Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)
English journalist, author, media personality, satirist
“I may, I suppose, pass for being a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets– that’s fame. I can fairly easily earn enough money to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue– that’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions– that’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time– that’s fulfillment. Yet I say to you– and I beg you to believe me– multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing— less than nothing, and even an impediment– measured against one drink of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.”
–Malcolm Muggeridge
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JESUS + NOTHING = EVERYTHING
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**Exodus 20:3 — “You shall have no other gods before me.” (the first commandment)
Ecclesiastes 2:11 — Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 12:13 — Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.
Matthew 16:26 — (Jesus said), “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
John 7:37-38 — On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
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Almighty God, may we fear, love, and trust in you above all things. Amen.
–Prayer based on Martin Luther’s catechism explanation of the first commandment.
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O Jesus, you are our refuge. When we are exhausted by life’s effort; when we are bewildered by life’s problems; when we are wounded by life’s sorrows: We come for refuge to you.
O Jesus, you are our strength. When our tasks are beyond our powers; when our temptations are too strong for us; when duty calls for more than we have to give to it: We come to you for strength.
O Jesus, it is from you that all goodness comes. It is from you that our ideals come; it is from you that there comes to us the desire to do what we ought to do and the restraint of conscience. It is from you that we receive the strength to resist temptation, and to do what is right and good.
Help us now to believe in your love so that we may be certain that you will hear our prayer. Help us to believe in your power, so that we may be certain you are able to do for us above all that we ask or think. Help us to believe in your wisdom, so that we may be certain that you will answer, not as our ignorance asks, but as your perfect wisdom knows best. O Jesus, in your name we pray. Amen.
–William Barclay
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