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The Christian Classics – Part V

Augustineconfessions.jpgConversion:  The Life-Changing Power of the Word

(from Augustine’s Confessions, Book VIII, Chs. 8-12)

There was a garden attached to our lodging, and we had the use of this as of the whole house; for our landlord, the owner of the house, did not live there.  To this garden the tumult in my heart had driven me, as to a place where no one could intervene in this passionate suit which I had brought against myself until it could be settled—though how it would be settled You knew, not I.  As to me, I was mad and dying; but there was sanity in my madness, life in my death; I knew how evil I was; I did not know how well I would be soon …

… I kept saying to You, not perhaps in these words, but with this sense:  “And Thou, O Lord, how long?  How long, Lord; wilt Thou be angry forever?  Remember not our former iniquities.”  For I felt that it was these which were holding me fast …

So I spoke, weeping in the bitter contrition of my heart.  Suddenly a voice reaches my ears from a nearby house.  It is the voice of a boy or a girl (I don’t know which) and in a kind of singsong the words are constantly repeated:  “Take it and read it.  Take it and read it.”  At once my face changed … I checked the force of my tears and rose to my feet, being quite certain that I must interpret this as a divine command to me to open the book and read the first passage which I should come upon …

So I went eagerly back to the place where Alypius was sitting, since it was there that I had left the book of the Apostle when I rose to my feet.  I snatched up the book, opened, and read in silence the passage upon which my eyes first fell:  Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in concupiscence.  I had no wish to read further; there was no need to.  For immediately I had reached the end of the sentence it was as though my heart was filled with a light of confidence and all the shadows of my doubt were swept away.

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Topics: Family and Home Tags: church, faith July 28, 2011 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

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Jim-Daly President of Focus on the Family
Jim Daly
with Paul Batura

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Daly Focus

Jim-Daly Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.

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