Gossip: the Gospel is free

Thursday, May 26, 2022
    Ascension
    Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
    Commemoration of Arthur John Gossip, Spiritual Writer, 1954
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
    —Matthew 24:12-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No doubt the gospel is quite free, as free as the Victoria Cross, which anyone can have who is prepared to face the risks; but it means time, and pains, and concentrating all one’s energies upon a mighty project. You will not stroll into Christlikeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving the door open with a careless shoulder. This is no hobby for one’s leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting... It takes all one’s strength, and all one’s heart, and all one’s mind, and all one’s soul, given freely and recklessly and without restraint. This is a business for adventurous spirits; others would shrink out of it. And so Christ had a way of pulling up would-be recruits with sobering and disconcerting questions, of meeting applicants, breathless and panting in their eagerness, by asking them if they really thought the y had the grit, the stamina, the gallantry, required. For many, He explained, begin, but quickly become cowed, and slink away, leaving a thing unfinished as a pathetic monument of their own lack of courage and of staying power.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924, p. 230-231 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 24:12-13; 7:13-14; 10:22; Mark 4:18-19; 13:13; Luke 18:18-27; 22:31-32; John 8:31-32; 15:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant Your people strength to persevere. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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