Divine Appointment Quotes

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No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.
John Ruskin
When the human race learns to read the language of symbolism, a great veil will fall from the eyes of men. They shall then know truth and, more than that, they shall realize that from the beginning truth has been in the world unrecognized, save by a small but gradually increasing number appointed by the Lords of the Dawn as ministers to the needs of human creatures struggling co regain their consciousness of divinity.
Manly P. Hall (Melchizedek and the Mystery of Fire)
With God, there’s always an appointed time for things, and when you put Him first, trust in His timing, and keep the faith, miracles happen!
Germany Kent
Death is more merciful than hope itself! There is nothing surprising in this, for death is divinely appointed, while hope is the creation of human folly. Both end in frustration. Am I destined to lead a life of endless frustration? -(The Beginning and the End)
Naguib Mahfouz (بداية ونهاية)
When you knock, ask to see God . . . not any of the self-appointed intermediaries. —Thoreau
Tosha Silver (Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead)
Divine life is full of divine appointment and equipping, and you cannot be filled with the power of God without a manifestation. It is my prayer that we would understand that to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with manifestation, the glory of the Lord being in the midst of us, manifesting His divine power.
Smith Wigglesworth (Smith Wigglesworth Devotional)
The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your inner enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter. One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Morihei Ueshiba (The Art of Peace)
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln (Great Speeches / Abraham Lincoln: with Historical Notes by John Grafton)
This is precisely how someone speaks who imagines that he is the world's divinely appointed ruler: 'I will not LET them starve. I will not LET the drought come. I will not LET the river flood.
Daniel Quinn (Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Ishmael, #1))
Bloodthirsty fanatics who regarded all Western inventions and practices as works of the devil, they saw themselves as divinely appointed to purify the region by slaughtering all who allied with foreigners or deviated from their narrow vision of Islam.
Joby Warrick (Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS)
If there are forty thousand people in an area that can only support thirty thousand, it's no kindness to bring in food from the outside to maintain them at forty thousand. That just guarantees that the famine will continue." "True. But all the same, it's hard just to sit by and let them starve." "This is precisely how someone speaks who imagines that he is the world's divinely appointed ruler: 'I will not *let* them starve. I will not *let* the drought come. I will not *let* the river flood.' It is the gods who *let* these things, not you.
Daniel Quinn (Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Ishmael, #1))
It does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend, as well as preaching, to give a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word, in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of religion, their own misery, the necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion in their remembrance, and setting them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already.
Jonathan Edwards
That his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of GOD, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine love: and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with GOD, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that GOD would give him somewhat to suffer, when he should grow stronger.
Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God)
Remember that everything that happens to you is first filtered through God’s hand. Interruptions can become opportunities. What you might see as distractions God might see as divine appointments. Things may happen that seem so haphazard and distracting to our agenda, but with a fresh dose of perspective, they can turn into precious moments.
Lysa TerKeurst (Am I Messing Up My Kids?: ...and Other Questions Every Mom Asks)
Imperfections have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be effort, and the law of human judgment mercy.
John Ruskin
At the end of that class Demian said to me thoughtfully: "There’s something I don’t like about this story, Sinclair. Why don’t you read it once more and give it the acid test? There’s something about it that doesn’t taste right. I mean the business with the two thieves. The three crosses standing next to each other on the hill are almost impressive, to be sure. But now comes this sentimental little treatise about the good thief. At first he was a thorough scoundrel, had committed all those awful things and God knows what else, and now he dissolves in tears and celebrates such a tearful feast of self-improvement and remorse! What’s the sense of repenting if you’re two steps from the grave? I ask you. Once again, it’s nothing but a priest’s fairy tale, saccharine and dishonest, touched up with sentimentality and given a high edifying background. If you had to pick a friend from between the two thieves or decide which one you’d rather trust, you most certainly wouldn’t choose the sniveling convert. No, the other fellow, he’s a man of character. He doesn’t give a hoot for ‘conversion’, which to a man in his position can’t be anything but a pretty speech. He follows his destiny to it’s appointed end and does not turn coward and forswear the devil, who has aided and abetted him until then. He has character, and people with character tend to receive the short end of the stick in biblical stories. Perhaps he’s even a descendant of Cain. Don’t you agree?" I was dismayed. Until now I had felt completely at home in the story of the Crucifixion. Now I saw for the first time with how little individuality, with how little power of imagination I had listened to it and read it. Still, Demian’s new concept seemed vaguely sinister and threatened to topple beliefs on whose continued existence I felt I simply had to insist. No, one could not make light of everything, especially not of the most Sacred matters. As usual he noticed my resistance even before I had said anything. "I know," he said in a resigned tone of voice, "it’s the same old story: don’t take these stories seriously! But I have to tell you something: this is one of the very places that reveals the poverty of this religion most distinctly. The point is that this God of both Old and New Testaments is certainly an extraordinary figure but not what he purports to represent. He is all that is good, noble, fatherly, beautiful, elevated, sentimental—true! But the world consists of something else besides. And what is left over is ascribed to the devil, this entire slice of world, this entire half is hushed up. In exactly the same way they praise God as the father of all life but simply refuse to say a word about our sexual life on which it’s all based, describing it whenever possible as sinful, the work of the devil. I have no objection to worshiping this God Jehovah, far from it. But I mean we ought to consider everything sacred, the entire world, not merely this artificially separated half! Thus alongside the divine service we should also have a service for the devil. I feel that would be right. Otherwise you must create for yourself a God that contains the devil too and in front of which you needn’t close your eyes when the most natural things in the world take place.
Hermann Hesse (Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend)
The Prayer Appointed for the Week O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration I may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.†
Phyllis Tickle (The Divine Hours (Volume One): Prayers for Summertime: A Manual for Prayer)
If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon. But if we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its own small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine reality and the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still.
C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)
It is a profound political reality that Christ now occupies the supreme seat of cosmic authority. The kings of this world and all secular governments may ignore this reality, but they cannot undo it. The universe is no democracy. It is a monarchy. God himself has appointed his beloved Son as the preeminent King. Jesus does not rule by referendum, but by divine right. In the future every knee will bow before him, either willingly or unwillingly. Those who refuse to do so will have their knees broken with a rod of iron.
R.C. Sproul (What is Reformed Theology?: Understanding the Basics)
When humans take up their divinely appointed role, looking after God's world on his behalf, this is not a Promethean attempt to usurp God's role. It is the humble, obedient carrying out of the role that has been assigned. The real arrogance would be to refuse the vocation, imagining that we know better than God the purpose for which we have been put here.
N.T. Wright (The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential)
All the methods of appointing authorities that have been tried, divine right, and election, and heredity, and balloting, and assemblies and parliaments and senate—all have proved ineffectual. Everyone knows that not one of these methods attains the aim either of entrusting power only to the incorruptible, or of preventing power from being abused. Everyone knows on the contrary that men in authority—be they emperors, ministers, governors, or police officers—are always, simply from the possession of power, more liable to be demoralized, that is, to subordinate public interests to their personal aims than those who have not the power to do so. Indeed, it could not be otherwise.
Leo Tolstoy (The Kingdom of God Is Within You)
Every divine appointment is preceded by a season of preparation. And if we submit to the preparation, God will fulfill His promise. If we don’t, He won’t. Why? Because God never sets us up to fail.
Mark Batterson (Soulprint: Discovering Your Divine Destiny)
Who among us has not suddenly looked into his child's face, in the midst of the toils and troubles of everyday life, and at that moment "seen" that everything which is good, is loved and lovable, loved by God! Such certainties all mean, at bottom, one and the same thing: that the world is plumb and sound; that everything comes to its appointed goal; that in spite of all appearances, underlying all things is - peace, salvation, gloria; that nothing and no one is lost; that "God holds in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is." Such nonrational, intuitive certainties of the divine base of all that is can be vouchsafed to our gaze even when it is turned toward the most insignificant-looking things, if only it is a gaze inspired by love. That, in the precise sense, is contemplation... Out of this kind of contemplation of the created world arise in never-ending wealth all true poetry and all real art, for it is the nature of poetry and art to be paean and praise heard above all the wails of lamentation. No one who is not capable of such contemplation can grasp poetry in a poetic fashion, that is to say, in the only meaningful fashion. The indispensability, the vital function of the arts in man's life, consists above all in this: that through them contemplation of the created world is kept alive and active.
Josef Pieper (Happiness and Contemplation)
Winnie would never be free of religious thinking, and she couldn't imagine ever wanting to be. She just needed a new schedule for her faith, one whose appointments with the divine were arranged not only through sermons, songs, and scripture, but rather on a walk-in basis with rocks, water, air, blood, space, and time.
David Rhodes (Jewelweed)
If anyone constantly seeks forgiveness, Allah will appoint for him a way out of every distress and a relief from every anxiety, and will provide sustenance for him from where he could never imagine.”14 PROPHET MUHAMMAD
A. Helwa (Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam (Inspirational Islamic Books Book 2))
Righteousness brings happiness. Wickedness never does. If there were no God, no plan, no law, and no divine order, there would be no reason wickedness would not bring happiness. But it never does. The history of civilization is a testament that hedonism, perversion, brutality, corruption, and wickedness sow seeds of misery, sorrow, and destruction. It is not a quirk of evolution. It is evidence of a divinely appointed plan.12
John Bytheway (How Do I Know If I Know?)
Unless every member of this church gains for himself an unshakable testimony of the divinity of this church, he will be among those who will be deceived in this day when the "elect according to the covenant" are going to be tried and tested. Only those will survive who have gained for themselves that testimony. . . . It is not alone sufficient for us as Latter-day Saints to follow our leaders and to accept their counsel, but we have the greater obligation to gain for ourselves the unshakable testimony of the divine appointment of these men and the witness that what they have told us is the will of our Heavenly Father.
Harold B. Lee (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee)
How often do we experience delays, changes of plans, and redirections and treat them as intrusions? God can use inconveniences in our lives if we look at them as divine appointments. From Our Daily Bread: " Disappointment - His appointment, change one letter, then I see; That the thwarting of my purpose is God's better choice for me".
Our Daily Bread Publications
Always and Forever was about a love bond so strong that it transcends physical limitations and worlds. Love survived death for both Katie and Ronan and Katie the ghost moves between worlds. In death she remained the protector and the strong one in the marriage. A love divinely blessed in church as a marriage and God appointed Katie as his angel to watch over him and sent her as his angel of death to carry him to heaven. Ronan after Katie’s death became a medium between Katie and the outside world. He saw her and can talk to her
Annette J. Dunlea
God determine the appointed time and boundaries of influence for every man.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
I answer that, Each man has an angel guardian appointed to him. This rests upon the fact that the guardianship of angels belongs to the execution of Divine providence concerning men.
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica (5 Vols.))
To My Priestess Sisters To my priestess sisters: the keepers of mysteries, the medicine women, the story keepers and story tellers, the holy magicians, the wild warriors, the original ones, the ones who carry the ancients within the marrow of your bones, the ones forged in the fires, the ones who have bathed in thier own blood, the heroines who wear thier scars as stars, the ones who give birth to their visions and dreams, the ones who weep and howl upon the holy altars, the avatars, the mothers, maidens and crones, the mystics, the oracles, the artists, the musicians, the virgins, the sensual and sexual, the women of our world- I honor you. I stand for you and with you. I celebrate both your autonomy and our sisterhood of One. We are many. We are fierce. We are tender. We are the change agents and we are radically holding and clearing space for the bursting forth of the holy seeds of the collective conscience and consciousness. We are manifestors and flames of purification and transformation. We are living our lives in authenticity, vulnerability, transparency and unapologetically. We are committed to integrity, impeccability, accountability, responsibility and passionate love. We are here on purpose, with purpose and give no energy to conformity, acceptance or approval. We are the daughters of the earth and the courageous of the cosmos. Priestess, keep living your life passionately, raising the cosmic vibrations and lowering your standards for no one. You are brazenly blessed and a force of nature. Nurture yourself and one another. You are a crystalline bridge between realms and uniting heaven and earth. You are a priestess and you are divinely anointed, appointed and unstoppable.
Mishi McCoy
The question is, How can you see the divine intersection of all that shapes and marks your existence, whether it be the heart-wrenching tragedies that wound you or the ecstasy of a great delight that brings laughter to your soul? How can you meet God in all your appointments and your disappointments? How can you recognize that he has a purpose, even when all around seems senseless, if not hopeless? Will there be a last gasp that whispers in one word a conclusion that redefines everything? If so, is it possible to borrow from that word to enrich the now? Can we really see, even a little, the patterned convergence of everything into some grand design?
Ravi Zacharias (The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives)
I now release and am released from those who are no longer part of the divine plan of my life, as they now release me and find their good elsewhere. I expand quickly into the divine plan of my life where all conditions are permanently perfect." "You are in my life by divine appointment. You have crossed my path so that I may learn something from you, and so that I may give you my blessing. I now do this and you are released to your highest good.
Jessica Shepherd (Karmic Dates And Momentary Mates: The Astrology of the Fifth House)
Protestants, on the contrary, rejected the Church as a vehicle of revelation; truth was to be sought only in the Bible, which each man could interpret for himself. If men differed in their interpretation, there was no divinely appointed authority to decide the dispute. In practice, the State claimed the right that had formerly belonged to the Church, but this was a usurpation. In Protestant theory, there should be no earthly intermediary between the soul and God.
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy: And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day)
It was for the most part by sacrifices, processions, and religious dances, which he himself appointed and conducted, and which mingled with their solemnity a diversion full of charm and a beneficent pleasure, that he won the people’s favour and tamed their fierce and warlike tempers. At times, also, by heralding to them vague terrors from the god, strange apparitions of divine beings and threatening voices, he would subdue and humble their minds by means of superstitious fears.
Plutarch (Complete Works of Plutarch)
The simple Christian looks to God alone to supply him with spiritual joys, understanding that there will be times when those joys may be withheld by God for a divinely appointed reason. Yet, because he aims to live for God’s glory alone, he looks to God alone for his soul’s pleasure (Ps. 86:4).
Tony Reinke (Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ)
A Broken Appointment You did not come, And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,— Yet less for loss of your dear presence there Than that I thus found lacking in your make That high compassion which can overbear Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum, You did not come. You love not me, And love alone can lend you loyalty; –I know and knew it. But, unto the store Of human deeds divine in all but name, Was it not worth a little hour or more To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be You love not me?
Thomas Hardy (Poems of the Past and the Present)
Shara now sits on committees that decide who shall be nominated to be committee chairs for other committees; then, after these meetings, she sits on committee meetings to formulate agendas for future meetings; and after these, she attends committee meetings deciding who shall be appointed to appoint appointments to committees.
Robert Jackson Bennett (City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1))
8.22-5. “Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (1 Peter 2:17.) Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the Church also exists, the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfills this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The Church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before him. It calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God’s commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things.
Eric Metaxas (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)
Sleep is divine but by no means stable; the slightest shock makes it volatile. A friend to habit, it is kept night after night in tis appointed place by habit, more steadfast than itself, protected from any possible disturbance; but if it is displaced, if it is no longer subjugated, it melts away like a vapour. It is like youth and love, never to be recaptured.
Marcel Proust (The Captive / The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5-6))
entrance of the Rev. Clement Sclater -- the minister of her parish, recently appointed. He was a man between young and middle-aged, an honest fellow, zealous to perform the duties of his office, but with notions of religion very beggarly. How could it be otherwise when he knew far more of what he called the Divine decrees than he did of his own heart, or the needs and miseries of human nature?
George MacDonald (Sir Gibbie (Sir Gibbie, #1))
Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims- the welfare of the French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a large continent.
Leo Tolstoy
The Christian life is not only about simplicity of dependence and intention, but also about a simplicity of affection. We give up all vain attempts to self-medicate our souls with the broken-cistern pleasures of the world. The simple Christian looks to God alone to supply him with spiritual joys, understanding that there will be times when those joys may be withheld by God for a divinely appointed reason. Yet, because he aims to live for God’s glory alone, he looks to God alone for his soul’s pleasure (Ps. 86:4).
Tony Reinke (Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ)
Just as summer-killed meat draws flies, so the court draws spurious sages, philosophists, and acosmists who remain there as long as their purses and their wits will maintain them, in the hope (at first) of an appointment from the Autarch and (later) of obtaining a tutorial position in some exalted family. At sixteen or so, Thecla was attracted, as I think young women often are, to their lectures on theogony, thodicy, and the like, and I recall one particularly in which a phoebad put forward as an ultimate truth the ancient sophistry of the existence of three Adonai, that of the city (or of the people), that of the poets, and that of the philosophers. Her reasoning was that since the beginning of human consciousness (if such a beginning ever was) there have been vast numbers of persons in the three categories who have endeavored to pierce the secret of the divine. If it does not exist, they should have discovered that long before; if it does, it is not possible that Truth itself should mislead them. Yet the beliefs of the populace, the insights of the rhapsodists, and the theories of the metaphysicians have so far diverged that few of them can so much as comprehend what the others say, and someone who knew nothing of any of their ideas might well believe there was no connection at all between them. May it not be, she asked (and even now I am not certain I can answer), that instead of traveling, as has always been supposed, down three roads to the same destination, they are actually traveling toward three quite different ones? After all, when in common life we behold three roads issuing from the same crossing, we do not assume they all proceed toward the same goal. I found (and find) this suggestion as rational as it is repellent, and it represents for me all that monomaniacal fabric of argument, so tightly woven that not even the tiniest objection or spark of light can escape its net, in which human minds become enmeshed whenever the subject is one in which no appeal to fact is possible. As a fact the Claw was thus an incommensurable. No quantity of money, no piling up of archipelagoes or empires could approach it in value any more than the indefinite multiplication of horizontal distance could be made to equal vertical distance. If it was, as I believed, a thing from outside the universe, then its light, which I had seen shine faintly so often, and a few times brightly, was in some sense the only light we had. If it were destroyed, we were left fumbling in the dark.
Gene Wolfe (The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun, #3))
How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars, shining yonder - how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God, nor Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves in our littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy of one heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light He has appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of satellites about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns around that mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with strange mental effort only divined.
Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
If the work of our sanctification presents, apparently, the most insurmountable difficulties, it is because we do not know how to form a just idea of it. In reality sanctity can be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties appointed by God. Now this fidelity is equally within each one's power whether in its active practice, or passive exercise. The active practice of fidelity consists in accomplishing the duties which devolve upon us whether imposed by the general laws of God and of the Church, or by the particular state that we may have embraced. Its passive exercise consists in the loving acceptance of all that God sends us at each moment.
Jean-Pierre de Caussade (Abandonment to Divine Providence)
The mere thought of that one name was nameless medicine, causing her thoughts to cease as she channeled a mesmerizing hate outward, a hate so exalting, so ennobling, that she found she was again capable of lifting her head, a reviving hate that warmed her as surely as though she were sitting before a fire, a hate-filled harbor, a safe hate, a hate beyond mortification and disgust, a redeeming healing consciousness of hate, canceling all new spheres of liability to pain, converting her within the instant into a statue, sitting upright, a divine hate, feeding her, a hate without qualification or appointment, without authority or opposition, an intentional hate, like a true religion without complexity or resolution, a hate that was pure joy.
Marilyn Harris (This Other Eden (Eden, #1))
Cain and Abel represent two classes that will exist in the world till the close of time. One class avail themselves of the appointed [73] sacrifice for sin; the other venture to depend upon their own merits; theirs is a sacrifice without the virtue of divine mediation, and thus it is not able to bring man into favor with God. It is only through the merits of Jesus that our transgressions can be pardoned. Those who feel no need of the blood of Christ, who feel that without divine grace they can by their own works secure the approval of God, are making the same mistake as did Cain. If they do not accept the cleansing blood, they are under condemnation. There is no other provision made whereby they can be released from the thralldom of sin. The class of worshipers who follow the example of Cain includes by far the greater portion of the world; for nearly every false religion has been based on the same principle—that man can depend upon his own efforts for salvation. It is claimed by some that the human race is in need, not of redemption, but of development—that it can refine, elevate, and regenerate itself. As Cain thought to secure the divine favor by an offering that lacked the blood of a sacrifice, so do these expect to exalt humanity to the divine standard, independent of the atonement. The history of Cain shows what must be the results. It shows what man will become apart from Christ. Humanity has no power to regenerate itself. It does not tend upward, toward the divine, but downward, toward the satanic. Christ is our only hope. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” “Neither is there salvation in any other.” Acts 4:12.
Ellen Gould White (Patriarchs and Prophets (Conflict of the Ages Book 1))
Insofar as the Church is a community of pardon it is an epiphany of the Divine Love, Agape.…This love is the key to everything, but it cannot be known, discovered or understood by rational investigation alone. It must be revealed to men in a free gift of God. It is revealed to them in the gift of love. God has willed that men should know Him not in esoteric secrets and strange philosophies, but in the announcement of the Gospel message which is the message of His love. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you, and have appointed you that you should go and bear fruit….These things I command you that you may love one another” (John 15:16–17). The love of Christians, commanded by God and carried out by them, makes them “God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).
The Merton Institute for Contemplative Living (Lent and Easter Wisdom From Thomas Merton: Daily Scripture and Prayers Together With Thomas Merton's Own Words)
As to the common people, ... one has to be hard with them and see that they do their work and that under the threat of the sword and the law they comply with the observance of piety, just as you chain up wild beasts. All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself. Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. Reason should be destroyed in all Christians. Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.
Martin Luther
Mandana Misra was a great scholar and authority on the Vedas and Mimasa. He led a householder’s life (grihastha), with his scholar-philosopher wife, Ubhaya Bharati, in the town of Mahishi, in what is present-day northern Bihar. Husband and wife would have great debates on the veracity of the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and other philosophical works. Scholars from all over Bharatavarsha came to debate and understand the Shastras with them. It is said that even the parrots in Mandana’s home debated the divinity, or its lack, in the Vedas and Upanishads. Mandana was a staunch believer in rituals. One day, while he was performing Pitru Karma (rituals for deceased ancestors), Adi Shankaracharya arrived at his home and demanded a debate on Advaita. Mandana was angry at the rude intrusion and asked the Acharya whether he was not aware, as a Brahmin, that it was inauspicious to come to another Brahmin’s home uninvited when Pitru Karma was being done? In reply, Adi Shankara asked Mandana whether he was sure of the value of such rituals. This enraged Mandana and the other Brahmins present. Thus began one of the most celebrated debates in Hindu thought. It raged for weeks between the two great scholars. As the only other person of equal intellect to Shankara and Mandana was Mandana’s wife, Ubhaya Bharati, she was appointed the adjudicator. Among other things, Shankara convinced Mandana that the rituals for the dead had little value to the dead. Mandana became Adi Shankara’s disciple (and later the first Shankaracharya of the Sringeri Math in Karnataka). When the priest related this story to me, I was shocked. He was not giving me the answer I had expected. Annoyed, I asked him what he meant by the story if Adi Shankara himself said such rituals were of no use to the dead. The priest replied, “Son, the story has not ended.” And he continued... A few years later, Adi Shankara was compiling the rituals for the dead, to standardize them for people across Bharatavarsha. Mandana, upset with his Guru’s action, asked Adi Shankara why he was involved with such a useless thing. After all, the Guru had convinced him of the uselessness of such rituals (Lord Krishna also mentions the inferiority of Vedic sacrifice to other paths, in the Gita. Pitru karma has no vedic base either). Why then was the Jagad Guru taking such a retrograde step? Adi Shankaracharya smiled at his disciple and answered, “The rituals are not for the dead but for the loved ones left behind.
Anand Neelakantan (AJAYA - RISE OF KALI (Book 2))
Congress decided to put him on a committee to write a declaration explaining why the colonies were seeking independence. It was back in the days when Congress knew how to appoint really good committees: Franklin and Jefferson and John Adams were on it. They knew that leadership required not merely asserting values, but finding a balance when values conflict. We can see that in the deft editing of the famous sentence that opens the second paragraph of the Declaration. “We hold these truths to be sacred . . . ,” Jefferson had written. On the copy of his draft at the Library of Congress we can see the dark printer’s ink and backslashes of Franklin’s pen as he changes it to “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” His point was that our rights would come from rationality and the consent of the governed, not the dictates and dogma of any religion. Jefferson’s draft sentence went on to say that all men have certain inalienable rights. We can see Adams’s hand making an addition: “They are endowed by their Creator” with these inalienable rights. So just in the editing of one half of one sentence we can see how Franklin and his colleagues struck a unifying balance between the grace of divine providence and the role of democratic consent in the founding values of our nation.
Walter Isaacson (American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers & Heroes of a Hurricane)
people by My messages and My words. So take hold of what I give thee and be of the grateful. 145  And We ordaineda for him in the tablets admonition of every kind and clear explanation of all things. So take hold of them with firmness and enjoin thy people to take hold of what is best thereof. I shall show you the abode of the transgressors.b 145a. Kataba means He (God) prescribed, appointed or ordained and made obligatory (LL). The words admonition of every kind and explanation of all things cannot be taken generally, but are limited by the requirements of the time in which Moses appeared. 145b. The meaning is that a time will come to the Israelites when they will become transgressors, i.e. they will not keep the Divine commandments. 146  I shall turn away from My messages those who are unjustly proud in the earth. And if they see every sign, they will not believe in it; and if they see the way of rectitude, they take it not for a way; and if they see the way of error, they take it for a way. This is because they reject Our messages and are heedless of them. 147  And those who reject Our messages and the meeting of the Hereafter — their deeds are fruitless. Can they be rewarded except for what they do? SECTION 18: Israelites worship a calf 148  And Moses’ people made of their ornaments a calf after him — a (lifeless) body,a having a lowing sound. Could they not see that it spoke not to them, nor guided them in the way? They took it (for worship) and they were unjust. 148a. The word jasad means a body, as well as red or intensely yellow. The former meaning is the one generally adopted by the commentators, the significance
Anonymous (Holy Quran)
Hitherto I have used the words imperfect and perfect merely to distinguish between work grossly unskilful, and work executed with average precision and science; and I have been pleading that any degree of unskilfulness should be admitted, so only that the labourer’s mind had room for expression. But, accurately speaking, no good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. This for two reasons, both based on everlasting laws. The first, that no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure: that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his powers of execution, and the latter will now and then give way in trying to follow it;... And therefore, if we are to have great men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way. The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom—a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom—is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy. Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect; and let us be prepared for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity.
John Ruskin (The Stones of Venice)
Hitherto I have used the words imperfect and perfect merely to distinguish between work grossly unskilful, and work executed with average precision and science; and I have been pleading that any degree of unskilfulness should be admitted, so only that the labourer’s mind had room for expression. But, accurately speaking, no good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. This for two reasons, both based on everlasting laws. The first, that no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure: that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his powers of execution, and the latter will now and then give way in trying to follow it;... And therefore, if we are to have great men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way. The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom—a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom—is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy. Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect; and let us be prepared for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity.
John Ruskin (The Stones of Venice)
Sending out the Disciples Luke 10 1: AFTER THESE THINGS THE LORD APPOINTED OTHER SEVENTY DISCIPLES AND HE SENT THEM TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE INTO EVERY CITY AND PLACE; WHITHER HE HIMSELF WOULD COME God is here and now. God is not something outside you, God is within you. God is the innermost core of existence. That is what Jesus means with: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is near". God is not separate from the creation. He is one with the creation. When you understand this, your life becomes a prayer. When you understand this, you will understand that existence is a family. You will understand that life is togetherness. When we discover our authentic inner being, the kingdom of God, we understand that everybody is a messenger. We discover that the divine source expands, and we spread love to all with whom we interact. Jesus sent out his disciples two and two, so that they did not have to go alone. They went two and two in friendship, in love, in trust, so that they could help each other. THEREFORE SAID HE UNTO THEM, THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW The harvest is great, but there are not many laborers. People are deaf and blind. Somebody like Jesus comes, and you do not want to listen. It has always been like this. Rather than listening to Jesus, people get so jealous of Jesus, that they crucified him. Only very aware and understanding people will listen to Jesus. GO YOUR WAYS: BEHOLD I SEND YOU FORTH AS LAMBS AMONG THE WOLVES Jesus knows that he is sending his disciples into a dangerous world. People will not understand what they say, they do not want to listen, and they cling to their ideas and their tradition. Jesus knows that trust is to be attacked. He knows that love is to be attacked. CARRY NEITHER PURSE, NOR SHOES, AND SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY AND INTO WHATSOVER HOUSE YE ENTER, FIRST SAY, PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE Jesus says that the love and the truth can create troubles for you. "Do not carry purse, do not wear shoes, go barefoot. Do not salute no man on the road". Be ordinary, be simple, be egoless. Jesus says bring peace to the house, because only in that peaceful milieu can the message can delievered. Create a spiritual vibration of peace, spread the feeling of peace, and if you are really feeling it, it will spread. When somebody comes to see you, settle within yourself, Become silent. And you will see a change in the man. We are joined together by our hearts. We exist as parts of one heart. That heart is God. If you create a feeling of peace, it will spread around you. If your gift of peace is accepted, it will be good. If it is not accepted, if you gift is rejcted, it is also good. The peace will still shower on you. HE THAT HEARETH YOU, HEARETH ME, AND HE THAT DESPISETH YOU, DESPISETH ME: AND HE THAT DESPISETH ME DESPISETH HIM THAT SENT ME Jesus says: If people hear you, they hear me. And if they hear me, they hear the one who has sent me.
Swami Dhyan Giten (The Way, the Truth and the Life: On Jesus Christ, the Man, the Mystic and the Rebel)
Notice that Jesus knows exactly who he is asking to lead his community: a sinner. As all Christian leaders have been, are, and will be, Peter is imperfect. And as all good Christian leaders are, Peter is well aware of his imperfections. The disciples too know who they are getting as their leader. They will not need—or be tempted—to elevate Peter into some semi-divine figure; they have seen him at his worst. Jesus forgives Peter because he loves him, because he knows that his friend needs forgiveness to be free, and because he knows that the leader of his church will need to forgive others many times. And Jesus forgives totally, going beyond what would be expected—going so far as to establish Peter as head of the church.11 It would have made more earthly sense for Jesus to appoint another, non-betraying apostle to head his church. Why give the one who denied him this important leadership role? Why elevate the manifestly sinful one over the rest? One reason may be to show the others what forgiveness is. In this way Jesus embodies the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who not only forgives the son, but also, to use a fishing metaphor, goes overboard. Jesus goes beyond forgiving and setting things right. A contemporary equivalent would be a tenured professor stealing money from a university, apologizing, being forgiven by the board of trustees, and then being hired as the school’s president. People would find this extraordinary—and it is. In response, Peter will ultimately offer his willingness to lay down his life for Christ. But on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he can’t know the future. He can’t understand fully what he is agreeing to. Feed your sheep? Which sheep? The Twelve? The disciples? The whole world? This is often the case for us too. Even if we accept the call we can be confused about where God is leading us. When reporters used to ask the former Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe where the Jesuit Order was going, he would say, “I don’t know!” Father Arrupe was willing to follow, even if he didn’t know precisely what God had in mind. Peter says yes to the unknowable, because the question comes from Jesus. Both Christ’s forgiveness and Peter’s response show us love. God’s love is limitless, unconditional, radical. And when we have experienced that love, we can share it. The ability to forgive and to accept forgiveness is an absolute requirement of the Christian life. Conversely, the refusal to forgive leads ineluctably to spiritual death. You may know families in which vindictiveness acts like a cancer, slowly eating away at love. You may know people whose marriages have been destroyed by a refusal to forgive. One of my friends described a couple he knew as “two scorpions in a jar,” both eagerly waiting to sting the other with barbs and hateful comments. We see the communal version of this in countries torn by sectarian violence, where a climate of mutual recrimination and mistrust leads only to increasing levels of pain. The Breakfast by the Sea shows that Jesus lived the forgiveness he preached. Jesus knew that forgiveness is a life-giving force that reconciles, unites, and empowers. The Gospel by the Sea is a gospel of forgiveness, one of the central Christian virtues. It is the radical stance of Jesus, who, when faced with the one who denied him, forgave him and appointed him head of the church, and the man who, in agony on the Cross, forgave his executioners. Forgiveness is a gift to the one who forgives, because it frees from resentment; and to the one who needs forgiveness, because it frees from guilt. Forgiveness is the liberating force that allowed Peter to cast himself into the water at the sound of Jesus’s voice, and it is the energy that gave him a voice with which to testify to his belief in Christ.
James Martin (Jesus: A Pilgrimage)
I hate interruptions, especially when I have a deadline. Can’t people see I am busy? Jesus was having a busy day. A synagogue official’s daughter lay dying, and he begged Jesus to heal her. What a prime opportunity for Jesus to win over one of the religious leaders! Surely He should have accompanied this important official in haste and with single-minded determination. Jesus did not allow the pressure of a dying child to interfere with another divine appointment arranged by His heavenly Father. Can you imagine the official counting the minutes when Jesus stopped to question the crowd? Yet Jesus had time for both needs, and the official’s child benefited from a more glorious healing than she would have earlier. Just as Jesus trusted His heavenly Father to orchestrate His schedule, we also must trust the Architect of our days. Dear Lord, forgive me for the times I have ignored Your divine appointments. Help me keep my schedule flexible to respond to Your promptings.
Ava Pennington (Daily Reflections on the Names of God: A Devotional)
When God created us He breathed into us His divine powers. If God spoke and things came into existence; then how much more can we do in our lives. So many people live in defeat today because they always speak negative words over their lives. They always speak negative words rather than speaking God’s written Word over their circumstances. Hey, you’re special! You’re blessed. You’re God’s workmanship. You’re God’s man and woman for this hour. Success and prosperity is surrounding you. The favor of God is on your life. You’re a successor. You’re anointed. You’re appointed. Grace and mercy are following you all the days of your life. God is your friend. God is taking care of you.
Shane Baiva (Your TONGUE Is Power (Discovering Your Best Within Yourself Book 4))
As there was a period between the anointing of David and the final banishment of Saul, in which Saul reigned as a usurper, though under Divine sentence and David was the God-appointed king: in like manner there is now a similar period in which Satan rules as a usurper, though under sentence; and the actual occupation of the throne by Christ is still future. In this period Satan, the rejected monarch, still rules; hunting to the death all those who have allied themselves with Christ,
Lewis Sperry Chafer (The Biblical Doctrine of Satan (Annotated))
Like the old knights, always in warfare, not always on their steeds dashing forward with their lances in rest to unhorse an adversary, but always wearing their weapons where they could readily reach them, and always ready to encounter wounds or death for the sake of the cause which they championed. Those grim warriors often slept in their armour; so even when we sleep, we are still to be in the spirit of prayer, so that if perchance we wake in the night we may still be with God. Our soul, having received the divine centripetal influence which makes it seek its heavenly centre, should be evermore naturally rising towards God himself. Our heart is to be like those beacons and watchtowers which were prepared along the coast of England when the invasion of the Armada was hourly expected, not always blazing, but with the wood always dry, and the match always there, the whole pile being ready to blaze up at the appointed moment. Our souls should be in such a condition that ejaculatory prayer should be very frequent with us. No need to pause in business and leave the counter, and fall down upon the knees; the spirit should send up its silent, short, swift petitions to the throne of grace. A Christian should carry the weapon of all prayer like a drawn sword in his hand. We should never sheathe our supplications. Never may our hearts be like an unlimbered gun, with everything to be done to it before it can thunder on the foe, but it should be like a piece of cannon, loaded and primed, only requiring the fire that it may be discharged. The soul should be not always in the exercise of prayer, but always in the energy of prayer; not always actually praying, but always intentionally praying.1
John F. MacArthur Jr. (Alone With God: Rediscovering the Power and Passion of Prayer)
The theme of obeying God runs from Genesis to Revelation, and it is vital to our children’s success in life. A child who has a heart that is willing to surrender to God and fulfill every divine appointment given to him or her is a success.
Lysa TerKeurst (Am I Messing Up My Kids?: ...and Other Questions Every Mom Asks)
God created the world in the way that he saw fit, and humans should not question the divinely appointed order. All wisdom literature, not just Job, develops this theme (e.g., Is 40:28- 29). Human beings must take their proper place in the cosmos, find their appointed life and make the most of it.
Grant R. Osborne (The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation)
Oh, yes," Father Mancuso nodded. "As Father Ryan mentioned, I've seen and heard many who've come to me as a psychotherapist and as a parish priest." Chancellor Ryan picked up the thread. "Then there are the so-called extraordinary activities of the devil in the world. Usually these are material things around a person that are affected; that might be what you're up against. We call it infestation. It breaks down into different categories which we'll explain in a minute." "Obsession," Father Nuncio put in, "is the next step, in which the person is affected either internally or externally. And finally there is possession, by which the person temporarily loses control of his faculties and the devil acts in and through him." When Father Mancuso had come to the Chancellors' office to keep his appointment, he had been somewhat embarrassed as to how to approach his problem. But he relaxed as the two priests had shown keen interest. Now with their spelling out the guidelines he must take in this kind of situation, Father Mancuso raised his hopes for deliverance from this evil. "In investigating cases of possible diabolical interference," Chancellor Ryan went on, "we must consider the following: One, fraud and deception. Two, natural scientific causes. Three, parapsychological causes. Four, diabolical influences. And five, miracles. In this case, fraud and trickery don't seem plausible. George and Kathleen Lutz seem to be normal, balanced individuals. We think you are too. The possibilities therefore are reduced to psychological, parapsychological, or diabolical influences." "We'll exclude the miraculous," Father Nuncio broke in, "because the Divine would not involve itself in the trivial and foolish." "True," said Father Ryan. "Therefore the explanation would seem to include hallucination and autosuggestion - you know, like the invisible touches Kathy experienced - and when George thought he heard that marching band. But let's take the parapsychological line. Parapsychologists like Dr. Rhine, who works at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, define four main operations in the science. The first three come under the general heading of ESP-extrasensory perception. They are mental telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, which could explain George's visions and 'picking up' information that seems to coincide with known facts about the DeFeos. The fourth parapsychological area is psychokinesis, where objects move by themselves. That would be the case with the Lutzes' ceramic lion - if it did move," he added. Father Nuncio got up to refill his cup. "All of what we've said, Frank, is part of the suggestion we have for the Lutzes. Have them contact some investigative organization like Dr. Rhine's to come in and look at the house. They'll do extensive testing and I'm sure they can come to some conclusion short of diabolical influence.
Anonymous
Celebrating the Ordinary: The Practice of Paying Attention Most of us are so busy, so preoccupied, that we miss a lot of what happens in us and to us and around us. We do a lot of looking, but not much seeing. Long-range planning sets our sights on the future at the expense of the present moment. Obsessions about work or past mistakes or the next appointment are the excuses we often give for not paying attention. We’re just too busy to bother. By contrast, paying attention is noticing and becoming aware of blessings we normally take for granted.
Karen Speerstra (The Divine Art of Dying: How to Live Well While Dying)
parchment challenged absolute authority again and again, most notably in the terrible and bloody British civil wars in the 1640s, when Magna Carta went face to face against the authority of a divinely appointed king, Charles I. And the law won. The king was tried, judged and executed. In those wars, people were dragged to the gallows holding copies of Magna Carta. It became as sacred as the Christian cross. The Great Charter itself
Anonymous
The author of Ecclesiastes made this declaration: "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die" (Eccl. 3:1-2a). Likewise the author of Hebrews says, "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27). Notice the language of Scripture. It speaks of death in terms of a "purpose under heaven" and of an "appointment." Death is a divine appointment. It is part of God's purpose for our lives. God calls each person to die. He is sovereign over all of life, including the final experience of life.
R.C. Sproul (Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in The Christian Life)
Being face-to-face with the angel of the Lord must have been an awe-inspiring experience, but believers today are privileged to communicate with God in a much more personal way. With the combination of God’s written Word and his Spirit living within us, we can hear from him on a daily basis. We can receive encouragement, comfort, and guidance. God may appoint us for some special task or reveal his will in a specific area. We don’t have to wait for the angel of the Lord to make an appearance; we can have a close encounter of the divine kind at any given moment.
Dianne Neal Matthews (Designed for Devotion: A 365-Day Journey from Genesis to Revelation)
kairos moment is a God-given moment of destiny in which humanity has the opportunity to step forward into God’s divine opening. It is the moment when the natural and the spiritual realms come together—a God-appointed moment unbounded by humanity.
Teresa Hairston (Stop Waiting… Start WINNING!: 10 Steps to Living Your Vision NOW!)
Further still than this the Holy Spirit is represented as the One who is the supreme authority in the church, who calls men to work and appoints them to office. We read in Acts xiii. 2, “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work where unto I have called them.” And in Acts xx. 28, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to  feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” There can be no doubt to a candid seeker after truth that it is a Person, and a person of Divine majesty and sovereignty, who is here set before us.
Reuben A. Torrey (The Works of R. A. Torrey: Person & Work of the Holy Spirit, How to Obtain Fullness of Power, How To Pray, Why God Used D L Moody, How to Study the ... Anecdotes, Volume 1)
Paris alfo is faid to have been appointed a judge of Miiierva, Juno and Venus; and that of three lives which were propofed to him, he chofe the amatory life: and this not w^ith prudence, but recurrii-^ to apparent beauty, and purfuing the mm^ o£ that beauty which is intelligible. For he who is truly amatory, taking i)ntellc6^ and prudence for his guides, and with thefe contemplating both true and apparent beauty, is ao lefs the votary of Minerva than of Venus. But he who alone purfues the amatory form of life by itfelf, and this accompanied with pafiion, deferts true beauty, but CONTAINING AN APOLOGY FOR THE FABLES OF HOMER. i6« but through folly and luxury leaps to the image of beauty, lies about it in a fallen condition, and does not attain to a perfedlioa adapted to an amatory charafter. For he who is truly amatory and ftudious of Venus, is led to divine beauty, and defpifes all that is beairtiflil in the regions of fenfe. Since however there are certain daemons with the charaderiftics of Venus, who prcfide over apparent beanty, and which fubfifts in matter, hence he who embraces the image of beauty, is faid to have Venus cooperating with him in all his undertakings,
Anonymous
Your problem is that you have never fully understood the power of being a desired woman.” My mind flashes back to a night in Robert’s bed. I had climbed on top of him, refused him until he said, “Please.” Asha smiles, reading my mind. “Power between the sheets means nothing if you don’t learn to extend its reach outside of the bedroom.” I look away. The room seems to be getting colder. I rub the back of my arms for warmth. “You don’t have to believe me,” Asha continues. “It’s in the stories of your religion. Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah, Salome and her dance of the Seven Veils: they all speak to the same undeniable truth. If a woman truly wants something, whether it’s having her man bite into an apple, bringing a divinely appointed superhero to his knees, or a Baptist’s head on a silver platter, she can have it. A woman can have anything if she knows how to use what God gave her.
Kyra Davis (Binding Agreement (Just One Night, #1.3))
The various products and processes of church tradition are certainly fallible, and their existence and exercise are certainly accountable to their prophetic and apostolic foundation. Their weak and subordinate nature notwithstanding, these instruments do not stand as obstacles to a knowledge of God that can be gained more immediately through the reading of Scripture without them. They stand as divinely authorized instruments and divinely appointed aids to reading Scripture, part of the fullness of Christ’s gift that he has bestowed in and through his anointing upon the church. Having received this anointing, and the fruits of this anointing, the church and the church’s theology can do no better than to abide in the one who has given by abiding in the gifts he has given (1 John 2:27).
Michael Allen (Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation)
Frank Laubach wrote of how, in his personal experiment of moment-by-moment submission to the will of God, the fine texture of his work and life experience was transformed. In January of 1930 he began to cultivate the habit of turning his mind to Christ for one second out of every minute.16 After only four weeks he reported, “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in little things is what so astonishes me, for I never have felt it this way before. I need something, and turn round to find it waiting for me. I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me.”17 From a lonely missionary post in the Philippines, God raised Frank Laubach to the status of Christian world statesman and spokesman for Christ. He founded the World Literacy Crusade, still in operation today, and without any political appointment he was influential on United States foreign policy in the post-World War II years. But he was forever and foremost Christ’s man, and always knew that his brilliant ideas and incredible energy and effectiveness derived from his practice of constant conscious interface with God.
Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God)
We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never allow that the haphazard is anything less than God’s appointed order, and be ready to discover the Divine designs anywhere.”10
Gary Barkalow (It's Your Call: What Are You Doing Here?)
to Memphis." So Abi returned to the white-walled city of Memphis and sat there sullenly, putting it about that a plot was on foot to deprive him of his heritage. But Kaku shook his head, saying in secret that the Star, Neter-Tua, would arise, for so it was decreed by Amen, father of the gods. CHAPTER III RAMES, THE PRINCESS, AND THE CROCODILE At the appointed time to Ahura, the royal wife, was born a child, a girl with a fresh and lovely face and waving hair and eyes that from the first were blue like the summer sky at even. Also on her breast was a mole of the length of a finger nail, which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the
H. Rider Haggard (Morning Star)
The prophets of Israel were individuals called by God to bring the people back to God. The office of prophet was not hereditary like that of priest or king. Prophets were chosen from many different walks of life, and the call was not an invitation but a divine appointment (see
Henry H. Halley (Halley's Bible Handbook with the New International Version)
There are no coincidences - only divine appointments in divine time.
Sherri Sengsouvanna
We settle back into de facto alienation of our religion from Jesus as a friend and teacher, and from our moment-to-moment existence as a holy calling or appointment with God. Some will substitute ritual behavior for divine vitality and personal integrity; others may be content with an isolated string of “experiences” rather than transformation of character.
Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God)
Amen, father of the gods. CHAPTER III RAMES, THE PRINCESS, AND THE CROCODILE At the appointed time to Ahura, the royal wife, was born a child, a girl with a fresh and lovely face and waving hair and eyes that from the first were blue like the summer sky at even. Also on her breast was a mole of the length of a finger nail, which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the
H. Rider Haggard (Morning Star)
There is no crueler hells than committee work, she decides, and Vinya must have taken great pleasure in knowing this. Shara now sits on committees that decide who shall be nominated to be committee chairs for other committees; then, after these meetings, she sits on committee meetings to formulate agendas for future meetings; and after these, she attends committee meetings deciding who shall be appointed to appoint appointments to committees.
Robert Jackson Bennett (City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1))
to Memphis." So Abi returned to the white-walled city of Memphis and sat there sullenly, putting it about that a plot was on foot to deprive him of his heritage. But Kaku shook his head, saying in secret that the Star, Neter-Tua, would arise, for so it was decreed by Amen, father of the gods. CHAPTER III RAMES, THE PRINCESS, AND THE CROCODILE At the appointed time to Ahura, the royal wife, was born a child, a girl with a fresh and lovely face and waving hair and eyes that from the first were blue like the summer sky at even. Also on her breast was a mole of the length of a finger nail, which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the day
H. Rider Haggard (Morning Star)
We will never have the easy, unhesitating love of God that makes obedience to Jesus our natural response unless we are absolutely sure that it is good for us to be, and to be who we are. This means we must have no doubt that the path appointed for us by when and where and to whom we were born is good, and that nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world. Any doubt on this point gives force to the soul-numbing idea that God’s commandments are, after all, only for his benefit and enjoyment, and that in the final analysis we must look out for ourselves. When the “moral failures” of well-known Christians (and unknown Christians, for that matter) are examined, they always turn out to be based on the idea that God has required them to serve in such a way that they themselves must “take care of their own needs” rather than being richly provided for by God. Resentment toward God, not love, is the outcome, and from such a condition it is impossible to consistently do the deeds of love.
Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God)
In the life of a Christian, there are no accidents, only Divine appointments.
Dr. Lonnie Rex
By fulfilling our divinely appointed jobs as parents, we can be God's tools that define and refine our children as they are sculpted into the individuals that He wants them to be.
Tamara L. Chilver
Are you interpreting the ‘visual aid’? Egypt first, then Sinai; Passover first, then the giving of the Law; the divine work of grace first, then the life of responsive obedience, redemption/salvation first, then walking with God in his appointed way of holiness.
J. Alec Motyer (A Christian's Pocket Guide to Loving the Old Testament)
The same thing appears in the nature and design of the sacraments, which God hath appointed. God, considering our frame, hath not only appointed that we should be told of the great things of the gospel, and of the redemption of Christ, and instructed in them by his word; but also that they should be, as it were, exhibited to our view, in sensible representations, in the sacraments, the more to affect us with them. And the impressing divine things on the hearts and affections of men, is evidently one great and main end for which God has ordained that his word delivered in the holy Scriptures, should be opened, applied, and set home upon men, in preaching. And therefore it does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend as well as preaching to give men a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the things of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word to men in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of the things of religion, and their own misery, and necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; and to stir up the pure minds of the saints, and quicken their affections, by often bringing the great things of religion to their remembrance, and setting them before them in their proper colors, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already, 2 Pet. 1:12, 13. And particularly, to promote those two affections in them, which are spoken of in the text, love and joy: "Christ gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; that the body of Christ might be edified in love," Eph. 4:11, 12, 16. The apostle in instructing and counseling Timothy concerning the work of the ministry, informs him that the great end of that word which a minister is to preach, is love or charity, 1 Tim. 3, 4, 5. And another affection which God has appointed preaching as a means to promote in the saints, is joy; and therefore ministers are called "helpers of their joy," 2 Cor. 1:24.
Jonathan Edwards (Works of Jonathan Edwards. Volume One and Two, Religious Affections, Freedom of the Will, Treatise on Grace, Select Sermons, David Brainerd and more (mobi))
Nietzsche’s madman in The Gay Science is the epitome of someone who recognizes what it means to reject God consistently and face the consequences. To the self-appointed “anti-Christ” and the one who did his philosophy “with a hammer,” the idea that God is dead was no yawning matter. The insane man jumped into their midst, and transfixed them with his glances. “Where is God gone?” he called out. “I mean to tell you. We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? “Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?—For even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event,—and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!”42 Nietzsche saw himself as a “born riddle-reader,” standing watch on the mountains “posted ’twixt today and tomorrow,” who could see what most people could not see yet. There was always a gap between the lightning and the thunder, though the storm was on its way. But while ordinary people could not be expected to have seen the arrival of this great event, he reserved his most withering scorn for thinkers who saw what he saw, but were unmoved and went on as before. They may have believed that God had “died” in European society, but it made no difference to them. Life would go on as it had. Such people, Nietzsche wrote, thinking of English writers such as George Eliot, were “odious windbags of progressive optimism.” If God is dead, everything that once depended on God would in the end go too. Did even science-based naturalism, he wondered, come from “a fear and an evasion of pessimism? A refined means of self-defense against—the truth?”43
Os Guinness (Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion)
Copernicus, who was a canon in the cathedral of Krakow, celebrated astronomy as “a science more divine than human” and viewed his heliocentric theory as revealing God’s grand scheme for the cosmos. Boyle was a pious Anglican who declared scientists to be on a divinely appointed mission to serve as “priests of the book of nature.” Boyle’s work includes both scientific studies and theological treatises. In his will he left money to fund a series of lectures combating atheism. Newton was virtually a Christian mystic who wrote long commentaries on biblical prophecy from both the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation. Perhaps the greatest scientist of all time, Newton viewed his discoveries as showing the creative genius of God’s handiwork in nature. “This most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets,” he wrote, “could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”16 Newton’s God was not a divine watchmaker who wound up the universe and then withdrew from it. Rather, God was an active agent sustaining the heavenly bodies in their positions and solicitous of His special creation, man.
Dinesh D'Souza (What's So Great About Christianity)
I, too, am in contact with the source of that good. The divine equivalent of that good is now on its way to me, and I gratefully accept it. My own similar, God-appointed blessings now appear. They are satisfying and appropriate and for this I give thanks.
Catherine Ponder (The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity (Impact Books): Forces That Bring Riches to You)
My soul wait thou only upon God.' Thou will not find many who can help you in this. Enough there will be of thy brethren to draw thee to put trust in churches and doctrines, in schemes and plans and human appliances, in means of grace and divine appointments. But, 'My soul, wait thou only upon God Himself.' His most sacred appointments become a snare when trusted in. The brazen serpent becomes Nehustan; the ark and the temple a vain confidence. Let the Living God alone, none and nothing but He, be thy hope.
Andrew Murray
Don't lose the voice you were divinely given to your own distractions.
Richie Norton
Many a warlord engages a spiritualist to influence the outcome of a war he is involved in. A priest may consecrate a campaign, and may even join the soldiers on the battlefield in a total effort to shore up their fighting spirit; a spell-caster is hired to curse the wretched enemy. But as the war drags on and divine intervention proves hopelessly distant, an Abettor is sought. A self-appointed admiral, the Abettor is versed in the art of modern warfare, developments in armaments, the strengths and weaknesses of warring parties in his domain, and, above all, is the deciding factor in the most prickly situations. Driven by his passion for a fair fight more than any personal reward or gratification, a good Abettor thinks nothing of abetting both belligerents in a given engagement. A celebrated Abettor came to the rescue of Count Ashenafi. A slight man with wooden dentures, the war broker had spent many of his ninety-three years crisscrossing territories, often with little regard for political borders, in search of a war to sponsor. He was a living archive: at his fingertips were all the battles that had been fought in his vast domain for the past six centuries and the strategies and tactics that had endured through generations. He was well acquainted with the armaments and able-bodied men within reach of not just princes and kings but also the lesser war-makers—feudal lords. A quick study of human nature, the Abettor realized that men may endure without bread and water but not without war, and so he made it his calling to afford them a fair and refreshing combat. He spent his days and nights sniffing for gunpowder, carrying on his back his worldly possessions of an old rifle, the Holy Scriptures, an extra copy of the Book of Hymns, and a small sacrifice for the road. He slept while walking. Having adjusted his needs to the ever-shifting clime, he could go without food or water for up to six months. Only in times of abundant harvest did he answer the call of nature. Though many brave men had sought him out in times of pressing need, the war patriarch had failed to earn their affection. A few of the people he had so diligently served had conspired to put him out of service in the most hideous ways. In an ordinary year, he could expect to be stabbed to death twice. Once, an army of retreating archers shot him with ninety-five arrows. On three different occasions, he was carved into palm-sized pieces and his remains served to hawks and storks; he was also known to have been buried alive. But, each time, the old man resurfaced in some remote corner of the kingdom in one piece, invigorated by his ordeal, ready to influence the outcome of another raging war.
Nega Mezlekia (The God Who Begat a Jackal: A Novel)
We cannot conceive of God bringing into existence a universe without a plan which would extend to all that would be done in that universe. As the Scriptures teach that God's providential control extends to all events, even the most minute, they thereby teach that His plan is equally comprehensive. It is one of His perfections that He has the best possible plan, and that He conducts the course of history to its appointed end. And to admit that He has a plan which He carries out is to admit Predestination.
Loraine Boettner (The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination)
Sir Montague Fowler (1858-1933) fourth (and last) Baronet of Braemore, was the third son of Sir John Fowler. Coming from the family of a very wealthy and eminent engineer, he might have been expected to pursue some career along the same lines, or go into politics, or even - as his younger brother Evelyn seems to have done - become expert at doing nothing. Instead, he entered the church. He attracted public approbation for several charitable acts before the war and was rector at various churches in London; but the high point of his ecclesiastical career was his appointment as chaplain and purse-bearer to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And he wrote books: Some Notable Archbishops of Canterbury (1895), Church History in Victoria's Reign (1896), Christian Egypt (1901), The Morality of Social Pleasures (1910) and others. In 1913, he founded the Church Imperial Club in London, which had 'an imposing list of divines and Church dignitaries as patrons'. In 1889, he married his first wife, Ada Dayrell Thomson, a niece of the Archbishop of York. She too was an author, a bit like the Countess of Cromartie, but more racy: her several works written under the pseudonym 'Dayrell Trelawney' included The Revolt of Daphne, The Robbery of the Pink Diamond and The Secret of the Haunted Road. She also wrote several plays under the nom de plume 'Gaston Grevex', and a marvellously patriotic poem, Femina Imperialis 1900 ('Awake! Imperial daughter of a race/That rules the sea...') appeared under her own name in the Revelstoke Herald of British Columbia in 1900. Ada died in 1911. In 1914, Montague married his second wife, Denise Chailliey, a Frenchwoman thirty-four years his junior; she wrote neither novels nor church histories, but produced two daughters, bred toy spaniels and outlived her husband by sixty years.
Andrew Drummond (A Quite Impossible Proposal: How Not to Build a Railway)
goddess as children, and were deflowered at a very young age by a priest or, as Isis was, by a modeled obelisk of Osiris’ phallus. Sometimes these prostitutes were chosen, on the basis of their beauty, as the sexual mates of sacred temple bulls who were considered the incarnation of Osiris. In other places, such as at Mendes, temple prostitutes were offered in coitus to divine goats. Through such imitative sex, the dome and obelisk became “energy receivers,” capable of assimilating Ra’s essence from the rays of the sun, which in turn drew forth the “seed” of the underworld Osiris. The seed of the dead
Thomas Horn (On the Path of the Immortals: Exo-Vaticana, Project L. U. C. I. F. E. R. , and the Strategic Locations Where Entities Await the Appointed Time)
The great prince Michael is the chief archangel, head of God’s heavenly armies and divinely appointed protector of the nation of Israel
Bart D. Ehrman (Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife)
When God anoints you, people will see it. When He appoints you, others will know it and when He uplifts you, the world will hear it. Because He is able to do what is unheard of.
Gift Gugu Mona (Daily Quotes about God: 365 Days of Heavenly Inspiration)
The great wager around which the Western Inner tradition has encamped is that as one is able to release the heart from its enslavement to the passions, this other heart emerges: this “organ of contemplation,” of luminous sight and compassionate action. For what one “sees” and entrains with is none other than this higher order of divine coherence and compassion, which can be verified as objectively real, but becomes accessible only when the heart is able to rise to this highest level and assume its cosmically appointed function.
Cynthia Bourgeault (The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice)