Sunday, November 26, 2006

CQOD: 12/04/06 -- Phillips: a terrifying ignorance

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 4, 2006
Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637
Meditation:
    ... thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, "Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand."
    -- Romans 15:20-21 (ESV)
Quotation:
    To me there is a much more frightening ignorance in our modern world than the “ignorance of the heathen.” I am referring to the almost total ignorance of the content and implication of the Christian Faith shown by many “clever” people today. Frankly, I find it horrifying to discover that men who are experts in their own line—in astronomy, genetics, or nuclear physics, for example—have no adult knowledge of what the Church of Christ stands for, and a complete blank ignorance of what the Church is achieving today. It is the more horrifying because people who rightly respect the expert for his knowledge in his own field have no idea that he has not carefully examined and reluctantly discarded Christianity; but in all probability he has never studied it at all!
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), The Church Under the Cross [1956]
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let me not presume. Lead me to speak the Gospel boldly.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:41:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 12/03/06 -- Chadwick: wise and foolish sacrifices

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 3, 2006
Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552
Meditation:
    Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, "He is out of his mind."
    -- Mark 3:20-21 (ESV)
Quotation:
    There is a curious betrayal of the popular estimate of this world and the world to come, in the honor paid to those who cast away life in battle, or sap it slowly in the pursuit of wealth or honors, and the contempt expressed for those who compromise life on behalf of souls, for which Christ died. Whenever, by exertion in any unselfish cause, health is broken or fortune impaired, or influential friends estranged, the follower of Christ is called an enthusiast, a fanatic, or even more plainly a man of unsound mind. He may be comforted by remembering that Jesus was said to be beside Himself when teaching and healing left Him not leisure even to eat.
    ... G. A. Chadwick (1840-1923)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me to forget my reputation for Your sake.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:35:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 12/02/06 -- Gossip: danger in contentment

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 2, 2006
Meditation:
    I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
    -- Psalm 119:75 (ESV)
Quotation:
    This insensibility of ours is a bad symptom. For one thing, it implies that we have no spiritual ambition, else we should not be satisfied with such poor lives; that we cannot have thought out the fact of Jesus Christ, and how immeasurably He has raised the standard. Will you hang your wretched daubs beside the works of Titian and Michelangelo and not be shamed by the enormous contrast—stand back and say, with a satisfied smirk, “That is pretty good, you know!”? And can you live face to face with Jesus Christ, and be content with what you are?
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd [1924]
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am ashamed of my sins.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:34:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 12/01/06 -- Tozer: the gaze of faith

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 1, 2006
Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916
Meditation:
    So Jesus said to them, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him."
    -- John 8:28-29 (ESV)
Quotation:
    If faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me Your face.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:27:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 11/30/06 -- de Sales: the sweetness of devotion

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 30, 2006
Feast of Andrew the Apostle
Meditation:
    For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
    -- Romans 14:7-8 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Devotion is the real spiritual sweetness which takes away all bitterness from mortifications, and prevents consolations from disagreeing with the soul; it cures the poor of sadness, and the rich of presumption; it keeps the oppressed from feeling desolate, and the prosperous from insolence; it averts sadness from the lonely, and dissipation from social life; it is as warmth in winter and as refreshing dew in summer; it knows how to abound and how to suffer want, how to profit alike by honor and by contempt; it accepts gladness and sadness with an even mind, and fills men’s hearts with a wondrous sweetness.
    ... François de Sales (1567-1622)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to know the shallowness of my devotion, that I may receive You more truly.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:25:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 11/29/06 -- Pascal: made for God or not?

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 29, 2006
Meditation:
    Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
    -- Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)
Quotation:
    If man is not made for God, why is he not happy except in God? If man is made for God, why is he so opposed to God?
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées [1660]
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your likeness is both burden and blessing.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:21:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 11/28/06 -- Trueblood: the unexplored audience

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 28, 2006
Meditation:
    So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
    -- 1 Peter 5:1-3 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Beautiful sanctuaries, paved parking lots, and new liturgies will do very little for people who sit in worship with their fingers crossed and do not really believe the faith which is expounded. Often the layman dismisses what the preacher says as something irrelevant to his situation and generation. When he joins a group where he is no longer afraid to be frank, the supposedly faithful member often admits that he has never really accepted what he thinks he has heard. He has, for example, grave reservations about the idea of creation. Did not the world evolve of itself? Do we really need the hypothesis of Infinite Purpose to make sense of the physical, biological, and psychological development? These questions seldom come to the surface when the Church provides merely a one-way preaching. There is little chance of renewal if all that we have is the arrangement by which one speaks and the others listen. One trouble with this conventional system is that the speaker never knows what the unanswered questions are, or what reservations remain in the layman’s mentality.
    ... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), The Incendiary Fellowship [1967]
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant my pastor and my elders wisdom and discernment.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:15:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 11/27/06 -- M'Intyre: on the image of God

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 27, 2006
Meditation:
    ... then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
    -- Genesis 2:7 (ESV)
Quotation:
    When God finished man He breathed into the human form the divine life, “and man became a living soul.” Man is created to be a witness and likeness of God. God and man are so near to one another that it was possible for the Eternal Word to become Man without ceasing to be God, to re-ascend to the Highest without dehumanizing the Manhood which He had assumed; so near that the believer may say in the fullest meaning of the words, “I live, yet not I, but Christ.”
    ... David M. M’Intyre (1859-1938), Faith’s Title Deeds [1924]
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Christ, You are the Eternal Man.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 11:12:00 PM 0 comments

CQOD: 11/26/06 -- Allshorn: whole-hearted yearning

Christian Quotation of the Day

November 26, 2006
Meditation:
    I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
    -- Jeremiah 24:7 (ESV)
Quotation:
    “They shall return unto me with their whole heart.” “Ye shall search for me with all your heart.” He makes a direct call to us for single-mindedness: a single-minded longing for Him—no lesser aim will do; no desire to be good, no striving to measure up to some standard we have set for ourselves, to correct some failure we have been shown in our way of life. These may be temporarily necessary, but they will turn to dust and ashes, they will end in a grim dryness, unless at the back of them all is what He asks of us—a never-ending search for a real knowledge of Him, for a sense of His reality, a confidence in His companionship, a joy and delight in the very person of God Himself. It is for this that we must learn to long and long, till our prayers for it become not just a form of words, but a stretching out of our whole being to Him.
    ... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), Notebooks [1957]
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am living Your promise.
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posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 11/26/2006 03:23:00 PM 0 comments