Monday, 15 October 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

When I was looking around for a devotional topic for last week’s Prayer at Six meeting, I came across the evening devotional for that date (October 8th) in Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening. The 20th verse of the book of Jude exhorts us to “pray in the Holy Spirit.” In this devotional reading, Spurgeon gives his rendition of what this means. First, he characterizes prayer as a two-way relationship with God when he says that, “Only the prayer which comes from God can go to God.” Prayer is a conversation with God, not a monologue. Prayers that are entirely self-motivated have little effect. He then goes on to describe five qualities of praying in the Spirit. We considered the first one at this evening’s meeting: “Praying in the Holy Spirit is praying in fervency. Cold prayers ask the Lord not to hear them. Those who do not plead with fervency, plead not at all. As well speak of lukewarm fire as of lukewarm prayer—it is essential that it be red hot.” This got me to thinking about what fervency means for prayer. Read the rest of this entry »

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Friday, 12 October 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

I’m well into the Fall quarter at ATS again this year. This could be my last Fall quarter. I have only 5 classes to finish before finishing my degree. After that? God knows. I’ve been thinking about training to be a so called “spiritual director.” (I think “mentor” would be a better word than “director”). But I don’t want to think too far ahead. I’m enjoying my current studies very much. This quarter I have a class in Christian Ethics. I was happy to learn that the class focuses more on the foundations of virtue and character than it does on issues and making ethical decisions. This is important. Who we are is at the root of what we do and what we do speaks louder than what we say. This emphasis fits well with my major in spiritual formation. The course has added four good books to my current reading list: Kingdom Ethics (Stassen and Gushee), Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Church (Merrill), Rethinking Christ and Culture (Carter) and Political Visions and Illusions (Koyzis). All very interesting reading. I have a bunch of writing to do that will probably keep me away from this blog for a while (we’ll see). Read the rest of this entry »

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