Brooks: leaving the victory to God

Monday, June 27, 2022
Meditation:
    But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.
    ...
    “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
    —Acts 5:34,38-39 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To hold your truth, to believe it with all your heart, to work with all your might, first to make it real to yourself and then to show its preciousness to other men, and then—not till then, but then—to leave the questions of when and how and by whom it shall prevail, to God; that is the true life of the true believer. There is no feeble unconcern and indiscriminateness there, and neither is there any excited hatred of the creed, the doctrine, or the Church which you feel wholly wrong. You have not fled out of the furnace of bigotry to freeze on the open and desolate plains of indifference. You believe, and yet you have no wish to persecute.
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Sermons, v. III, New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1883, Sermon XII, p. 257 (see the book)
    See also Acts 5:34,38-39; Job 39:1; Eccl. 9:1; John 7:16,17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make calm my mind and strengthen my heart to trust You in all things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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