CQOD: 07/02/06 -- Robertson: too hard to hear

Christian Quotation of the Day

July 2, 2006Meditation:
    For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
    -- 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Paul’s argument in First Corinthians 1:18-25 is equally relevant when we come to ask why men cannot understand the Bible. Any attempts to hide behind the excuse that it is too difficult, when what we mean is that its word is too hard for us to bear, meets the just remark of a pastor from Communist Germany: “How can they say that the Bible is difficult, when young Communists are poring over much more difficult and much more technical literature to discover what Communism is all about?” Sometimes the Biblical teaching is crystal-clear, but we dare not understand it. The Christian Church has a vested interest in its present forms, and Christian people, like others, have their pleasant prejudices. This unwillingness to hear some new thing, except in times of great disturbance, plays a bigger part in weakening the voice of God through the Bible than we are prepared to admit.
    ... E. H. Robertson (b.1912), The Recovery of Confidence [1960]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, reveal Yourself to Your people through Your word.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 07/01/06 -- Berdyaev: the entrance to heaven

Christian Quotation of the Day

July 1, 2006

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873

Meditation:
    For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison...
    -- 1 Peter 3:18-19 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    For Christian consciousness, paradise is the Kingdom of Christ and is unthinkable apart from Christ. But this changes everything. The cross and the crucifixion enter into the bliss of paradise. The Son of God and the Son of Man descends into hell to free those who suffer there... To conquer evil, the good must crucify itself.
    ... Nikolai A. Berdyaev (1874-1948), The Destiny of Man [1937]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have rensomed me, at what a cost!

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

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 06/30/06 -- Tillotson: growth in perfection

Christian Quotation of the Day

June 30, 2006Meditation:
    See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
    -- Matthew 18:10 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    I think that there is no reason to doubt but that the blessed spirits above, who continually “behold the face of their Father,” are still writing after this copy which is here propounded to us, and endeavoring to be “perfect as their Father which is in heaven is perfect,” still aspiring after a nearer and more perfect resemblance of God, whose goodness and mercy is far beyond and before that of any creature, that they may be for ever approaching nearer to it and yet never overtake it.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, by each step, You are bringing Your children to Heaven.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 06/29/06 -- Trench: the human need of support

Christian Quotation of the Day

June 29, 2006

Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles

Meditation:
    If we had forgotten the name of our God
        or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
        would not God discover this?
    For he knows the secrets of the heart.
    -- Psalm 44:20-21 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    No man can be without his god. If he have not the true God to bless and sustain him, he will have some false god to delude and to betray him. The Psalmist knew this, and therefore he joined so closely forgetting the name of our God and holding up our hands to some strange god. For every man has something in which he hopes, on which he leans, to which he retreats and retires, with which he fills up his thoughts in empty spaces of time, when he is alone, when he lies sleepless on his bed, when he is not pressed with other thoughts; to which he betakes himself in sorrow or trouble, as that from which he shall draw comfort and strength—his fortress, his citadel, his defence; and has not this a good right to be called his god? Man was made to lean on the Creator; but if not on Him, then he leans on the creature in one shape or another. The ivy cannot grow alone: it must twine round some support or other; if not the goodly oak, then the ragged thorn—round any dead stick whatever, rather than have no stay or support at all. It is even so with the heart and affections of man; if they do not twine around God, they must twine around some meaner thing.
    ... Richard Chevenix Trench (1807-1886)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, there is no Name like Your's.

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

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 06/28/06 -- Augustine: hope for good

Christian Quotation of the Day

June 28, 2006

Feast of Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, Teacher, Martyr, c.200

Meditation:
    But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
    -- 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    We need not despair of any man, so long as he lives. For God deemed it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit evil at all.
    ... St. Augustine (354-430)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I never despair over another of Your children.

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

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 06/27/06 -- Tauler: the only safety

Christian Quotation of the Day

June 27, 2006Meditation:
    In you, O LORD, do I take refuge;
        let me never be put to shame!
    In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
        incline your ear to me, and save me!
    Be to me a rock of refuge,
        to which I may continually come;
    you have given the command to save me,
        for you are my rock and my fortress.
    -- Psalms 71:1-3 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    If thou desirest to be safe, turn at once in thy emptiness to God. If thou hast been inconsistent, how canst thou better become consistent again than in God only? How canst thou better escape death than by the true, real Life—which is God Himself?
    ... Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are my Rock.

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

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 06/26/06 -- Kraemer: the deep-freeze of the Church

Christian Quotation of the Day

June 26, 2006Meditation:
    Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
    -- 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    In all our criticism and near-despair of the institutional Church, it should never be forgotten that many powers and possibilities really exist in it, but often in captivity; they exist as frozen credits and dead capital.
    ... Hendrik Kraemer (1888-1965)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, liberate Your Church with Your life-giving word.

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

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 06/25/06 -- John Chrysostom: the fruits of forgiveness

Christian Quotation of the Day

June 25, 2006Meditation:
    Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
    -- Colossians 3:12-13 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Let us pardon those who have wronged us. For that which others scarcely accomplish—I mean the blotting out of their own sins by means of fasting and lamentations, and prayers, and sackcloth and ashes—this it is possible for us easily to effect without sackcloth and ashes and fasting, if only we blot out anger from our heart, and with sincerity forgive those who have wronged us.
    ... St. John Chrysostom (345?-407)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to forgive the wrongs done to me, for the sake of Your sacrifice for me.

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

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 06/24/06 -- Brooks: no hiding place

Christian Quotation of the Day

June 24, 2006

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist

Meditation:
    For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light.
    -- Mark 4:22 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Keep clear of concealment—keep clear of the need of concealment. It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding something comes. The whole life is different thenceforth. When there are questions to be feared and eyes to be avoided and subjects which must not be touched, the bloom of life is gone.
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, expose my faults to Your light, so that I may better see the path You have provided for me.

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

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
CQOD Home Page:    http://www.cqod.com/
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Comments and problems: email to curator@gospelcom.net