Tag: sin

Our greatest danger

OUR GREATEST DANGER is not our sins but our indifference. We must be in love with God. It is not so much to change what we are doing, but our intention, our motive.
Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 29). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

What I do,
What I intend to do,
And how I feel about it
(I keep thinking)

Are distinct,
Separate, in fact,
And controllable,
(I keep telling myself)

Their interactions civil
And honorable
To any casual observer
(I keep believing)

Until the slightest whisper of a feeling
Changes my mind and my actions
Forever

Tags danger, decisions, Dorothy Day, emotions, following Jesus, intention, loving God, motive, sin, The Reckless Way of Love

hope Other Writings Scripture

Perfect freedom

Freedom is perfect when no other love can impede our desire to love God.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

From John’s gospel, Chapter 8:

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Harper Bibles. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Locations 79992-79998). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Grace and peace and freedom to you…

Photo by Ferdinand Stöhr on Unsplash

Tags freedom, Jesus, loving God, No Man is an Island, sentences on hope, sin, slavery, Thomas Merton, truth

hope love Poetry

Locking ourselves in prison

Post author By dw
Post date July 21, 2019
1 Comment on Locking ourselves in prison

It would be a sin to place any limit upon our hope in God. We must love Him without measure. All sin is rooted in the failure of love. All sin is a withdrawal of love from God, in order to love something else. Sin sets boundaries to our hope, and locks our love in prison.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

Sin:
exchanging our greatest love
for something less,
hoping for less than what we have assurance of,
settling for even less than we hope for,
accepting a story of non-provision,
covetousness rewriting hope’s history
into a bleak tragedy
of love beyond our reach
just outside the bars
of the unlocked cell
we are dying in