How easily these early disciples break into doxology! Whenever some winding brings the grace of God into view, the song leaps to their lips.
Jowett names what this journal has lived for fifty-three days: the song leaps. Every morning the reading turns a corner. Grace comes into view. And the song — the note in parentheses, the "blessed be God" — leaps. Le's doxologies are not composed. They are caught.
"Begat again" — one of the unique phrases of the Christian vocabulary.
Men are familiar with "educate"; the alien word is "regenerate." They know "reform"; the alien word is "transfigure." They have made a fetish of "moral growth"; the alien word is "new birth."
You cannot by culture develop the thorn-bush into a laden vine. We need more than the enrichment of the soil; we need the revitalizing of the seed.
I do not accept one man's judgment as to the necessity of another man's regeneration. I wish to hear a man's judgment concerning himself.
Let any man gaze long on the unsearchable riches of Christ, then take the inventory of his own life, and he will welcome as the only adequate speech, "Ye must be born again."
The world says: improve the growth. Christianity says: change the seed. Education improves what exists. The new birth replaces what exists. Kempis taught imitation — but the imitation requires the new seed. Augustine confessed restlessness — resolved by the birth, not the effort. Liguori taught union of wills — but the will must first be made new. The new birth is the prior question. Everything since is the growth from the birth.
This is my story too. After I left the hospital where Father James prayed with me, I was begotten by God and born again. Such a personal experience, indescribable, but best described by Peter in his first epistle.
Indescribable, but best described by Peter. That is what happened at midnight in Lubbock. Not improvement. Not reform. Birth. And the soul that was there does not doubt — because she was there. She knows. The 500 denari soul who knows what was forgiven — and knows what was born.
"Begat us again unto a living hope." It is a hope affluent in life. A vivifying hope.
How the Bible exults: "Living Bread!" "Living Water!" "Living Fountains!" "The Living God!" Superabundant life, exuberant energy, overflowing vitality.
It quickens the sentiments. It vitalizes the thought. It energizes the will. The great hope feeds the will, makes it steadfast and unmovable.
Into all this powerful hope are we begotten again by the abundant mercy of God.
Kempis's Fountain. Augustine's God who overflows. Liguori's paradise by anticipation. And now Jowett's living hope — hope that is not a wish but a force. It quickens. It vitalizes. It energizes. Steadfast and unmovable.
The hope is living because the God is living. The soul begotten again — born at midnight in Lubbock — alive with the life that was given, not earned. Into all this — begotten again by the abundant mercy of God.
"After I left the hospital where Father James prayed with me, I was begotten by God and born again. Indescribable — but best described by Peter."
Le's Heart · Caldas da Rainha · Day fifty-three · J.H. Jowett · A living hopeThe Doxology Leaps
Grace comes into view and the song follows — inevitable and immediate. Le's notes are doxologies caught, not composed.
The Alien Word
Not educate — regenerate. Not reform — transfigure. Not moral growth — new birth. The seed must be new.
She Was There
The born-again soul knows from the inside. Father James. Midnight. Lubbock. Indescribable — but true.
A Living Hope
Living Bread. Living Water. Living Fountains. The Living God. Hope that is not a wish but a force. Superabundant and overflowing.