iCrucified

I enjoy reading from a number of devotional compilations. I am inspired, encouraged, challenged, and convicted (sometimes all at once). I enjoy being mentored from afar by these saints and fellow sojourners in the faith who have gone before me. My theology continues to be shaped as God the Holy Spirit uses a wide assortment of tools to develop me.

Please shape me O God.

I share with you today a devotional reading from Lawrence Scupoli. This writing is included in Nearer to the Heart of God: Daily Readings with the Christian Mystics; compiled and edited by Bernard Bangley.

In an attempt to open our eyes and show us a way to a deeper spiritual life, God may allow sickness, persecution, and other tests of our fidelity. These things never happen without God’s plan or permission. Our problem is conforming with the will of God. We don’t know how to yield to him. We are reluctant to submit to his judgments. We are not able to imitate Christ humbled and crucified. We have not found a way to love our enemies, or to see them as instruments used by God to train us in self-denial. This is a hazard. Our eyes are blinded by self-love. We do good things and then become proud. We think that we are far advanced as religious people and then look down on our neighbor. Our spiritual pride deepens our blindness. We are beyond help, short of a miracle of grace.

Outright sinners can be reformed with less difficulty than those who hide under a cloak of false virtue. The spiritual life does not consist in holy practices that are mere outward appearances. It actually consists in knowing the infinite greatness and goodness of God. It includes an admission of our weakness and our proclivity to evil. It is an act of loving God and denying ourselves. It means renouncing our own will and accepting God’s will. The only life-giving motive for any spiritual practice is to please God, because we love God.

Lawrence Scupoli: The Spritual Combat