Thursday, September 6, 2012

Devotional Spirituality: part 6


While the Bible speaks of different types of prayer, let’s think of two different types and compare them.  Meditative Prayer & Contemplative Prayer.
 
Meditative Prayer
  Contemplative Prayer
Speech
Silence
Activity
Receptivity
Discursive thought
Loss of mental images and ideas
Vocal and mental prayer
Wordless prayer and interior stillness
Natural faculties of reason and imagination
Mysterious darkening of the natural faculties
Affective feelings
Loss of feelings
Reading and reflection
Inability to meditate
Doing
Being
Seeking
Receiving
Talking to Jesus
Entering into the prayer of Jesus

 
Contemplation (Contemplatio)
·        Take time to present yourself to the Lord in silence and yieldedness
·        Do not be over concerned with your expectations, wait
·        When your mind wanders, draw it back with a “special” verse or Scripture

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

·       Contemplation is a work of God
·       Nourish your Inner life






Devotional Spirituality: Falling in Love with God

1. God is our Highest Good

·        The School of Renunciation –

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23

“Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shin in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”  AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“Learn in the creature to love the Creator; and in the work Him who made it. Let not that which has been made by Him detain thine affections, so that thou shouldest lose Him by whom thou thyself wert made also. . . . But why dost thou love those things, except because they are beautiful? Can they be as beautiful as He by whom they were made? Thou admirest these things because thou seest not Him: but through those things which thou admirest, love Him whom thou seest not.” St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms:

·        Pursuing God’s Pleasure

but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Luke 10:42

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Matthew 13:44

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