24 July 2011

Dr. Piepkorn noted

someplace that the collects in the Trinity season tend to have a strong anti-Pelagian and anti-semi-Pelagian bent.  I was thinking how beautifully that showed itself in today's collect, truly one of the greatest of them all:

O God, You have prepared for those who love You good things that surpass all understanding.

Well, fat lot of good that does a people who know that they do not love God the way He ought be loved!  But wait....

Pour into our hearts such love toward You, that we, loving You above all things, may obtain Your promises that exceed all that we can desire.

Ah, so if we are to obtain those good things God has prepared for those who love Him, then HE must POUR INTO OUR HEARTS that love - because we sure as shootin' cannot manufacture it on our own - and what is that but Christ Himself given into us by the Holy Spirit?  The Savior's perfect and unfailing love for His Father reached to us to share in our as very own, and thus we arrive at those unspeakable promises of His which give to us way, way beyond our desiring.

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