Communion Quotes to Ponder

Photo: Teri Lynne Underwood

“If any occupation or association is found to hinder our communion with God or our enjoyment of spiritual things, then it must be abandoned. Anything in my habits or ways which mars happy fellowship with the brethren or robs me of power in service, is to be unsparingly judged and made an end of – ‘burned.‘ Whatever I cannot do for God's glory must be avoided.” –A.W. Pink

“The Christian who walks with the Lord and keeps constant communion with Him will see many reason for rejoicing and thanksgiving all day long.” –Warren W. Wiersbe

“Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.” –Henri Nouwen

“Closet communion needs time for the revelation of God's presence. It is vain to say, ‘I have too much work to do to find time.’ You must find time or forfeit blessing. God knows how to save for you the time you sacredly keep for communion with Him.” –A.T. Pierson

“While others still slept, He went away to pray and to renew His strength in communion with His Father. He had need of this, otherwise He would not have been ready for the new day. The holy work of delivering souls demands constant renewal through fellowship with God.” –Andrew Murray

Stir Up One Another

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As men, when we gather, we tend to talk about sports, gadgets, work, and health (once we get past 30 and every body part begins to hurt). It satisfies a surface need for community, but that’s not enough. Not by a long shot.

One way to fix that is to stir up one another spiritually by talking about what we are learning during our devotional time. And in so doing, we can take our friend’s spiritual temperature. If he has little to offer, then offer to help him right where he is. Sometimes the smallest of actions can lead to big results.

I read the following story recently in The Bible ExpositionCommentary, New Testament, Vol. 2 by Warren Wiersbe: 

A young mother admitted, in a testimony meeting, that she never seemed to find time for her own personal devotions. She had several little children to care for, and the hours melted away.

Imagine her surprise when two of the ladies from the church appeared at her front door.

“We’ve come to take over,” they explained. “You go into the bedroom and get started on your devotions.” After several days of this kind of help, the young mother was able to develop her devotional life so that the daily demands on her time no longer upset her.

Her two friends were committed to helping her get back on track, and she did. How can we as men do that for one another?

A couple of days ago, a male friend from church whom I have been praying for about a work situation sent me a text to ask how he could pray for me. I gave him two specific items and he set about to pray.

Yesterday, he sent me a text telling me he was continuing to pray for me and then he told me he was meditating on a passage he read during his devotions that morning from Mark 8, about picking up his cross and following Christ. He asked me to pray for him with Mark 8 in mind. And I did. I also began to pray it in my own life.

Then I sent him a passage I read that morning from Jonah 4 about God appointing a plant that grew over Jonah’s head to be shade to deliver him from his discomfort, telling my friend that I was praying God would appoint such a plant next to his desk that very day.

“I’m feeling His shade now,” he responded.

Speaking the Word to one another made a tangible difference in our lives. Short of being in the Word, we would have been speaking our own thoughts to each other and it wouldn’t have had the same power.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

In what tangible ways have you been helped by another man as he took an interest in your devotional life? In what tangible ways have you helped another man as you took an interest in his devotional life?

Drink from the Only Pure Source

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“Because [Christians] daily hunger and thirst for righteousness, they long for the redeeming Word again and again. It can only come from the outside. In themselves they are destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside; and it has come and comes daily and anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing us redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Many of us are drinking from the wrong hose in an attempt to quench our thirst for righteousness.

Some of us drink from the performance hose, saying we teach Sunday school, help the poor, take short-term mission trips and visit the widow or imprisoned. But actions don’t quench the thirst. Some of us drink from our piety hose. We get up at 5:00 a.m. every day to spend time with God, spend 30 minutes in prayer and we raise our hands in worship. But piety doesn’t quench the thirst either. All our righteous deeds are but filthy rags, as the prophet calls them in Isaiah 64:6.

I like the way Matthew Henry describes our attempts at righteousness: “Our performances, though they be ever so plausible, if we depend upon them as our righteousness and think to merit by them at God’s hand, are as filthy rags ... Our best duties are so defective, and so far short of the rule, that they are as rags, and so full of sin and corruption cleaving to them that they are as filthy rags. When we would do good evil is present with us; and the iniquity of our holy things would be our ruin if we were under the law.”

Rather than drinking from the performance or piety hose, we should drink from the only pure water source – the Word. Only it can quench our thirst for righteousness.

Going Directly to God

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Christian publishers are in a bit of a conundrum when it comes to publishing devotional books for men. The data tells them that, in general, men don’t read, but they still want to provide good quality material for those who do.

Throw in the fact that we, as men, seem to be busier than ever, and we end up with book titles such as, One-Minute Devotions for Dads, 5-Minute Bible Workouts for Men, 5 Minutes a Day: 365 Daily Devotions for Men, Five Minutes in the Bible for Men and One-Minute Pocket Bible for Men.

Devotional material, short or otherwise, is fine. It can be an appetizer that prepares us for the main course. But devotional material makes a poor substitute for the main course.

In his book, Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups [Revised], Richard Foster tells the following story:

I know two brilliant Christians who come to the daily morning devotions without their Bibles. They can meditate, they say. They are both shallow. For they mediate God to themselves through their own thinking – they become the medium. They do not go to God direct as they imagine – they go through their own thinking; they become the mediator. That is why we have to have the revelation of God through the Word. It is God interpreting himself to us. His interpretation of himself is Jesus. When you expose your thinking to him, you expose yourself to God.

I say this as someone who has written a number of devotional books – if you are pressed for time on any particular morning (or evening, or whenever you do your devotions) and have to skip something, skip the devotional book you are using and spend your time in the Word.

George Washington: On His Knees

In our age of comfort, in which most of us – present company included – sip coffee and sit in a nice comfy chair while we do our morning devotions, I’m drawn to stories about the posture of saints of old during their devotions.

I came across this story about George Washington recently from a book called Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow:

His early biographer Jared Sparks recorded this comment from Washington’s nephew George W. Lewis: “Mr. Lewis said he had accidentally witnessed [Washington’s] private devotions in his library both morning and evening; that on those occasions he had seen him in a kneeling position with a Bible open before him and that he believed such to have been his daily practice.” General Robert Porterfield recalled that when he delivered an urgent message to Washington during the Revolutionary War, he “found him on his knees, engaged in his morning’s devotions.” When he mentioned this to Washington’s aide Alexander Hamilton, the latter “replied that such was a constant habit.”

That caused me to do a search for the word “knee” in the Bible and here are a few of the verses I found:

And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.” So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. (1 Kings 18:41-42)

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands. Solomon had made a bronze platform five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high, and had set it in the court, and he stood on it. Then he knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven, and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart … (2 Chronicles 6:12-14)

Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, saying: 

“O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. (Ezra 9:4-6) 

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. (Daniel 6:10) 

And being found in human form, he (Christ) humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:8-11)

If the name of Jesus should make those who are in heaven, on earth and under the earth, bow in reverence to the glory of God the Father, then morning devotions is a great time to do so.

Quotes to Ponder About the Bible

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“Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.” –Dwight L. Moody

“I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it – His Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is focused on the Scriptures.” –RC Sproul

“It shall greatly help ye to understand the Scriptures if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom and to whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstances, considering what goeth before and what followeth after.” –Miles Coverdale

“The Bible will always be full of things you cannot understand, as long as you will not live according to those you can understand.” –Billy Sunday

“There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them ... Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord ...” –Charles H. Spurgeon

Using Classic Theological Works for Devotions

One of the items on my bucket list is to read The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. Given that it’s more than 1,000 pages, the chances of that happening weren’t all the likely until I decided to begin using it during my morning devotions a year or so ago.

His work is divided into small sections and I can easily read two sections each morning in under ten minutes. Even though he wrote his treatise some 500 years ago, his understanding of the human condition still causes my thoughts to turn toward Christ and his mercy.

Here is one such nugget from the book early on, in a section called “The Knowledge of God and of Ourselves Connected”:

Our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us, that in the Lord, and none but he, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves.

Such thoughts prompt me to dig deeper into my own ignorance, vanity, want and weakness – in short, depravity and corruption.

Another classic theological work I plan to work my way through during my morning devotions is Table Talk by Martin Luther. It too is broken down into small sections that will work perfectly for devotions.

Have you ever considered, or are you currently using a classic theological work during your devotional time? You can receive many of them free, or at nominal cost, if you own a Kindle. Just jump over to the Amazon.com Kindle page and search for your favorite classic author. I just did a search for Martin Luther and these titles are free for the Kindle:

Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther
Works of Martin Luther with Introductions and Notes
Concerning Christian Liberty
A Treatise on Good Works