George MacDonald from "Unspoken Sermons"

I believe in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, my elder brother, my lord and master.

I believe that he has a right to my absolute obedience whenever I know or shall come to know his will; that to obey him is to ascend to the highest point of my being; that not to obey him would be to deny him.

I believe that he died that I might die like him --- die to any ruling power in me but the will of God --- live ready to be nailed to the cross as he was, if God wills it.

I believe that he is my Savior from myself, and from all that comes of loving myself, from all that God does not love, and would not have me love --- from all that is not worth loving; that he died that the justice, the mercy of God, might have its way with me, making me just as God is just, merciful as he is merciful, perfect as my father in heaven is perfect.

I believe and pray that he will give whatever punishment needed to set me right, or to keep me from going wrong.

I believe that he died to deliver me from all meanness, all pretending, all falseness, all unfairness, all self-pity, all cowardice, all fear, all anxiety, all forms of self-love, all trust or hope in possessions; making me joyful as a child, the child of our father in heaven, loving nothing but what is lovely, desiring nothing that I should be ashamed to let the universe of God see me desire.

I believe that God is just like Jesus, only greater yet, because Jesus said so.

I believe that God is absolutely, grandly beautiful, even as the highest soul of man counts beauty, but infinitely more beautiful than that soul's highest idea --- with the beauty that creates beauty, not merely shows it, or itself exists as beautiful.

I believe that God has always done, is always doing his best for everyone; that no one is miserable because God is forgetting them; that he is not a God to crouch before, but our father, to whom the child-heart cries with joy, "Do with me as you will."

I believe that there is nothing good for me or for anyone but God, and more and more of God, and that only through knowing Christ can we come near to him.

I believe that no one is ever condemned for any sin except one --- that he or she will not leave their sins and come out of them, and be the child of him who is their father.

I believe that justice and mercy are simply one and the same thing; without justice to the full there can be no mercy, and without mercy to the full there can be no justice; that the mercy of God is such that he will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they pay the last penny, until they drop the purse of selfishness with all the trash in it, and rush home to the Father and the Son, and with the many brothers and sisters rush inside the center of his life-giving fire whose outer circles burn.

I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.

I believe that to those who obey, and thus open the doors of their hearts to receive the eternal gift, God gives the spirit of his son, the spirit of himself, to be in them, and lead them to the understanding of all truth; that the true disciple may thus always know what he or she ought to do, though not necessarily what another ought to do; and that same spirit of the Father and the Son will enlighten by teaching righteousness.

I believe that no teacher should strive to make others think as he thinks, but to lead them to the living Truth, to the Master himself, from whom alone they can learn anything, who will make them in themselves know what is true by the very seeing of it.

I believe that the inspiration of the Almighty alone gives understanding.

I believe that to be a disciple of Christ is the ultimate goal of being; that to persuade others to be his disciples is the ultimate goal of teaching.

Amen. I believe also.
STEVE