Ephesians: Lecture 50
Speaker Notes
Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 6:17
17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
William James/Charles Reade quote:
Sow a thought, reap an action;
Sow an action, reap a habit;
Sow a habit, reap a character;
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 4:8
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Brother Lawrence Practicing the Presence of God amazon.com link
Frank Charles Laubach Letters by a Modern Mystic quote:
Can we have contact with God “all the time”? You and I do experience fine fresh contact with God sometimes, and we do carry out his will sometimes, but can we have this contact with God “all the time”? All the time awake, fall asleep in his arms, and awaken in His presence; can we attain that? Can we do His will “all the time”? Can we think His thoughts “all the time”? Or are there periods when business, pleasures, and crowding companions must necessarily push God out of our thoughts? Of course, that is self-evident. If one thinks of God all the time, he would never get anything else done. So I thought too, until now, but I am changing my view. We can keep two things in mind at once. Indeed we cannot keep one thing in mind more than half a second. Mind is a flowing something. It oscillates. Concentration is merely the continuous return to the same problem from a million angles. We do not think of one thing. We always think of the relationship of at least two things, and more often of three or more things simultaneously. So my problem is this: Can I bring God back in my mind-flow every few seconds so that God shall always be in my mind as an after-image, shall always be one of the elements in every concept and percept?
I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment in answering this question.
Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians 5:8
8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
Kenneth L. Woodward quote from Ushering in the age of the laity (Sept 9, 1994, Commonweal cover story):
Back in the first Nixon presidency I did a cover story on Billy Graham. I asked him,
“Billy Graham, what’s it feel like knowing you are saved?”
“Ken,” he said, “it’s a wonderful feeling.” But suppose, I went on, you were to crawl into the
hay with the organist. What then? “Well,” Graham replied, “I just wouldn’t get as high a place in heaven.”
I told this story to Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Oreg.), who is a devout Baptist. “Ken,” he said,
“if I didn’t know I was saved I couldn’t get up in the morning.”
“Mark,” I replied, “if I KNEW I was saved, I WOULDN’T get up in the morning.”
Jürgen’s Blog