THE OXFORD GROUP

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 25, Issue 3766, 8 June 1936, Page 6

THE OXFORD GROUP

WHAT IS IT?

(By the Layman with the Notebook.) The aims of the Oxfora Group are to bring into the world the realisation of the Holy Spirit as a force for spiritual and material stability and betterment of the world; to awaken in us as individuals the knowledge that we are dissipating our spiritual inheritance and that sin is the frustration of God’s plan for us all. It sets out to make the world understand that spiritual commonsense is of more practical value and use to mankind than selfish piety and blind paganism. It means we surrender to God everything that stands between Him and us.

The Oxford Group has four points which are the keys to the kind of spiritual life God wishes us to lead. These points are: 1, Absolute honesty; 2, absolute purity; 3, absolute unselfishness; 4, absolute love. To be spiritually reborn, and to live in the state in which these four points are the guides to aid life in God, the Oxford Group advocate fair practical spiritual activities: 1. The sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian life given to God, and to use sharing as witness to help others, still unchanged, to recognise and acknowledge their sins. 2. Surrender of our life, past and present and future, into God’s keeping and direction. 3. Restitution to all whom we have wronged, directly or indirectly. 4. Listening to, accepting, relying on God’s guidance and carrying it out in everything we do or say, great or small.

Divine guidance takes away from us that fear of to-morrow, which in conjunction with the troubles of today so often makes life Intolerable for us.

A quiet time with the Holy Spirit every morning before the daily toil and common round of the world commences will put us in the right key for the day. The Oxford Group advocates our use of a pencil and notebook so that we may record every God-given thought arid idea that comes to us during our time alone with Him, that no detail, however small, may be lost to us, and that we may not shirk the truth about ourselves or any problem, when it comes to us. It is not suggested that everything we write down during our quiet times necessarily comes from God. But to those closely in touch with God it becomes easy after a short while to differentiate betwen spiritual and human messages. In cases of difficulty our guidance can be checked up with the teachings of the Bible or by conference with others who are also receiving guidance in quiet times. Prayer is the natural complement of God’s direction. We cannot expect God to talk to us if we do not talk to Him, but to the Oxford Group it is not always essential continually to ask God for help in every move we make, or in every problem of our daily lives. If we have faithfully surrendered our lives to Him, God is our Pilot and knows our every movement and thought. Petitions are not always necessary tor if our attitude towards God Is conducive to real guidance, then that itself is prayer.