Devotional Thoughts for the Day:

 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.¹⁹  For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent.
²⁰  Where is the one who is wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? ²¹  For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached. 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 (CSBBible)

We need a revival! We need a revival of consecration to death, a revival of happy abandonment to the will of God that will laugh at sacrifice and count it a privilege to bear the cross through the heat and burden of the day.

Reason that is under the devil’s control is harmful, and the more clever and successful it is, the more harm it does. We see this in the case of learned men who on the basis of their reason disagree with the Word. On the other hand, when illuminated by the Holy Spirit, reason helps to interpret the Holy Scriptures

Let us not be surprised to discover our frailty. Let it not come as a shock to see how easily our good behavior breaks down, for little or no reason. Have confidence in the Lord, whose help is always at hand. “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?”3 No one. If we approach our heavenly Father in this way, we will have no grounds for fearing anyone or anything.

Every once in a while I am told the church needs to be more reasonable. What I hear is an accusation that I am not being reasonable, that my logic is somehow flawed because I don’t agree wtih their niche of society, whatever its label. (And if you could narrow society into two basic sides – both sides will use the reason/logic play.

I am enough of a non-conformist that I have to watch myself, tell me that something is reasonable and I might just disagree for the sake of the disgreement. I resonate with Luther’s words, and am so willing to identify someone else’s reasoning as being in league with Satan. It is not hard to see usually, because it is not in agreement with scripture. So I have to watch my own sense of reason, and determine where my sense of reason, and the logic that interprets it, is faulty. Not an easy task! I have a few good friends I can count on to help me. This is the frailty of which St. Josemaria speaks. That frailty should drive us to the cross, to the

This is not the main reason to turn to scripture. The scriptures area there to reveal to us the love of God. But one of the side effects of that revelation is the abandonment to the will of God. To realize that dying to self (and therefore to my self’s reason) is not a major sacrifice.

Revival is not logical, it is not reasonable. It doesn’t have to be, and it is better subject to the Holy Spirit’s movement that to ours. But it can be prayed for, it can be sought, and the sermons and lessons given at our church’s need to aim at that – at seeing the church die and rise with Christ. It will happen in His time, in His way, according to the logic of God.

Ultimately, this is reasonable, ““Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18 (ESV) That is also revival.

May it happen in our lives, that we we find His reason more satisfying than our own.

A. W. Tozer and Marilynne E. Foster, Tozer on the Holy Spirit: A 366-Day Devotional (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 2007).

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 54: Table Talk, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 54 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 71.

Escrivá, Josemaría. Friends of God . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.