Ann Hasseltine Judson (1789-1826)

Its always fascinating to me to hear different individuals articulate what it is to be a Christian—what its like, what it makes them think of, how their countenance changes when they speak of it, what pictures they envision, what convictions their heart stirs with, etc.

Here’s a description that stole my attention immediately when I read it for the first time.  I came across it a few weeks back while reading Adoniram Judson’s biography, To the Golden Shore.  Judson didn’t say it, though.  His wife did.

In describing the fellowship of salvation, she explains it as sharing in,

“Joys as exalted as heaven, durable as eternity!”  —Ann Hasseltine Judson, p. 166

What a beautiful expression.  No need to add anything to it.  I’ll just leave you with it and hope that it soaks into your soul like it did mine.

Have you come across any similarly striking expressions or descriptions regarding the Christian faith?  Your comments are welcomed.

The great Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson was but a young student when he wrote the following words in a ‘conservatives’ religious magazine’ in the year 1810.

“How do Christians discharge the trust committed to them? … They let three fourths of the world sleep the sleep of death, ignorant of the simple truth that a Savior had died for them.  Content if they can be useful in the little circle of their acquaintances, they quietly sit and see whole nations perish for lack of knowledge.”  —(From Courtney Anderson’s, To the Golden Shore)

His feet had never touched foreign soil.  They would, but that time had not yet come.  He and his fellow mission-minded friends were ever seeking new and better ways to promote their project while they went through the long and tedious process of securing support for their gospel journey to Asia.

His words sink deep into my life.  We are all called, as believers, to share in his passion and urgency to get the truth of God’s message of redemption to the world.

Related links:

• Wikipedia’s entry on Judson
• Wholesome Words’ bio-database on Judson
• John Piper’s conference message on Judson

J. Oswald Sanders’ book on leadership is a classic in my line of work. Its titled, Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer.  I was given a copy a few weeks ago as an ordination gift.

At about 60 pages in I’m finding it to be a very beneficial and humbling read.

Here are a few nuggets of wisdom he offers (or cites) on the subject of…well, of wisdom.  So its wisdom concerning wisdom.

“If knowledge is the accumulation of facts and intelligence the development of reason, wisdom is heavenly discernment.  It is insight into the heart of things.  Wisdom involves knowing God and the subtleties of the human heart.  More than knowledge, it is the right application of knowledge in moral and spiritual matters, in handling dilemmas, in negotiating complex relationships.”

“‘Wisdom is nine-tenths a matter of being wise in time,’ said Theodore Roosevelt.  Most of us are ‘too often wise after the event.’”

“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much,
Wisdom is humble, that he knows no more.”

“D. E. Hoste knew the importance of wisdom for leaders:

‘When a person in authority demands obedience of another, irrespective of the latter’s reason and conscience, this is tyranny.  On the other hand, when, by the exercise of tact and sympathy, prayer, spiritual power and sound wisdom, one is able to influence and enlighten another, so that a life course is changed, that is spiritual leadership.’”

Get your own copy of this great work through the link below.



(For email, RSS, or Facebook readers you may need to click through to the original post on my site in order to view all the links.)

The First Thanksgiving, by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris

While perusing the Scriptures and putting together some thoughts for a Thanksgiving sermon, it struck me that there are certain sinful attitudes that just can’t get along with thankfulness.

If we could know what these are and be aware of their tendency toward zapping the gratefulness out of our lives, then perhaps we’d be set on our way to more thankful living.

Here are the three ‘Thanksgiving-zapping’ attitudes:

• Pride

The proud individual does not give thanks.  He presumes to be above it.  The act of thanksgiving is essentially an exercise in humility.

• Self-Centeredness

The self-centered individual either fails to take notice of that for which he should be thankful or thinks that he deserved it anyways.  Either way, there’s no thanks.

• Unhappiness

The unhappy individual is not thankful, else their spirit would be lifted.  Think about it.  Have you ever been really thankful and really unhappy simultaneously.  I seriously doubt it.

This all fits rather well with a quote from John Piper in his book, Future Grace.  There he defines gratitude as,

“…a humble, happy response to the good will of someone who has done or tried to do you a favor.”

You can see the backbone of my post in Piper’s words: “humble, happy response.”

• The humble man is not proud.
• The happy man is obviously not unhappy.
• Somewhat less obvious, but still relevant, is that the self-centered man is not responsive.  Instead, he’s in his own little world.

[HT: had a little help from this post from this guy]

In the “Introduction and Apology” to his Lectures to My Students, Charles Spurgeon writes,

“Many men of earnest spirit and established Christian character are hindered in their efforts to do good by the slenderness of their knowledge.”

He goes on to affirm that,

“No work can possibly confer a greater blessing upon mankind than the training of minister whom God has chosen, for around them spring up churches, schools, and all the agencies of religion and philanthropy.”

Interestingly, though, he adds this insightful qualification:

“If a student should learn a thousand things, and yet fail to preach the gospel acceptably, his College course will have missed its true design.”

This tension between the value of theological education and the awareness of its dangers toward impious scholasticism is in my estimation a much needed mindset in the Church today.

Thanks to Spurgeon for his treasuries of “quote-worthiness,” and thanks to my sweet wife for buying me this book as an early birthday present!

The Worship of Mammon, by Evelyn De Morgan (1909).

I recently preached through Jesus’ master treatment of money and possessions in Matt. 6:19-34.

Here are a few quotable nuggets of wisdom I came across in my studies.

Martin Luther:

“I have held many things in my hands and have lost them all.  But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.“

Jim Elliot:

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

John Wesley:

“I value things only by the price they shall gain in eternity.”

David Livingstone:

“I place no value on anything I possess, except in relation to the kingdom of God.”

Randy Alcorn:

“You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.”

John Piper:

“When anxiety strikes and blurs our vision of God’s glory and the greatness of the future that he plans for us, this does not mean that we are faithless, or that we will not make it to heaven.  It means our faith is being attacked.”

G. Campbell Morgan:

“The measurements of your lives cannot be circumscribed by the point where blue sky kisses green earth.  All the fact of your life cannot be encompassed in the one small sphere upon which you live.  You belong to the infinite.  If you make your fortune on the earth—poor, silly, soul—you have made a fortune, and stored it in a place where you cannot hold it.  Make your fortune, but store it where it will greet you in the dawning of the new morning.”

John MacArthur:

“During one of the many Roman persecutions, soldiers broke into a certain church to confiscate its presumed treasures.  An elder is said to have pointed to a group of widows and orphans who were being fed and said, ‘There are the treasures of the church.’”

D. A. Carson:

“The point is that the things most highly treasured occupy the ‘heart,’ the center of the personality, embracing mind, emotions, and will; and thus the most cherished treasure subtly but infallibly controls the whole person’s direction and values.”

“Either God is served with a single-eyed devotion, or he is not served at all.  Attempts at divided loyalty betray, not partial commitment to discipleship, but deep-seated commitment to idolatry.”

William Barclay:

“Jesus never said that this world was unimportant; but he said and implied over and over again that its importance is not in itself, but in that to which it leads.  This world is not the end of life, it is a stage on the way; and therefore a man should never lose his heart to this world and to the things of this world.  His eyes ought to be for ever fixed on the goal beyond.”

Stanley D. Toussaint:

“The primary work of the subjects f the kingdom in their relationship to God is to give implicit, complete, and wholehearted devotion to Him.  This dedication will be marked by freedom  from care, for God will sustain them.”

John Calvin:

“It is, no doubt, true, that believers themselves are never so perfectly devoted to obedience to God, as not to be withdrawn from it by the sinful desires of the flesh.  But as they groan under this wretched bondage, and are dissatisfied with themselves, and give nothing more than an unwilling and reluctant service to the flesh, they are not said to serve two masters: for their desires and exertions are approved by the Lord, as if they rendered to him a perfect obedience.  But this passage reproves the hypocrisy of those who flatter themselves in their vices, as if they could reconcile light and darkness.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

“That is the great principle of which I must constantly remind myself — that I am a child of the Father placed here for His purpose, not for myself.  I did not choose to come I have not brought myself here; there is a purpose in it all.  God has given me this great privilege of living in this world, and if He has endued me with any gifts, I have to realize that, although in one sense all these things are mine, ultimately, as Paul shows at the end of I Corinthians 3, they are God’s.  Therefore, regarding myself as one who has this great privilege of being a caretaker for God, a custodian and steward, I do not cling to these things.  They do not become the centre of my life and existence.  I do not live for them or dwell upon them constantly in my mind; they do not absorb my life.  On the contrary, I hold them loosely; I am in a state of blessed detachment from them.  I am not governed by them; rather do I govern them; and as I do this I am steadily securing, and safely laying up for myself, ‘treasures in heaven.’”

In the forward to, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, & Doxology, Iain H. Murray writes,

Our example needs to be the best argument that belief in divine sovereignty does not weaken evangelistic preaching.  There are prominent exceptions to the contrary—the names of some of them will be found in these pages—but in surveying the Christian scene at large, there is some justification for the idea that Calvinistic belief hinders evangelistic passion.  Facing this perception, we would be mistaken to suppose we are free of blame.  We have found it easier to be “teachers” and “defenders” of the truth than to be evangelists who are willing to die that men might be converted.  Sometimes the impression can be given to other Christians that we regard “Calvinism” as co-terminus with Christianity and that we think all gospel preaching can be fitted into the five points.  The five points are not to be depreciated, but God is incomprehensibly greater than our understanding, and there are other truths to be preached far beyond our capacity to harmonize.

John Leland

“The best theology has enough Calvinism to believe man is lost, enough Arminianism to believe that he could be saved.”

—John Leland

“What we may need reminding of in our day is not that the knowledge of God is difficult to comprehend and to embrace—that’s more or less obvious—but that the knowledge of ourselves is just as difficult to comprehend and embrace.  Indeed, it may be more difficult, first, because a true knowledge of ourselves assumes a true knowledge of God, and second, because we tend to think we do know ourselves, when in fact, the depths of our condition are beyond our comprehension without the help of God.”

—John Piper, Finally Alive

Luther sometimes had to wash diapers, but he declared defiantly that even if neighbors should snicker at such “unmanly” labor, “Let them laugh. God and the angels are smiling in heaven.”

—Paul Thigpen, Martin Luther’s Later Years: A Gallery-Family Album

“Our Lord God deals with countries and cities as I do with an old hedge-stick.  When it displeases me; I pluck it up and burn it, and stick another in its stead.”

—Martin Luther, Table Talk

“Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person—our Lord Jesus Christ.  There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause.  Our Lord never proclaimed a cause—He proclaimed devotion to Himself …. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.”

—Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

“There is sufficient light for those who wish to see, and sufficient darkness for those of the opposite disposition.  Enough clarity to illumine the elect, and enough darkness to keep them humble.  Sufficient darkness to blond the reprobate, and sufficient clarity to condemn them and make them inexcusable.”

—Blaise Pascal

“The right to believe anything is freedom of conscience; but the idea that anything anyone believes is right is just plain nonsense.  Civility means I engage with them persuasively, but civility does not mean a false tolerance where anything goes.”

“O meticulous ignorance!  I wish to be instructed, not respectively, but absolutely and certainly.  I demand that they show absolutely, not respectively, distinctly, and not confusedly, certainly and not probably, clearly and not obscurely, point by point and not in a lump, just what is heretical.  Let them show me where I am a heretic, or dry up their spittle.”

—Martin Luther, Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist, as quoted in Roland H. Bainton’s, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther

“The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret.  And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire.  For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement, and welcome into the heart of things.  The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

—C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

[HT: Twitter.com/johnpiper]