Saints and Servants - Billy Graham

"You are my friends if you do what I command you"
(John 15:14)

And when all my hopes in men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh! then I heard a voice which said, 'There is One, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition.' And when I heard it my heart did leap for joy." George Fox [founder Society of Friends]

George Fox, born in 1624, experienced several years of intense spiritual conflict looking for an authentic faith. He wandered through England searching the Scriptures and seeking help from priests, professing believers in the established church and dissenters but seemed to find no satisfying answers.

Then, when he had just about given up any hope of getting help from others, he discovered the living Christ to be his contemporary. In June of 1652, in the northwest of England, he climbed a high hill and had a vision of a great people to be gathered in the power of the Lord.

From that time on he preached with great authority and by his death in 1691 some fifty to sixty thousand persons in England were firmly convinced Friends. The Seekers who responded to the message that Fox proclaimed found Christ to be a living presence in the depth of their own experience. They had met with God face to face and the encounter had left them changed persons.

Their all-consuming passion was to live lives of holy obedience. Jesus' words, "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:14) took on great meaning for them and became the basis for using "Friends" as their identification. The label, "Quaker," was first used as a derogatory nickname because early Friends had urged those who heard their message to tremble in the face of the power of the Lord.

Tis a gift to be simple

'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Chorus:
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we will not be ashamed,
To turn, to turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come 'round right.

'Tis a gift to be gentle, 'tis a gift to be fair,
'Tis a gift to wake and breathe the morning air.
To walk every day in the path that we choose,
'Tis a gift we pray, we may never lose.

(Repeat Chorus)

'Tis a gift to be knowing, 'tis a gift to be kind,
'Tis a gift to wait and hear another's mind,
That when we speak our feelings we might come out true,
'Tis a gift for me and a gift for you.

(Repeat Chorus)

'Tis a gift to be loving, 'tis the best gift of all,
Like a warm spring rain bringing beauty when it falls,
And when we use this gift we may come to believe,
It is better to give than it is to receive.

(Repeat Chorus)

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