Spiritual Maxims

[michaeldimmickjr]

Hello to everyone!

I just finished reading The Practice of the Presence of God with Spiritual Maxims by Brother Lawrence. I'm not sure if anyone here has read or heard of it, but it is very good in my opinion. I really got a lot out of it and have felt lead to discuss it with everyone. I am only going to discuss Spiritual Maxims since that's what is on my heart. My prayer is that we, as one body, without denominational blinders can get past our differences and honor God with our discussions and observations! I am inviting all the other forums here to participate, so please, let's not argue about anything. If anyone says something you don't agree with, please hold your peace this one time and let's glorify out King with some positive discussion!

Spiritual Maxims​

1. We must study ever to regard God and His Glory in all that we do, and say, and undertake. This is the end that we should set before ourselves, to offer to God a sacrifice of perfect worship in this life, as we hope to do through all eternity. We ought firmly to resolve to overcome, with the grace of God assisting us, the many difficulties which will meet us in the spiritual life.
2. When we enter upon the spiritual life, we ought to consider thoroughly what we are, probing to the very depth. We shall find that we are altogether deserving of contempt, unworthy of the name of Christ, prone to all manner of maladies and subject to countless infirmities, which distress us and impair the soul's health, rendering us wavering and unstable in our humors and dispositions; in fact, creatures whom it is God's will to chasten and make humble by numberless afflictions and adversities, as well within as without.
3. We must believe steadfastly, never once doubting, that such discipline is for our good, that it is God's will to visit us with chastening, that it is the course of His Divine Providence to permit our souls to pass through all manner of sore experiences and times of trial, and for the love of God to undergo divers sorrows and afflictions for so long as shall seem needful to Him; since, without this submission of heart and spirit to the will of God, devotion and perfection cannot subsist.
4. A soul is the more dependent on grace, the higher the perfection to which it aspires; and the grace of God is more needful for each moment, as without it the soul can do nothing. The world, the flesh, and the devil join forces and assault the soul so straitly and so untiringly that, without humble reliance on the ever-present aid of God, they drag the soul down in spite of all resistance. Thus to rely seems hard to nature, but grace makes it become easy, and brings with it joy.

That concludes the first maxim! And that also concludes tired hands!

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael​

 

[Mark Downham]

Michael

The key to all good Christian Spirituality is walking the walk with Jesus.

My appraisal of the failure in Athonite Orthodox Monastic spirituality is that they have no real grasp of the inner spiritual man or woman and their approach to Jesus is based on the continuous recitation of the Jesus Prayer - which is not real relationship but endless supplication without substantial engagement.

Brother Lawrence was real, he was simultaneously earthy as opposed to earthly or carnal and heavenly - he engaged incarnational reality to the full in the Spirit, through Jesus, towards the Father.

Understanding His categories of Faith and Grace and how he saw the efficacious and availing work of Jesus on the Cross is key to engaging and entering into the practice of His spiritual disciplines.

Mark

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

4. A soul is the more dependent on grace, the higher the perfection to which it aspires; and the grace of God is more needful for each moment, as without it the soul can do nothing. The world, the flesh, and the devil join forces and assault the soul so straitly and so untiringly that, without humble reliance on the ever-present aid of God, they drag the soul down in spite of all resistance. Thus to rely seems hard to nature, but grace makes it become easy, and brings with it joy.

This really spoke to me when he talks about the world, the flesh, and the devil joining forces against us. To truely be in the presence of God, we need to separate our soul from our flesh and treat it as such. I guess this may be in essence, the christian walk, but I guess I had an illumination on the matter.

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

 

[Mark Downham]

This really spoke to me when he talks about the world, the flesh, and the devil joining forces against us. To truely be in the presence of God, we need to separate our soul from our flesh and treat it as such. I guess this may be in essence, the christian walk, but I guess I had an illumination on the matter.

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

Michael

I would agree that the fourth Maxim leads to revelatory insight, illumination or an epiphany.

The type of categories Brother Lawrence worked with need careful attention - when he uses the term soul - he means the inner man or woman (the spirit),not the outer man or woman (body and mind).

Mark

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

Michael

I would agree that the fourth Maxim leads to revelatory insight, illumination or an epiphany.

The type of categories Brother Lawrence worked with need careful attention - when he uses the term soul - he means the inner man or woman (the spirit),not hte outer man or woman (body and mind).

Mark

I was having a discussion with a friend that pointed something out to me. In the Bible it talks about 3 things that we are made up of, Flesh, Soul, & Spirit. The Flesh and the Spirit are constanly at war with each other and our Soul is the battleground. Any thoughts?

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

 

[Mark Downham]

I was having a discussion with a friend that pointed something out to me. In the Bible it talks about 3 things that we are made up of, Flesh, Soul, & Spirit. The Flesh and the Spirit are constanly at war with each other and our Soul is the battleground. Any thoughts?

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

Michael

We need to be disciplined in our approach to Pauline Biblical categories.

1 Thessalonians 5:23

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Body does not mean Flesh.

The Worldly, Fleshly or Carnal person is Soulish as opposed to Spiritual.

However,the Soul as the Mind, Emotions and Will or Volition is the primary battleground on which the enemy engages in the war on the Saints - Us.

Mark

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

1. That practice which is alike the most holy, the most general, and the most needful in the spiritual life is the practice of the Presence of God. It is the schooling of the soul to find its joy in His Divine Companionship, holding with Him at all times and at eevery moment humble and loving converse, without set rules or stated method, in all time of our temptation and tribulation, in all time of our dryness of soul and direlish if God, yes, and even when we fall into unfaithfulness and actual sin.

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

2. We should apply ourselves unceasingly to this one end, to so rule all our actions that they be little acts of communion with God; but they must not be studied, they must come naturally, from the purity and simplicity of the heart.

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

3. We must do all things thoughtfully and soberly without impetuosity or precipitancy, which denotes a mind undisciplined. We must go about our labors quietly, calmly, and lovingly, entreating Him to prosper the works of our hands; by thus keeping heart and mind fixed on God, we shall bruise the head of the evil one, and beat down his weapons to the ground.

4. When we are bruised, or meditating on spiritual things, even in our time of set devotion, whilst our voice is rising in prayer, we ought to cease for one brief moment, as often as we can, to worship God in the depth of our being, to taste Him though it be in passing, to touch Him as it were stealth. Since you cannot but know that God is with you in all you undertake, that He is at the very depth and centre of your soul, why should you not thus pause an instant from time to time in your outward business, and even in the act of prayer, to worship Him within your soul, to praise Him the service of you heart, and give Him thanks for all His loving-kindness and tender-mercies?

What offering is there more acceptable to God than thus throughout the day to quit things of outward sense, and to withdraw to worship Him within the secret places of the soul? Besides by so doing we destroy the love of self, which can subsist only among the things of sense, and of which these times of quiet retirement with God rides us well-nigh unconsciously.

In very truth we can render to God no greater or more signal proofs of our trust and faithfulness, than by thus turning from things created to find our joy, though for a single moment, in the Creator. Yet, think not that I counsel you to disregard completely and for ever the outward things that are around us. That is impossible. Prudence, the mother of virtues, must be your guide. Yet, I am confident, it is a common error among religious persons, to neglect this practice of ceasing for a time that, which they are engaged upon, to worship God in the depth of their soul, and to enjoy the peace of brief communion with Him. This digression has been long, and yet, it seemed to me, the matter demanded such. Let us return to our subject.

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

5. These our acts of worship are to be prompted and guided by faith. We must unfeignedly believe that God is in very fact within our souls, and that we must worship Him and love Him and serve Him in spirit and in truth; that He sees all, and that unto Him all hearts are open, our own and those of all His creatures; that He is self-existent, whilst it is in Him that all His creatures live and move and have their being; that His Perfection is Infintire and Sovereign, and demands the full surrender of ourselves, our souls and bodies. In simple justice we owe Him all our thoughts and words and actions. Let us see to it that we pay our debt.

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

6. Necessity is laid upon us to examine ourselves with diligence to find out what are the virutes, which we chiefly lack, and which are the hardest for us to acquire; we should seek to learn the sins that do most easily beset us, and the times and occasions, when we do most often fall. In the time of struggle we ought to have recourse to God with perfect confidence, abiding steadfast in the Presence of His Divine Majesty; in lowly adoration we should tell out before Him our griefs and our failures, asking Him lovingly for the succor of His grace; and in our weakness we shall find Him our strength.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

I am concerned that in all of this there is no mention of Christ, the new creature, the new man, the divine nature, or any of the other aspects of the NT teachings regarding Christian spirituality.
It is no longer I but Christ lives within me. That is the foundation of all Christian spirituality and our walking with God.

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

Christ not mentioned? Is Christ not God and vice versa? The name Jesus is mentioned in his writings. Either I haven't gotten to it yet or it was earlier.

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

 

[Adammi]

Couldn't you get in trouble for copying that whole book online?

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Thanks... it has been 20 or so years since I read the book.

Christ not mentioned? Is Christ not God and vice versa? The name Jesus is mentioned in his writings. Either I haven't gotten to it yet or it was earlier.

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

 

[Adammi]

Isn't he EO? Their Spirituality is much different from a biblical viewpoint. Wasn't he also long-termly cloistered, which once again isn't biblical?

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

It doesn't really say what his denomination is, it doesn't really need to. He didn't make it a point to advertise it either. I think what he talks about, anyone who is in Christ can understand and relate to.

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

 

[Adammi]

It doesn't really say what his denomination is, it doesn't really need to. He didn't make it a point to advertise it either. I think what he talks about, anyone who is in Christ can understand and relate to.

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

Okay, that's good, I though that it may be a solicitation of monastic life.

 

[ByzantineDixie]

Michael,

Thank you for these wonderful meditations. We can all learn much from Brother Lawrence.

For the record...Brother Lawrence was a 17th Century lay brother affiliated with the Carmelite religous community, living in France, therefore not EO but RCC.

 

[Asaph]

So then it's all about what we do, not about what was done for us?


It's kind of a "nutshell" thing that ends up denying the Lord.

At least that is everything I am reading so far.

"Oh Lord, honor my own righteousness today, for I truely am good enough for your kingdom"

How arrogant does a person have to be to think that is truth?

Asaph