam) because they give then that fullness of inner plenty (vajadavnam) which is the first condition of enduring calm & perfection & then he says, Indrah sahasradavnam, Varunah shansyanam kratur bhavati ukthyah. Indra is the master-strength, desirable indeed, (ukthya, an object of prayer, of longing and aspiration) of one class of those boons (vara, varyani) for which the Rishis praise him, Varuna is the master-strength, equally desirable, of another class of these Vedic blessings. Those which Indra brings, give force, sahasram, the forceful being that is strong to endure & strong to overcome; those that attend the grace of Varuna are of a loftier & more ample description, they are shansya. The word shansa is frequently used; it is one of the fixed terms of Veda. Shall we translate it praise, the sense most suitable to the ritual explanation, the sense which the finally dominant ritualistic school gave to so many of the fixed terms of Veda? In that case Varuna must be urushansa, because he is widely praised, Agni narashansa because he is strongly praised or praised by men,ought not a wicked or cruel man to be nrishansa because he is praised by men?the Rishis call repeatedly on the gods to protect their praise, & Varuna here must be master of things that are praiseworthy. But these renderings can only be accepted, if we consent to the theory of the Rishis as semi-savage poets, feeble of brain, vague in speech, pointless in their style, using language for barbaric ornament rather than to express ideas. Here for instance there is a very powerful indicated contrast, indicated by the grammatical structure, the order & the rhythm, by the singular kratur bhavati, by the separation of Indra & Varuna who have hitherto been coupled, by the assignment of each governing nominative to its governed genitive and a careful balanced order of words, first giving the master Indra then his province sahasradavnam, exactly balancing them in the second half of the first line the master Varuna & then his province shansyanam, and the contrast thus pointed, in the closing pada of the Gayatri all the words that in their application are common at once to all these four separated & contrasted words in the first line. Here is no careless writer, but a style careful, full of economy, reserve, point, force, and the thought must surely correspond. But what is the contrast forced on us with such a marshalling of the stylists resources? That Indras boons are force-giving, Varunas praiseworthy, excellent, auspicious, what you will? There is not only a pointless contrast, but no contrast at all. No, shansa & shansya must be important, definite, pregnant Vedic terms expressing some prominent idea of the Vedic system. I shall show elsewhere that shansa is in its essential meaning self-expression, the bringing out of our sat or being that which is latent in it and manifesting it in our nature, in speech, in our general impulse & action. It has the connotation of self-expression, aspiration, temperament, expression of our ideas in speech; then divulgation, publication, praiseor in another direction, cursing. Varuna is urushansa because he is the master of wide self-expression, wide aspirations, a wide, calm & spacious temperament, Agni narashansa because he is master of strong self-expression, strong aspirations, a prevailing, forceful & masterful temperament;nrishansa had originally the same sense, but was afterwards diverted to express the fault to which such a temper is prone,tyranny, wrath & cruelty; the Rishis call to the gods to protect their shansa, that which by their yoga & yajna they have been able to bring out in themselves of being, faculty, power, joy,their self-expression. Similarly, shansya here means all that belongs to self-expression, all that is wide, noble, ample in the growth of a soul. It will follow from this rendering that Indra is a god of force, Varuna rather a god of being and as it appears from other epithets, of being when it is calm, noble, wide, self-knowing, self-mastering, moving freely in harmony with the Law of things because it is aware of that Law and accepts it. In that acceptance is his mighty strength; therefore is he even more than the gods of force the king, the giver of internal & external victory, rule, empire, samrajya to his votaries. This is Varuna.
We see the results & the conditions of the action ofVaruna in the four remaining verses. By their protection we have safety from attack, sanema, safety for our shansa, our rayah, our radhas, by the force of Indra, by the protecting greatness of Varuna against which passion & disturbance cast themselves in vain, only to be destroyed. This safety & this settled ananda or delight, we use for deep meditation, ni dhimahi, we go deep into ourselves and the object we have in view in our meditation is prarechanam, the Greek katharsis, the cleansing of the system mental, bodily, vital, of all that is impure, defective, disturbing, inharmonious. Syad uta prarechanam! In this work of purification we are sure to be obstructed by the powers that oppose all healthful change; but Indra & Varuna are to give us victory, jigyushas kritam. The final result of the successful purification is described in the eighth sloka. The powers of the understanding, its various faculties & movements, dhiyah, delivered from self-will & rebellion, become obedient to Indra & Varuna; obedient to Varuna, they move according to the truth & law, the ritam; obedient to Indra they fulfil with that passivity in activity, which we seek by Yoga, all the works to which mental force can apply itself when it is in harmony with Varuna & the ritam. The result is sharma, peace. Nothing is more remarkable in the Veda than the exactness with which hymn after hymn describes with a marvellous simplicity & lucidity the physical & psychological processes through which Indian Yoga proceeds. The process, the progression, the successive movements of the soul here described are exactly what the Yogin experiences today so many thousands of years after the Veda was revealed. No wonder, it is regarded as eternal truth, not the expression of any particular mind, not paurusheya but impersonal, divine & revealed.
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
creative Power of God in making the world. He quotes Ovids phrase in the Fasti, est deus in nobis, which would
395
1.06 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Worldly people's indifference to spiritual life MASTER: "Many people visit the temple garden at Dakshineswar. If I see some among the visitors indifferent to God, I say to them, 'You had better sit over there.' Or sometimes I say, 'Go and see the beautiful buildings.' (Laughter.) "Sometimes I find that the devotees of God are accompanied by worthless people. Their companions are immersed in gross worldliness and don't enjoy spiritual talk at all. Since the devotees keep on, for a long time, talking with me about God, the others become restless. Finding it impossible to sit there any longer, they whisper to their devotee friends: 'When shall we be going? How long will you stay here?' The devotees say: 'Wait a bit. We shall go after a little while.' Then the worldly people say in a disgusted tone: 'Well, then, you can talk. We shall wait for you in the boat.' (All laugh.) Power of God's name
"Worldly people will never listen to you if you ask them to renounce everything and devote themselves whole-heartedly to God. Therefore Chaitanya and Nitai, after some deliberation, made an arrangement to attract the worldly. They would say to such persons, 'Come, repeat the name of Hari, and you shall have a delicious soup of magur fish and the embrace of a young woman.' Many people, attracted by the fish and the woman, would chant the name of God. After tasting a little of the nectar of God's hallowed name, they would soon realize that the 'fish soup' really meant the tears they shed for love of God, while the 'young woman' signified the earth. The embrace of the woman meant rolling on the ground in the rapture of divine love.
11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A dual Power of God in an ignorant world,
In a hedged creation shut from limitless self,
1.14 - The Principle of Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Divine, am the rule and the standard; it is I who make the path in which men tread; I am the way and the goal. But I do all this largely, universally, visibly in part, but far more invisibly; and men do not really know the way of my workings. Thou, when thou knowest and seest, when thou hast become the divinised man, must be the individual Power of God, the human yet divine example, even as I am in my avatars. Most men dwell in the ignorance, the God-seer dwells in the knowledge; but let him not confuse the minds of men by a dangerous example, rejecting in his superiority the works of the world; let him not cut short the thread of action before it is spun out, let him not perplex and falsify the stages and gradations of the ways I have hewn. The whole range of human action has been decreed by me with a view to the progress of man from the lower to the higher nature, from the apparent undivine to the conscious Divine. The whole range of human works must be that in which the God-knower shall move. All individual, all social action, all the works of the intellect, the heart and the body are still his, not any longer for his own separate sake, but for the sake of God in the world, of
God in all beings and that all those beings may move forward, as he has moved, by the path of works towards the discovery of the Divine in themselves. Outwardly his actions may not seem to differ essentially from theirs; battle and rule as well as teaching and thought, all the various commerce of man with man may fall in his range; but the spirit in which he does them must be very different, and it is that spirit which by its influence shall be the great attraction drawing men upwards to his own level, the great lever lifting the mass of men higher in their ascent."
1.14 - The Suprarational Beauty, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And for the same reason, because that which we are seeking through beauty is in the end that which we are seeking through religion, the Absolute, the Divine. The search for beauty is only in its beginning a satisfaction in the beauty of form, the beauty which appeals to the physical senses and the vital impressions, impulsions, desires. It is only in the middle a satisfaction in the beauty of the ideas seized, the emotions aroused, the perception of perfect process and harmonious combination. Behind them the soul of beauty in us desires the contact, the revelation, the uplifting delight of an absolute beauty in all things which it feels to be present, but which neither the senses and instincts by themselves can give, though they may be its channels,for it is suprasensuous,nor the reason and intelligence, though they too are a channel,for it is suprarational, supra-intellectual,but to which through all these veils the soul itself seeks to arrive. When it can get the touch of this universal, absolute beauty, this soul of beauty, this sense of its revelation in any slightest or greatest thing, the beauty of a flower, a form, the beauty and power of a character, an action, an event, a human life, an idea, a stroke of the brush or the chisel or a scintillation of the mind, the colours of a sunset or the grandeur of the tempest, it is then that the sense of beauty in us is really, powerfully, entirely satisfied. It is in truth seeking, as in religion, for the Divine, the All-Beautiful in man, in nature, in life, in thought, in art; for God is Beauty and Delight hidden in the variation of his masks and forms. When, fulfilled in our growing sense and knowledge of beauty and delight in beauty and our power for beauty, we are able to identify ourselves in soul with this Absolute and Divine in all the forms and activities of the world and shape an image of our inner and our outer life in the highest image we can perceive and embody of the All-Beautiful, then the aesthetic being in us who was born for this end, has fulfilled himself and risen to his divine consummation. To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to create, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and Power of God.
***
1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Strength and the rest; personally, it is the mental form and the animate being in whom this power is achieved and does its great works. A pre-eminence in this inner and outer achievement, a greater power of divine quality, an effective energy is always the sign. The human vibhuti is the hero of the race's struggle towards divine achievement, the hero in the Carlylean sense of heroism, a Power of God in man. "I am Vasudeva (Krishna) among the Vrishnis," says the Lord in the Gita, "Dhananjaya
(Arjuna) among the Pandavas, Vyasa among the sages, the seerpoet Ushanas among the seer-poets," the first in each category,
1.18 - M. AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "That is good. 'I am iva'-that is a good attitude. But I must tell you something else. The process of creation, preservation, and destruction that is going on day and night is due to akti, the Power of God. This Primal Power and Brahman are one and the same. akti cannot exist without Brahman, just as waves cannot exist without water. There cannot be any instrumental music without an instrument.
"As long as God keeps us in His relative world, so long we feel that there are two. If one accepts akti, one accepts Brahman as well. If one is aware of night, one is also aware of day. If one is aware of knowledge, one is also aware of ignorance.
1.19 - THE MASTER AND HIS INJURED ARM, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The Power of God's name
MASTER (smiling): "Why, is the name a trifling thing? God is not different from His name. Satyabhama tried to balance Krishna with gold and precious stones, but could not do it. Then Rukmini put a tulsi-leaf with the name of Krishna on the scales. That balanced the Lord."
1.20 - RULES FOR HOUSEHOLDERS AND MONKS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"I once asked Keshab, 'Why have you written about me?' He said that it would bring people here. But man cannot teach by his own power. One cannot conquer ignorance without the Power of God.
"At one time two men were engaged to wrestle. One of them was Hanuman Singh and the other a Mussalman from the Punjab. The Mussalman was a strong, stout man. He had eaten lustily of butter and meat for fifteen days before the day of the wrestling-match, and even on that day. All thought he would be the victor. Hanuman Singh, on the other hand, clad in a dirty cloth, had eaten sparingly for some days before the day of the match and devoted himself to repeating the holy name of Mahavir. On the day of the match he observed a complete fast. All thought that he would surely be defeated.
1.25 - ADVICE TO PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER (to the pundit): "You have read the Git, no doubt. It says that there is a special Power of God in the man who is honoured and respected by all."
The pundit quoted the verse from the Git.
--
MASTER: "According to the Git there is a Power of God in one who is respected and honoured by many. But Shashadhar has still a few things to do.
What will he accomplish with mere scholarship? He needs to practise some austerity. It is necessary to practise some spiritual discipline.
1.26 - On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
I noticed that the wolf of fornication added to the sufferings of the sick, and during their actual sufferings produced in them movements of the flesh and emissions. And it was astounding to see how the flesh rages and burns with desire amidst violent agonies. And I looked again and saw men lying in bed who were then and there comforted by the Power of God or by a sense of compunction, and by this comfort they warded off the pain and reached such a frame of mind in which they never wanted to get rid of their sickness. And again I turned and saw those suffering severely who by illness were delivered from the passions of their soul as if by some penance; and I glorified Him who cleansed clay by clay.
A spiritual mind is inevitably wrapped in spiritual understanding.2 Whether it is in us or not, we must never stop seeking this understanding. And when it makes its appearance, the outward senses of their own accord cease their natural action. Knowing this, one of the wise said: And thou shalt obtain a sense of the Divine.3
1.3.4.04 - The Divine Superman, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To be the superman is to live the divine life, to be a god; for the gods are the powers of God. Be a Power of God in humanity.
To live in the divine Being and let the consciousness and bliss, the will and knowledge of the Spirit possess thee and play with thee and through thee, this is the meaning.
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A certain man from Madurai asked: How to know the Power of God?
M.: You say I AM. That is it. What else can say I AM?
1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A certain man from Madurai asked: How to know the Power of God?
M.: You say 'I AM'. That is it. What else can say I AM?
1f.lovecraft - Two Black Bottles, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
the church under his spell, but the Power of God was too strong.
Finding Johannes Vanderhoof very weak-willed, he bewitched him so that
1.rwe - Gnothi Seauton, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
Shall I ask wealth or Power of God, who gave
An image of himself to be my soul?
2.02 - Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Supreme Brahman is that which in Western metaphysics is called the Absolute: but Brahman is at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. The Upanishads affirm that all this is the Brahman; Mind is Brahman, Life is Brahman, Matter is Brahman; addressing Vayu, the Lord of Air, of Life, it is said "O Vayu, thou art manifest Brahman"; and, pointing to man and beast and bird and insect, each separately is identified with the One, "O Brahman, thou art this old man and boy and girl, this bird, this insect." Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists; Brahman is the Force that sustains the Power of God and Titan and Demon, the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and energies of Nature; Brahman is the Ananda, the secret Bliss of existence which is the ether of our being and without which none could brea the or live. Brahman is the inner Soul in all; it has taken a form in correspondence with each created form which it inhabits. The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of ForceNature. He is the Timeless and Time; He is Space and all that is in Space; He is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe. These and similar statements taken together are all-comprehensive: it is possible for the mind to cut and select, to build a closed system and explain away all that does not fit within it; but it is on the complete and many-sided statement that we must take our stand if we have to acquire an integral knowledge.
An absolute, eternal and infinite Self-existence, Self-awareness, Self-delight of being that secretly supports and pervades the universe even while it is also beyond it, is, then, the first truth of spiritual experience. But this truth of being has at once an impersonal and a personal aspect; it is not only Existence, it is the one Being absolute, eternal and infinite. As there are three fundamental aspects in which we meet this Reality, Self, Conscious Being or Spirit and God, the Divine Being, or to use the Indian terms, the absolute and omnipresent Reality, Brahman, manifest to us as Atman, Purusha, Ishwara, - so too its power of Consciousness appears to us in three aspects: it is the self-force of that consciousness conceptively creative of all things, Maya; it is Prakriti, Nature or Force made dynamically executive, working out all things under the witnessing eye of the Conscious Being, the Self or Spirit; it is the conscious Power of the Divine Being, Shakti, which is both conceptively creative and dynamically executive of all the divine workings. These three aspects and their powers base and comprise the whole of existence and all Nature and, taken together as a single whole, they reconcile the apparent disparateness and incompatibility of the supracosmic Transcendence, the cosmic universality and the separativeness of our individual existence; the Absolute, cosmic Nature and ourselves are linked in oneness by this triune aspect of the one Reality. For taken by itself the existence of the Absolute, the Supreme Brahman, would be a contradiction of the relative universe and our own real existence would be incompatible with its sole incommunicable Reality. But the Brahman is at the same time omnipresent in all relativities; it is the Absolute independent of all relatives, the Absolute basing all relatives, the Absolute governing, pervading, constituting all relatives; there is nothing that is not the omnipresent Reality. In observing the triple aspect and the triple power we come to see how this is possible.
2.02 - THE DURGA PUJA FESTIVAL, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Why do I seek Shivanath? He who meditates on God for many days has substance in him, has divine power in him. Further, he who sings well, plays well on a musical instrument, or has mastered anyone art, has in him real substance and the Power of God. This is the view of the Git. It is said in the Chandi that he who is endowed with physical beauty has in him substance and the Power of God. (To Vijay) Ah, what a beautiful nature Kedr has! No sooner does he come to me than he bursts into tears. His eyes are always red and swim in tears, like a chanabara in syrup."
VIJAY: "At Dcc he is constantly talking about you. He is always eager to see you."
2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
his being the very force & Power of God in action, which gave
him such a stupendous energy & personality; but his mind being
2.04 - The Secret of Secrets, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Nature, ignorant and mechanical, cannot be a Power of God; for divine Power must be free in its workings, spiritual in its origin, spiritual in its greatness. The soul bound and egoistic in Nature, mental, vital, physical only, cannot be a portion of the Divine and itself a divine being; for such a divine being must be itself of
308
2.09 - On Sadhana, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
When I said that mere realisation of God is not sufficient I meant that such a realisation is not sufficient to bring about a permanent change of consciousness. It needs the working of the dynamic Power of God to change human nature.
Disciple: It so happens in their case because even the first glimpse of the Divine Consciousness is so overpowering, that it is too much for them! They are satisfied with the experience.
2.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES IN CALCUTTA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
(To M.) "There is no doubt that God exists in all things; but the manifestations of His Power are different in different beings. The greatest manifestation of His Power is through an Incarnation. Again, in some Incarnation there is a complete manifestation of God's Power. It is the akti, the Power of God, that is born as an Incarnation."
GIRISH: "Narendra says that God is beyond our words and thought."
2.16 - VISIT TO NANDA BOSES HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Try to find out what this 'I' is. Is this 'I' the bones or flesh or blood or intestines? Seeking the 'I', you discover 'Thou'. In other words, nothing exists inside you but the Power of God. There is no 'I', but only 'He'. (To Pasupati) You have so much wealth, but you have no egotism. It is not possible to rid oneself altogether of the ego; so, as long as it is there, let the rascal remain as the servant of God. (All laugh.) The ego that makes a man feel he is a devotee of God or a son of God or a servant of God is good. But the ego that makes a man attached to 'woman and gold' is the 'unripe ego'.
That ego is to be renounced."
--
MASTER (to Nanda): "According to the Git a man who is honoured and respected by many people possesses a special Power of God. You have divine power."
NANDA: "All men have the same power."
2.17 - The Progress to Knowledge - God, Man and Nature, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is not to say that the Supreme is not self-existent and self-sufficient; God exists in Himself and not by virtue of the cosmos or of man, while man and cosmos exist by virtue of God and not in themselves except in so far as their being is one with the being of God. But still they are a manifestation of the Power of God and even in His eternal existence their spiritual reality must in some way be present or implied, since otherwise there would be no possibility of their manifestation or, manifested, they would have no significance. What appears here as man is an individual being of the Divine; the Divine extended in multiplicity is the Self of all individual existences.6 Moreover, it is through the knowledge of self and the world that man arrives at the knowledge of God and he cannot attain to it otherwise.
It is not by rejecting God's manifestation, but by rejecting his own ignorance of it and the results of his ignorance, that he can best lift up and offer the whole of his being and consciousness and energy and joy of being into the Divine Existence. He may do this through himself, one manifestation, or he may do it through the universe, another manifestation. Arriving through himself alone, it is possible for him to plunge into an individual immergence or absorption in the Indefinable and to lose the universe. Arriving through the universe alone, he can sink his individuality either in the impersonality of universal being or in a dynamic self of universal Conscious-Force; he merges into the universal self or he becomes an impersonal channel of the cosmic Energy. Arriving through the equal integrality of both and seizing through them and beyond them on all the aspects of the Divine, he exceeds both and fulfils them in that exceeding: he possesses the Divine in his being, even as he is enveloped, penetrated, pervaded, possessed by the Divine Being,
2.20 - THE MASTERS TRAINING OF HIS DISCIPLES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Once I said to Mathur Babu: 'Don't think that I have achieved my desired end because you, a rich man, show me respect. It matters very little to me whether you obey me or not.' Of course you must remember that a mere man can do nothing, it is God alone who makes one person obey another. Man is straw and dust before the Power of God."
DOCTOR: "Do you think I shall obey you because a certain fisherman obeyed you?
--
We are jumping!' The children see it and think the potatoes, eggplant, and rice are alive and so they jump that way. But the elders, who know, explain to the children that the vegetables and the rice are not alive; they jump not of themselves, but because of the fire under the pot; if you remove the burning wood from the hearth, then they will move no more. Likewise the pride of man, that he is the doer, springs from ignorance. Men are powerful because of the Power of God. All becomes quiet when that burning wood is taken away. The puppets dance well on the stage when pulled by a wire, but they cannot move when the wire snaps.
"A man will cherish the illusion that he is the doer as long as he has not seen God, as long as he has not touched the Philosopher's Stone. So long will he know the distinction between his good and bad actions. This awareness of distinction is due to God's my; and it is necessary for the purpose of running His illusory world. But a man can realize God if he takes shelter under His Vidy-my and follows the path of righteousness. He who knows God and realizes Him is able to go beyond my. He who firmly believes that God alone is the Doer and he himself a mere instrument is a jivanmukta, a free soul though living in a body. I said this to Keshab Chandra Sen."
2.23 - THE MASTER AND BUDDHA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Narendra's visit to Bodh-Gaya — Buddha's doctrines — The meaning of Buddha — Narendra's enthusiasm about Buddha — Master about himself — Master's vision of God — Different kinds of samadhi — Power of God's name — Surendra's faith — Master's love for Girish — Nature of the mind — Monks and householders — About Rakhal — Radha's love for Krishna — The crazy woman — Good use of money — Master's anxiety about M.'s wife.
Friday, April 9, 1886
--
MASTER: "No doubt a man experiences a little of the effect; but much of it is cancelled by the Power of God's name. A man was born blind of an eye. This was his punishment for a certain misdeed he had committed in his past birth, and the punishment was to remain with him for six more births. He, however, took a bath in the Ganges, which gives one liberation. This meritorious action could not cure his blindness, but it saved him from his future births."
DR. SREENATH (to his friends): "But, sir, the scriptures say that nobody can escape the fruit of karma."
3.14 - Of the Consecrations, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
to have assumed that the almighty Power of God was an infinite
quantity in presence of which all finites were equally insignificant.
3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
plays with the love and wisdom and Power of God. When first
the unknowable Parabrahman turns towards knowableness in
4.17 - The Action of the Divine Shakti, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is necessary here to keep always in mind the three powers of the Divine which are present and have to be taken account of in all living existences. In our ordinary consciousness we see these three as ourselves, the Jiva in the form of the ego. God -- whatever conception we may have of God, and Nature. In the spiritual experience we see God as the supreme Self or Spirit, or as the Being from whom we come and in whom we live and move. We see Nature as his Power or God as Power, Spirit in Power acting in ourselves and the world. The Jiva is then himself this Self, Spirit, Divine, so'ham, because he is one with him in essence of his being and consciousness, but as the individual he is only a portion of the Divine, a self of the Spirit, and in his natural being a form of the shakti, a Power of God in movement and action, para prakrtir jivabhuta. At first, when we become conscious of God or of the shakti, the difficulties of our relation with them arise from the ego-consciousness which we bring into the spiritual relation. The ego in us makes claims on the Divine other than the spiritual claim, and these claims are in a sense legitimate, but so long as and in proportion as they take the egoistic form, they are open to much grossness and great perversions, burdened with an element of falsehood, undesirable reaction and consequent evil, and the relation can only be wholly right, happy and perfect when these claims become part of tile spiritual claim and lose their egoistic character. And in fact the claim of our being upon the Divine is fulfilled absolutely only then when it ceases at all to be a claim and is instead a fulfilment of the Divine through the individual, when we are satisfied with that alone, when we are content with the delight of oneness in being, content to leave the supreme Self and Master of existence to do whatever is the will of his absolute wisdom and knowledge through our more and more perfected Nature. This is the sense of the self-surrender of the individual self to the Divine, atmasamarpana. It does not exclude a will for the delight of oneness, for participation in the divine consciousness, wisdom, knowledge, light, power, perfection, for the satisfaction of the divine fulfilment in us, but the will, the aspiration is ours because it is his will in us. At first, while there is still insistence on our own personality, it only reflects that, but becomes more and more indistinguishable from it, less personal and eventually it loses all shade of separateness, because the will in us has grown identical with the divine Tapas, the action of the divine shakti.
And equally when we first become aware of the infinite shakti above us or around or in us, the impulse of the egoistic sense in us is to lay hold on it and use this increased might for our egoistic purpose. This is a most dangerous thing, for it brings with it a sense and some increased reality of a great, sometimes a titanic power, and the rajasic ego, delighting in this sense of new enormous strength, may instead of waiting for it to be purified and transformed throw itself out in a violent and impure action and even turn us for a time or partially into the selfish and arrogant Asura using the strength given him for his own and not for the divine purpose: but on that way lies, in the end, if it is persisted in, spiritual perdition and material ruin. And even to regard oneself as the instrument of the Divine is not a perfect remedy; for, when a strong ego meddles in the matter, it falsifies the spiritual relation and under cover of making itself an instrument of the Divine is really bent on making instead God its instrument. The one remedy is to still the egoistic claim of whatever kind, to lessen persistently the personal effort and individual straining which even the sattwic ego cannot avoid and instead of laying hold on the shakti and using it for its purpose, rather to let the shakti lay hold on us and use us for the divine purpose. This cannot be done perfectly at once, -- nor can it be done safely if it is only the lower form of the universal energy of which we are aware, for then, as has already been said, there must be some other control, either of the mental Purusha or from above, -- but still it is the aim which we must have before us and which can be wholly carried out when we become insistently aware of the highest spiritual presence and form of the divine shakti. This surrender too of the whole action of the individual self to the shakti is in fact a form of real self-surrender to the Divine.
5.01 - ADAM AS THE ARCANE SUBSTANCE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
There the Power of God will appear, for the four corners of the world have there become one, say the Ethiopic Clementines.43 God said to Adam: I shall make thee God, but not now; only after the passing of a great number of years.44 The apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve says that the east and north of paradise were given to Adam, but the west and south to Eve.45 The Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer relates that Adam was buried in the double cave Machpelah, and that Eve, Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah were buried there too. Therefore the cave was named Kiriath Arba, the City of Four, because four husbands and wives were buried there.46
[557] I do not want to pile up proofs of Adams quaternary nature, but only to give it due emphasis. Psychologically the four are the four orienting functions of consciousness, two of them perceptive (irrational), and two discriminative (rational). We could say that all mythological figures who are marked by a quaternity have ultimately to do with the structure of consciousness. We can therefore understand why Isaac Luria attributed every psychic quality to Adam: he is the psyche par excellence.47
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
not allow us to ascribe this unto the Power of God, but
urge us to produce it to them by some example. We shall
BOOK V. - Of fate, freewill, and God's prescience, and of the source of the virtues of the ancient Romans, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is neither fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or[Pg 178] opinion of those who call those things fortuitous which either have no causes, or such causes as do not proceed from some intelligible order, and those things fatal which happen independently of the will of God and man, by the necessity of a certain order. In a word, human kingdoms are established by divine providence. And if any one attributes their existence to fate, because he calls the will or the Power of God itself by the name of fate, let him keep his opinion, but correct his language. For why does he not say at first what he will say afterwards, when some one shall put the question to him, What he means by fate? For when men hear that word, according to the ordinary use of the language, they simply understand by it the virtue of that particular position of the stars which may exist at the time when any one is born or conceived, which some separate altogether from the will of God, whilst others affirm that this also is dependent on that will. But those who are of opinion that, apart from the will of God, the stars determine what we shall do, or what good things we shall possess, or what evils we shall suffer, must be refused a hearing by all, not only by those who hold the true religion, but by those who wish to be the worshippers of any gods whatsoever, even false gods. For what does this opinion really amount to but this, that no god whatever is to be worshipped or prayed to? Against these, however, our present disputation is not intended to be directed, but against those who, in defence of those whom they think to be gods, oppose the Christian religion. They, however, who make the position of the stars depend on the divine will, and in a manner decree what character each man shall have, and what good or evil shall happen to him, if they think that these same stars have that power conferred upon them by the supreme Power of God, in order that they may determine these things according to their will, do a great injury to the celestial sphere, in whose most brilliant senate, and most splendid senate-house, as it were, they suppose that wicked deeds are decreed to be done,such deeds as that if any terrestrial state should decree them, it would be condemned to overthrow by the decree of the whole human race. What judgment, then, is left to God concerning the deeds of men, who is Lord both of the stars and of men, when to these deeds[Pg 179] a celestial necessity is attri buted? Or, if they do not say that the stars, though they have indeed received a certain power from God, who is supreme, determine those things according to their own discretion, but simply that His commands are fulfilled by them instrumentally in the application and enforcing of such necessities, are we thus to think concerning God even what it seemed unworthy that we should think concerning the will of the stars? But, if the stars are said rather to signify these things than to effect them, so that that position of the stars is, as it were, a kind of speech predicting, not causing future things,for this has been the opinion of men of no ordinary learning,certainly the mathematicians are not wont so to speak, saying, for example, Mars in such or such a position signifies a homicide, but makes a homicide. But, nevertheless, though we grant that they do not speak as they ought, and that we ought to accept as the proper form of speech that employed by the philosophers in predicting those things which they think they discover in the position of the stars, how comes it that they have never been able to assign any cause why, in the life of twins, in their actions, in the events which befall them, in their professions, arts, honours, and other things pertaining to human life, also in their very death, there is often so great a difference, that, as far as these things are concerned, many entire strangers are more like them than they are like each other, though separated at birth by the smallest interval of time, but at conception generated by the same act of copulation, and at the same moment?
2. On the difference in the health of twins.
--
But, as to those who call by the name of fate, not the disposition of the stars as it may exist when any creature is conceived, or born, or commences its existence, but the whole connection and train of causes which makes everything become what it does become, there is no need that I should labour and strive with them in a merely verbal controversy, since they attri bute the so-called order and connection of causes to the will and Power of God most high, who is most rightly and most truly believed to know all things before they come[Pg 189] to pass, and to leave nothing unordained; from whom are all powers, although the wills of all are not from Him. Now, that it is chiefly the will of God most high, whose power extends itself irresistibly through all things which they call fate, is proved by the following verses, of which, if I mistake not, Annus Seneca is the author:
"Father supreme, Thou ruler of the lofty heavens, Lead me where'er it is Thy pleasure; I will give A prompt obedience, making no delay, Lo! here I am. Promptly I come to do Thy sovereign will; If Thy comm and shall thwart my inclination, I will still Follow Thee groaning, and the work assigned, With all the suffering of a mind repugnant, Will perform, being evil; which, had I been good, I should have undertaken and performed, though hard, With virtuous cheerfulness. The Fates do lead the man that follows willing; But the man that is unwilling, him they drag."[187]
--
Wherefore, neither is that necessity to be feared, for dread of which the Stoics laboured to make such distinctions among the causes of things as should enable them to rescue certain things from the dominion of necessity, and to subject others to it. Among those things which they wished not to be subject to necessity they placed our wills, knowing that they would not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be called our necessity which is not in our power, but even though we be unwilling effects what it can effect,as, for instance, the necessity of death,it is manifest that our wills by which we live uprightly or wickedly are not under such a necessity; for we do many things which, if we were not willing, we should certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing itself,for if we will, it is; if we will not, it is not,for we should not will if we were unwilling. But if we define necessity to be that according to which we say that it is necessary that anything be of such or such a nature, or be done in such and such a manner, I know not why we should have any dread of that necessity taking away the freedom of our will. For we do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God under necessity if we should say that it is necessary that God should live for ever, and foreknow all things; as neither is His power diminished when we say that He cannot die or fall into error,for this is in such a way impossible to Him, that if it were possible for Him, He would be of less power. But assuredly He is rightly called omnipotent, though He can neither die nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent on account[Pg 196] of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. So also, when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity which destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills, and do themselves whatever we do by willing, and which would not be done if we were unwilling. But when any one suffers anything, being unwilling, by the will of another, even in that case will retains its essential validity,we do not mean the will of the party who inflicts the suffering, for we resolve it into the Power of God. For if a will should simply exist, but not be able to do what it wills, it would be overborne by a more powerful will. Nor would this be the case unless there had existed will, and that not the will of the other party, but the will of him who willed, but was not able to accomplish what he willed. Therefore, whatsoever a man suffers contrary to his own will, he ought not to attri bute to the will of men, or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to His will who gives power to wills. It is not the case, therefore, that because God foreknew what would be in the power of our wills, there is for that reason nothing in the power of our wills. For he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing. Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in the power of our wills did not foreknow nothing, but something, assuredly, even though He did foreknow, there is something in the power of our wills. Therefore we are by no means compelled, either, retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He is prescient of future things, which is impious. But we embrace both. We faithfully and sincerely confess both. The former, that we may believe well; the latter, that we may live well. For he lives ill who does not believe well concerning God. Wherefore, be it far from us, in order to maintain our freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are or shall be free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations[Pg 197] are had recourse to; for these also He foreknew, and they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they would be of. Prayers, also, are of avail to procure those things which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered them; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not therefore sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Nay, it cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this did God foreknow.
11. Concerning the universal providence of God in the laws of which all things are comprehended.
BOOK X. - Porphyrys doctrine of redemption, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
You drive men, therefore, into the most palpable error. And yet you are not ashamed of doing so much harm, though you call yourself a lover of virtue and wisdom. Had you been true and faithful in this profession, you would have recognised Christ, the virtue of God and the wisdom of God, and would not, in the pride of vain science, have revolted from His wholesome humility. Nevertheless you acknowledge that the spiritual part of the soul can be purified by the virtue of chastity without the aid of those theurgic arts and mysteries which you wasted your time in learning. You even say, sometimes, that these mysteries do not raise the soul after death, so that, after the termination of this life, they seem to be of no service even to the part you call spiritual; and yet you recur on every opportunity to these arts, for no other purpose, so far as I see, than to appear an accomplished theurgist, and gratify those who are curious in illicit arts, or else to inspire others with the same curiosity. But we give you all praise for saying that this art is to be feared, both on account of the legal enactments against it, and by reason of the danger involved in the very practice of it. And would that in this, at least, you were listened to by its wretched votaries, that they might be withdrawn from entire absorption in it, or might even be preserved from tampering with it at all! You say, indeed, that ignorance, and the numberless vices resulting from it, cannot be removed by any mysteries, but only by the , that is, the Father's mind or intellect conscious of the Father's will. But that Christ is this mind you do not believe; for Him you despise on account of the body He took of a woman and the shame of the cross; for your lofty wisdom spurns such low and contemptible things, and soars to more exalted regions. But He fulfils what the holy prophets truly predicted regarding Him: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the prudence of the prudent."[Pg 423][424] For He does not destroy and bring to nought His own gift in them, but what they arrogate to themselves, and do not hold of Him. And hence the apostle, having quoted this testimony from the prophet, adds, "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the Power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."[425] This is despised as a weak and foolish thing by those who are wise and strong in themselves; yet this is the grace which heals the weak, who do not proudly boast a blessedness of their own, but rather humbly acknowledge their real misery.
29. Of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Platonists in their impiety blush to acknowledge.
BOOK XXII. - Of the eternal happiness of the saints, the resurrection of the body, and the miracles of the early Church, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
From the words, "Till we all come to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ,"[992] and from the words, "Conformed to the image of the Son of God,"[993] some conclude that women shall not rise women, but that all shall be men, because God made man only of earth, and woman of the man. For my part, they seem to be wiser who make no doubt that both sexes shall rise. For there shall be no lust, which is now the cause of confusion. For before they sinned, the man and the woman were naked, and were not ashamed. From those bodies, then, vice shall be withdrawn, while nature shall be preserved. And the sex of woman is not a vice, but nature. It shall then indeed be superior to carnal intercourse and child-bearing; nevertheless the female members shall remain adapted not to the old uses, but to a new beauty, which, so far from provoking lust, now extinct, shall excite praise to the wisdom and clemency of God, who both made what was not and delivered from corruption what He made. For at the beginning of the human race the woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the man while he slept; for it seemed fit that even then Christ and His Church should[Pg 510] be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was the death of Christ, whose side, as He hung lifeless upon the cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed from it blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments by which the Church is "built up." For Scripture used this very word, not saying "He formed" or "framed," but "built her up into a woman;"[994] whence also the apostle speaks of the edification of the body of Christ,[995] which is the Church. The woman, therefore, is a creature of God even as the man; but by her creation from man unity is commended; and the manner of her creation prefigured, as has been said, Christ and the Church. He, then, who created both sexes will restore both. Jesus Himself also, when asked by the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, which of the seven brothers should have to wife the woman whom all in succession had taken to raise up seed to their brother, as the law enjoined, says, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the Power of God."[996] And though it was a fit opportunity for His saying, She about whom you make inquiries shall herself be a man, and not a woman, He said nothing of the kind; but "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven."[997] They shall be equal to the angels in immortality and happiness, not in flesh, nor in resurrection, which the angels did not need, because they could not die. The Lord then denied that there would be in the resurrection, not women, but marriages; and He uttered this denial in circumstances in which the question mooted would have been more easily and speedily solved by denying that the female sex would exist, if this had in truth been foreknown by Him. But, indeed, He even affirmed that the sex should exist by saying, "They shall not be given in marriage," which can only apply to females; "Neither shall they marry," which applies to males. There shall therefore be those who are in this world accustomed to marry and be given in marriage, only they shall there make no such marriages.
[Pg 511]
COSA - BOOK VII, #The Confessions of Saint Augustine, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
will and Power of God is God Himself. And what can be unlooked-for by
Thee, Who knowest all things? Nor is there any nature in things, but
Epistle to the Romans, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the Power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
I. THE ATTRACTIVE POWER OF GOD, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
object:I. THE ATTRACTIVE Power of God
class:Sermons
--
I - THE ATTRACTIVE Power of God
ST JOHN vi. 44.--"No one can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him."
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
miracle of charity, the Power of God in man, divine humanity, and human
divinity, the highest and most sublime of Arcana, the last word of all
Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (text), #Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
knowing Sakti, the manifested Power of God, there is no means of knowing Him.
64. It is only due to Maya that the attainment of supreme knowledge and final beatitude becomes
Tablets of Baha u llah text, #Tablets of Baha u llah, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
We cherish the hope that through the earnest endeavours of such as are the exponents of the Power of God--exalted be His glory--the weapons of war throughout the world may be converted into instruments of reconstruction and that strife and conflict may be removed from the midst of men. The Kitab-i-Aqdas, ¶159
The sixth Glad-Tidings
--
That which the aforesaid persons have mentioned concerning the stations of Divine Unity will conduce in no small measure to idleness and vain imaginings. These mortal men have evidently set aside the differences of station and have come to regard themselves as God, while God is immeasurably exalted above all things. Every created being however revealeth His signs which are but emanations from Him and not His Own Self. All these signs are reflected and can be seen in the book of existence, and the scrolls that depict the shape and pattern of the universe are indeed a most great book. Therein every man of insight can perceive that which would lead to the Straight Path and would enable him to attain the Great Announcement. Consider the rays of the sun whose light hath encompassed the world. The rays emanate from the sun and reveal its nature, but are not the sun itself. Whatsoever can be discerned on earth amply demonstrateth the Power of God, His knowledge and the outpourings of His bounty, while He Himself is immeasurably exalted above all creatures.
61
--
Every man of insight will, in this day, readily admit that the counsels which the Pen of this Wronged One hath revealed constitute the supreme animating power for the advancement of the world and the exaltation of its peoples. Arise, O people, and, by the Power of God's might, resolve to gain the victory over your own selves, that haply the whole earth may be freed and sanctified from its servitude to the gods of its idle fancies--gods that have inflicted such loss upon, and are responsible for the misery of their wretched worshippers. These idols form the obstacle that impedeth man in his efforts to advance in the path of perfection. We cherish the hope that the Hand of divine power may lend its assistance to mankind and deliver it from its state of grievous abasement. The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, vol. 4 p. 338
86
--
We have enjoined upon all mankind to establish the Most Great Peace--the surest of all means for the protection of humanity. The sovereigns of the world should, with one accord, hold fast thereunto, for this is the supreme instrument that can ensure the security and welfare of all peoples and nations. They, verily, are the manifestations of the Power of God and the daysprings of His authority. We beseech the Almighty that He may graciously assist them in that which is conducive to the well-being of their subjects. A full explanation regarding this matter hath been previously set forth by the Pen of Glory; well is it with them that act accordingly.
The third Ishráq
--
The purpose of religion as revealed from the heaven of God's holy Will is to establish unity and concord amongst the peoples of the world; make it not the cause of dissension and strife. The religion of God and His divine law are the most potent instruments and the surest of all means for the dawning of the light of unity amongst men. The progress of the world, the development of nations, the tranquility of peoples, and the peace of all who dwell on earth are among the principles and ordinances of God. Religion bestoweth upon man the most precious of all gifts, offereth the cup of prosperity, imparteth eternal life, and showereth imperishable benefits upon mankind. It behooveth the chiefs and rulers of the world, and in particular the Trustees of God's House of Justice, to endeavor to the utmost of their power to safeguard its position, promote its interests and exalt its station in the eyes of the world. In like manner it is incumbent upon them to inquire into the conditions of their subjects and to acquaint themselves with the affairs and activities of the diverse communities in their dominions. We call upon the manifestations of the Power of God--the sovereigns and rulers on earth--to bestir themselves and do all in their power that haply they may banish discord from this world and illumine it with the light of concord.
--
Behold the disturbances which, for many a long year, have afflicted the earth, and the perturbation that hath seized its peoples. It hath either been ravaged by war, or tormented by sudden and unforeseen calamities. Though the world is encompassed with misery and distress, yet no man hath paused to reflect what the cause or source of that may be. Whenever the True Counselor uttered a word in admonishment, lo, they all denounced Him as a mover of mischief and rejected His claim. How bewildering, how confusing is such behavior! No two men can be found who may be said to be outwardly and inwardly united. The evidences of discord and malice are apparent everywhere, though all were made for harmony and union. The Great Being saith: O well-beloved ones! The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. We cherish the hope that the light of justice may shine upon the world and sanctify it from tyranny. If the rulers and kings of the earth, the symbols of the Power of God, exalted be His glory, arise and resolve to dedicate themselves to whatever will promote the highest interests of the whole of humanity, the reign of justice will assuredly be established amongst the children of men, and the effulgence of its light will envelop the whole earth. The Great Being saith: The structure of world stability and order hath been reared upon, and will continue to be sustained by, the twin pillars of reward and punishment. And in another connection He hath uttered the following in the eloquent tongue: 1 Justice hath a mighty force at its command. It is none other than reward and punishment for the deeds of men. By the power of this force the tabernacle of order is established throughout the world, causing the wicked to restrain their natures for fear of punishment. 1. Arabic.
Gleanings From The Writings Of Bahá'u'lláh CXII
--
So heedless is this servant that with words such as these he seeketh to vindicate the supreme Power of God--exalted be His glory. I implore pardon of God, the Most Great, for these assertions and affirm that this servant at all times recognizeth his grievous trespasses and misdeeds. He entreateth remission of his sins from the ocean of the forgiveness of his Lord, the Most Exalted, and beggeth for that which will make him wholly devoted to God and enable him to utter His praise, turn himself toward Him and to put his whole trust in Him. Verily He is the Potent, the Forgiving, the Merciful. Praised be God, the Almighty, the All-Knowing.
This lowly one hath read the descriptions of the dialogue with the traveler which thou hast recounted in thy letter to my Lord, may my life be offered up for His sake. The explanations which were set forth awaken the people from the slumber of heedlessness. Indeed the actions of man himself breed a profusion of satanic power. For were men to abide by and observe the divine teachings, every trace of evil would be banished from the face of the earth. However, the widespread differences that exist among mankind and the prevalence of sedition, contention, conflict and the like are the primary factors which provoke the appearance of the satanic spirit. Yet the Holy Spirit hath ever shunned such matters. A world in which naught can be perceived save strife, quarrels and corruption is bound to become the seat of the throne, the very metropolis, of Satan.
The Book of Certitude - P1, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
In like manner, strive thou to comprehend from these lucid, these powerful, conclusive, and unequivocal statements the meaning of the "cleaving of the heaven"-one of the signs that must needs herald the coming of the last Hour, the Day of Resurrection. As He hath said: "When the heaven shall be cloven asunder." 1 By "heaven" is meant the heaven of divine Revelation, which is elevated with every Manifestation, and rent asunder with every subsequent one. By "cloven asunder" is meant that the former Dispensation is superseded and annulled. I swear by God! That this heaven being cloven asunder is, to the discerning, an act mightier than the cleaving of the skies! Ponder a while. That a divine Revelation which for years hath been securely established; beneath whose shadow all who have embraced it have been reared and nurtured; by the light of whose law generations of men have been disciplined; the excellency of whose word men have heard recounted by their fathers; in such wise that human eye hath beheld naught but the pervading influence of its grace, and mortal ear hath heard naught but the resounding majesty of its command-what act is mightier than that such a Revelation should, by the Power of God, be "cloven asunder" and be abolished at the appearance of one soul? Reflect, is this a mightier act than that which these abject and foolish men have imagined the "cleaving of the heaven" to mean? 1. Qur'án 82:1.
45
The Book of Certitude - P2, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
Furthermore, call to mind the shameful circumstances that have attended the martyrdom of Husayn. Reflect upon his loneliness, how, to outer seeming, none could be found to aid him, none to take up his body and bury it. And yet, behold how numerous, in this day, are those who from the uttermost corners of the earth don the garb of pilgrimage, seeking the site of his martyrdom, that there they may lay their heads upon the threshold of his shrine! Such is the ascendancy and Power of God! Such is the glory of His dominion and majesty!
129
--
It is also recorded in the Gospel according to St. Luke, that on a certain day Jesus passed by a Jew who was sick of the palsy, and lay upon a couch. When the Jew saw Him, he recognized Him, and cried out for His help. Jesus said unto him: "Arise from thy bed; thy sins are forgiven thee." Certain of the Jews, standing by, protested saying: "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" And immediately He perceived their thoughts, Jesus answering said unto them: "Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, arise, and take up thy bed, and walk; or to say, thy sins are forgiven thee? that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins." 1 This is the real sovereignty, and such is the Power of God's chosen Ones! All these things which We have repeatedly mentioned, and the details which We have cited from divers sources, have no other purpose but to enable thee to grasp the meaning of the allusions in the utterances of the chosen Ones of God, lest certain of these utterances cause thy feet to falter and thy heart to be dismayed. 1. Cf. Luke 5:18-26.
134
--
Strive therefore to comprehend the meaning of "return" which hath been so explicitly revealed in the Qur'án itself, and which none hath as yet understood. What sayest thou? If thou sayest that Muhammad was the "return" of the Prophets of old, as is witnessed by this verse, His Companions must likewise be the "return" of the bygone Companions, even as the "return" of the former people is clearly attested by the text of the above-mentioned verses. And if thou deniest this, thou hast surely repudiated the truth of the Qur'án, the surest testimony of God unto men. In like manner, endeavour to grasp the significance of "return," "revelation," and "resurrection," as witnessed in the days of the Manifestations of the divine Essence, that thou mayest behold with thine own eyes the "return" of the holy souls into sanctified and illumined bodies, and mayest wash away the dust of ignorance, and cleanse the darkened self with the waters of mercy flowing from the Source of divine Knowledge; that perchance thou mayest, through the Power of God and the light of divine guidance, distinguish the Morn of everlasting splendour from the darksome night of error.
152
The Book of Wisdom, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
the spotless mirror of the active Power of God
and the image of his goodness.
The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the Power of God.
19 "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside." 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the Power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God.
--
1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the Power of God.
God's Wisdom
The First Epistle of Peter, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you 5 who by the Power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time.
6 In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, 7 so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9 as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
The Gospel According to Luke, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
43 And they were all amazed at the mighty Power of God. But while they wondered every one at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples, 44 Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men. 45 But they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not: and they feared to ask him of that saying.
The Greatest in the Kingdom
--
66 When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes; and they led him away to their council, and they said, 67 If you are the Christ, tell us. But he said to them, If I tell you, you will not believe; 68 and if I ask you, you will not answer. 69 But from now on the Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the Power of God. 70 And they all said, Are you the Son of God, then? And he said to them, You say that I am. 71 And they said, What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.
CHAPTER 23
The Gospel According to Mark, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
24 Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the Power of God? 25 "For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 "But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying,
`I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? 27 "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken."
The Gospel According to Matthew, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, 24 saying, "Teacher, Moses said, `If a man dies, having no children, his brother must marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.' 25 Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her." 29 But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the Power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 32 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not God of the dead, but of the living." 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.
The Greatest Commandment
The Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
6 For which cause I admonish thee, that thou stir up the grace of God which is in thee, by the imposition of my hands. 7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love, and of sobriety. 8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but labour with the gospel, according to the Power of God, 9 Who hath delivered us and called us by his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of the world. 10 But is now made manifest by the illumination of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath destroyed death, and hath brought to light life and incorruption by the gospel:
11 Wherein I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and teacher of the Gentiles. 12 For which cause I also suffer these things: but I am not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against that day. 13 Hold the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me in faith, and in the love which is in Christ Jesus. 14 Keep the good thing committed to thy trust by the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in us. 15 Thou knowest this, that all they who are in Asia, are turned away from me: of whom are Phigellus and Hermogenes.
The Second Epistle of Peter, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Power of God's Promise
3 As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness, are given us,
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1298672.The_Purpose_And_Power_Of_God_s_Glory
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18054647-the-power-of-god-s-names
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18973634-how-to-walk-in-the-supernatural-power-of-god
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18987219-unveiled-the-transforming-power-of-god-s-presence-and-voice
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28837615-the-power-of-godly-influence
https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/Power_of_God
convenience portal:
recent: Section Maps - index table - favoritesSavitri --Savitri extended toc Savitri Section Map --1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
authors -- Crowley - Peterson - Borges - Wilber - Teresa -Aurobindo -Ramakrishna - Maharshi -Mother
places -- Garden - Inf. Art Gallery - Inf. Building - Inf. Library - Labyrinth - Library - School -Temple - Tower - Tower of MEM
powers -- Aspiration - Beauty - Concentration - Effort - Faith - Force - Grace - inspiration -Presence - Purity - Sincerity - surrender
difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - studysubjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null -Savitri - SA O TAOC -SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel -TLD -TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs