Jones: the unrespectability of need

Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Meditation:
    While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
    —Mark 2:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In our Ashrams of East and West, places of spiritual retreat, we begin with what we call “The Morning of the Open Heart,” in which we tell our needs... We give four or five hours to this catharsis. The reaction of one member, who listened to it for the first time, was: “Good gracious, have we all the disrupted people in the country here?” My reply was: “No, you have a cross section of the church life honestly revealed.” In the ordinary church, it is suppressed by respectability, by a desire to appear better than we really are.
    ... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Conversion, New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, p. 10-11 (see the book)
    See also Mark 2:15; John 15:1-8; 2 Cor. 4:1,2; 5:11,12; Tit. 1:15,16; Jas. 1:8,22-27;4:8; 1 John 1:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to accept _____ and _____ in the fellowship. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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