The Light and the Glory

A few weeks ago I finished the book (for my own personal reading) The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. Aside from the Bible of course this was the next most influential book I have read. It is telling and documenting the Christian roots of America. So much was said about George Washington and I won't even get to him. He was truly an amazing person.

I am not good at thinking through and putting words together right now but if I was to sum up this book I would say stressed the importance of keeping a short account with God and next "enduring hardness as a good soldier of Christ."

I have asked God to help me grow this year. Last year was EXTREMELY tough on just about every level one could imagine and I want to live this year closer to my Lord than the last . . . greater faith and greater love being my main focuses.


Quotes:
George Washington said: "To the distinguished character of a Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian."--Love this quote for my boys especially

Abigail Adams in a letter to her husband: "I feel no anxiety at the large armament designed against us. The remarkable interpositions of heaven in our favor cannot be too gratefully acknowledged. He who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, who clothes the lilies of the field and who feeds the young ravens when thy cry, will not forsake a people engaged in so righteous a cause, if we remember His loving kindness." What faith!!

Samuel West preached in Boston: "Our cause is so just and good that nothing can prevent our success but only our sins. Could I see a spirit of repentance and reformation prevail throughout the land, I should not have the least apprehension or fear of being brought under the iron rod of slavery, even though all the powers of the globe were combined against us. And though I confess that the irreligion and profaneness which are so common among us gives something of a damp to my spirits, yet I cannot help hoping, and even believing, that Providence has designed this continent for to be the asylum of liberty and true religion."

"Because the way to deepening in Christ is the Way of the Cross: the way of self-denial--of unconditional surrender of one's own will to God's will, and of true covenant commitment to one another." This is the Way to which He has called all serious Christians ("If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me"-Luke 9:23)

"In our hearts, we also know that God has called us Christians to a horizontal as well as vertical covenant. But the cost--of turning from our independent ways, of being willing to hear God speak to us through the lips of others, of coming into the light by exposing the hidden sins of attitude or thought, of humbling ourselves by admitting where we are wrong-is more than most of us care to pay."

Does this quote describe much of America today or what?
"But to an agnostic, who has no Redeemer, no Saviour, no Comforter, no source of grace or forgiveness or Providential intervention, the concept of the utter depravity of man is so depressing that he has to believe in the basic goodness of man--or go into despair. Such a man simply blinds himself to the bankruptcy of his philosophy, and goes through life carefully avoiding a head-on confrontation with reality, all the while affirming the nobility of "the brotherhood of man."

"But the intellect is on of Satan's prime harvesting grounds for reaping the fruit of pride, and without the strong check and balance of an awareness of the danger of self-righteousness, it can soon become an instrument for the glorification of self, not God."

". . . it became rather naive and even a trifle primitive to think of God in such intensely intimate and personal terms as had been the case in first-century Christianity."