LIVE LOVE

I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS; I WILL COME TO YOU. John 14:18

Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything, to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-saturated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet into which forgotten faces and voices unobtrusively make themselves present, to receive the days of the just completed week and absorb the wonder and miracle still reverberating from each one, to receive our Lord's amazing grace. Sabbath is one of the great gifts that God has given us. Every day of creation is "good" - good for receiving all that God has created, good for participating in the work of God, good for working in God's garden, good for naming and caring for what God has given, good for being a "helpmate" with and for another. But Sabbath is distinguished from the first six days of each week by being holy, a day set aside to be present to God...

Wilberforce wrote, "I find that books alienate my heart from God as much as anything. I have been framing a plan of study for myself, but let me remember but one thing is needful, that if my heart cannot be kept in a spiritual state without so much prayer, meditation, Scripture reading, etc., as are incompatible with study, I must seek first the righteousness of God. Everything was to be surrendered for his spiritual advance. I fear that I have not studied the Scriptures enough. Surely in the summer recess I ought to read the Scriptures an hour or two every day, besides prayer, devotional reading and meditation. God will prosper me better if I wait on Him. The experience of all good Christians shows that without constant prayer and watchfulness the life of God in the soul stagnates. I would look up to God to make the means effectual. I fear that my devotions are too much hurried, that I do not read Scripture enough. I must grow in grace; I must love God more; I must feel the power...