CQOD: 12/03/05 -- Wirt: How to spot a Christian

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 3, 2005

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552

Meditation:
    You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
    -- Matthew 7:16-20 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    We see him exalting love for neighbor along with love for God. He reaches out to foreigners who are beyond the borders of the “Israel of God.” He seeks the release of captives, prisoners, and slaves. He denounces the scribes and religious leaders who “devour the houses of widows.” Despite his well-known requirement of loyalty that surpasses family ties, he insists that a man put the care of his own parents ahead of his obligations to his religion. His treatment of women is radically opposed to the strictures of that day. He exhibits sympathy and understanding toward children. He operates an out-patient clinic wherever he happens to be. He insists upon justice as the basis for everyday dealings between citizens. The social teaching of parables like “the good Samaritan” and incidents such as the encounter with the rich young ruler have had an effect upon his followers that cannot easily be measured. If one summary statement of Jesus’ ethics can be made, it is that love of God is best shown by love of fellow men.
    ... Sherwood Eliot Wirt (b.1911), The Social Conscience of the Evangelical [1968]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I thank you for the Christian men and women around me who demonstrate the love of Christ in their lives.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD: 12/02/05 -- Brother Lawrence: seeing troubles rightly

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 2, 2005Meditation:
    For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
    -- Romans 8:18 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, but when we see them in the wrong light: when we see them in the hand of God, Who dispenses them; when we know that it is our loving Father who abases and distresses us; our sufferings will lose their bitterness and become even a matter of consolation.
    ... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Send your grace, Lord, so that I might always have Your perspective on my troubles.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2005, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 12/01/05 -- Owen: approaching God

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 1, 2005

Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916

Meditation:
    Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
    -- Mark 11:24 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    No heart can conceive that treasury of mercies which lies in this one privilege, in having liberty and ability to approach unto God at all times, according to His mind and will.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683)

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Quiet time reflection:
    God has opened up His holiest place for me to enter and speak with Him.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2005, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 11/30/05 -- Newbigin: the limits of history

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 30, 2005

Feast of Andrew the Apostle

Meditation:
    Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
    -- Matthew 24:35-36 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    This means that we do not know what are the limits of human history, but it does not mean that there are no real limits. It is important to assert this, because if we do not do so, the limit which we know apart from Christ becomes determinative of our outlook. That limit is death—the death of the individual, and the death of the social structure in which his corporate personality is embodied. When these are the only limits that men know, then they are left in a hopeless alternation between hope for an individual survival of death, which evacuates their corporate life of ultimate significance, and hope for the eternity of some social or political or cultural achievement, which evacuates personal existence of ultimate significance. This false alternation is overcome in Christ in whom we are brought into relation with the true limit—a consummation of all things in which both the significance of each personal life and the significance of history as a whole are to be gathered up.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God [1953]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I pray for the victory of Your glorious church.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD: 11/29/05 -- C. S. Lewis: the two Ways

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 29, 2005Meditation:
    And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
    -- Matthew 6:5,6 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Holding [the Way of Affirmation], we see that every created thing is, in its degree, an image of God, and the ordinate and faithful appreciation of that thing a clue, which, truly followed, will lead back to Him. Holding [the Way of Rejection], we see that every created thing, the highest devotion to moral duty, the purest conjugal love, the saint and the seraph, is no more than an image; that every one of them, followed for its own sake and isolated from its source, becomes an idol whose service is damnation.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Arthurian Torso [1948]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, reveal to me the idols in my life, that I might speedily abandon them.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2005, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 11/28/05 -- Oxenham: generations to come

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 28, 2005Meditation:
    Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."
    -- Mark 1:14,15 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Some people are reluctant to consider the future, arguing that it must be left to solve its own problems and to shape its own beliefs. In all right efforts for the future, religion must be given first place. No provision to secure peace or just social principles can be worth much unless the foremost aim be to establish the Kingdom of God. It is not the minds and bodies only of generations to come that have to be remembered, but their immortal souls.
    ... John Oxenham (1852-1941), Winds of the Dawn [1930]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2005, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 11/27/05 -- Amiel: the natural man

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 27, 2005Meditation:
    For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
    -- Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    We will have no other master but our caprice—that is to say, our evil self will have no God, and the foundation of our nature is seditious, impious, refractory, opposed to and contemptuous of all that tries to rule it, and therefore contrary to order, ungovernable and negative. It is this foundation which Christianity calls the natural man. But the savage which is within us, and constitutes the primitive stuff of us, must be disciplined and civilized in order to produce a man. And the man must be patiently cultivated to produce a wise man; and the wise man must be tested and tried if he is to become righteous, and the righteous man must have substituted the will of God for his individual will, if he is to become a saint.
    ... Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Rule me, gracious Lord, for I am weak.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2005, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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