John Owen for a new generation:

I could not attribute any rational meaning to a single act, let alone to my whole life. I simply felt astonished that I had failed to realize this from the beginning. It has all been common knowledge for such a long time. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (and they had already arrived) to those dear to me, and to myself, and nothing will remain other than the stench and the worms. Sooner or later my deeds, whatever they may have been, will be forgotten and will no longer exist. What is all the fuss about then? How can a person carry on living and fail to perceive this? That is what is so astonishing! It is only possible to go on living while you are intoxicated with life; once sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere trick, and a stupid trick! That is exactly what it is: there is nothing either witty or amusing, it is only cruel and stupid (Tolstoy).

Tim Keller, A Reason for Living:
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You might decide simply to have as good a time as possible. The universe is a universe of nonsense, but since you are here, grab what you can. Unfortunately, however, there is, on these terms, so very little left to grab — only the coarsest sensual pleasures. You can’t except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behaviour of your genes. You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. You may still, in the lowest sense, have a “good time”; but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so afar you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you really live (CS Lewis).

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come disaster, scorn and pain
In Thy service, pain is pleasure,
With Thy favor, loss is gain
I have called Thee Abba Father,
I have stayed my heart on Thee
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather;
All must work for good to me.

(Henry Lyte)

Dr. Frank James III tells the story of the martyrdom of a slave girl who, in her death, became a great witness to the cross of Christ.

I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Colossians 1:24).

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And

“If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good (1 Peter 4:12-19).

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Today is the anniversary of Saint Augustine’s birth.  It is a particularly special day for me because no man — with the exception of Jesus — has had as much impact on my life as Augustine.  I have said this before, and I think it is true, that, when I die, Augustine’s feet will be the 2nd I get in line to kiss — that is only after I have spent a day or two wiping tears from the feet of the Lord himself.

About 4 years ago, I picked up a copy of Augustine’s City of God.  Shortly thereafter I began reading the Confessions.  In each of these books I saw for the first time something I had never seen before.  I saw a man desperately, unashamedly in love with God, and he made no attempts to downplay it out of a fear of looking silly or weak.  Augustine was a lover of God, who has only been rivaled in his lavish, penned expression of love for God by King David.

As I read Augustine’s account of his own depraved and sinful life — a story that was routinely interrupted by affectionate praise for the Savior he loved — I was amazed.  I’d never seen anything like it.  His language was so full and overflowing with emotion that it made my own heart “throb with a bewildering passion.”

And at the center of it was one sentence that changed my life:

He loves You too little who loves anything together with You which he loves not for Your sake.

Anything, Augustine? I asked.  Anything, he replied through the pages he’d left me.

I loved a lot of things and a lot of people, and most of them I didn’t love for God’s sake.  Was it for God’s glory that I watched TV, listened to music, or posted on my blog?  Was it with God in mind that I spoke when around my friends?  Was it love for God motivating my love for my family?  Was it for God’s sake that I ate and drank, slept and got out of bed, put on my clothes and breathed?

It wasn’t.  And I was terrified.  More than that, I saw something Augustine had that I wanted.  God became more glorious to me than he had ever been before.  I wanted to know this great God who brought Augustine to his knees before him, tearing his hair and beating his breast.  I found myself on my own knees, mourning over my sin and weeping in joy.  My experience was like that of Augustine 16 centuries earlier:

I began to search for a means of gaining the strength I needed to enjoy You, but I could not find this means until I embraced the mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ.

I thank God for Augustine, for his providence in bringing him to me, and for the sentence that changed my life.

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If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings (Adoniram Judson).

From How Few There Are Who Die So Hard: The Cost of Bringing Christ to Burma.

Never was that little one more precious than when they looked their last on her baby sweetness, as they were roughly summoned the next morning and led out to die. . . . Painfully bound with ropes, their hands behind them, stripped of their outer garments, and John barefooted (he had given Betty his socks to wear), they passed down the street where he was known to many, while the Reds shouted their ridicule and called the people to come and see the execution.

Like their Master, they were led up a little hill outside the town. There, in a clump of pine trees, the Communists harangued the unwilling onlookers, too terror-stricken to utter protest—But no, one broke the ranks! The doctor of the place and a Christian, he expressed the feelings of many when he fell on his knees and pleaded for the life of his friends. Angrily repulsed by the Reds, he still persisted, until he was dragged away as a prisoner, to suffer death when it appeared that he too was a follower of Christ.

John had turned to the leader of the band, asking mercy for this man. When he was sharply ordered to kneel—and the look of joy on his face, afterwards, told of the unseen Presence with them as his spirit was released—Betty was seen to quiver, but only for a moment. Bound as she was, she fell on her knees beside him. A quick command, the flash of a sword which mercifully she did not see—and they were reunited (Mrs. Howard Taylor, The Triumph of John and Betty Stam).

John and Betty Stam left behind a three month old daughter, who they had hidden with ten dollars tucked in her blanket.