CQOD: 02/10/07 -- Brunner: knowledge and responsibility

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 10, 2007

Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543

Meditation:
    ... you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.
    -- Romans 2:21-23 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Since becoming a disciple of Christ, Paul knows that all mere orthodoxy, all mere knowledge concerning God’s will, is not only nothing but less than nothing. The more knowledge, the more obligation. The maintaining of revealed doctrine becomes blasphemy if it is not borne out by the corresponding testimony of the life. He who is always appealing to the Word of God without his life and conduct corresponding to this knowledge of God, dishonors God’s name, making Him an object of mockery and hatred. It is just those who know so well how to talk about God who make His name hateful among men, because their lives darken the picture of God and turn it into a caricature. The Lord is judged by the life of His servants; this is the truer, the more zealously they appeal to Him.
    ... Emil Brunner (1889-1966), The Letter to the Romans [1959]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am ashamed that I fall so far below what You have taught me.

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CQOD: 02/09/07 -- Drummond: the urgency of loving

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 9, 2007Meditation:
    Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!
    -- Matthew 18:4-7 (KJV)

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Quotation:
    Some of us have not much time to lose [to begin loving]. Remember, once more, that this is a matter of life and death. I cannot help speaking urgently, for myself, for yourselves. “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it is better not to have lived than not to love.
    ... Henry Drummond (1851-1897), “The Greatest Thing in the World” [1892]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me a heart of love, a heart like Yours.

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CQOD: 02/08/07 -- Church: the House of Prayer

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 8, 2007Meditation:
    Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
    -- Psalm 66:16 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Here in His holy House of Prayer we may come on our day of rest, and be safe, if we will, from any thoughts but those of the world to come. Here we gather together for no earthly business, but for a purpose of one sort only; and that purpose is the same for which saints and angels are met together in that innumerable company before the throne of God. If there is a place on earth which, however faintly and dimly, shadows out the courts of God on high, surely it is where His people are met together, in all their weakness and ignorance and sin, in their poor and low estate, yet with humble and faithful hearts, in His House of Prayer.
    ... R. W. Church (1815-1890), Village Sermons [1897]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am not worthy to be heard in Your courts, but in Your grace, receive my prayer.

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CQOD: 02/07/07 -- Owen: hot and cold

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 7, 2007Meditation:
    In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
    -- Judges 21:25 (KJV)

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Quotation:
    Common experience declares how momentary and how useless are those violent fits and gusts of endeavors which proceed from fear and uncertainty, both in things spiritual and things temporal, or civil. Whilst men are under the power of actual impressions from such fears, they will convert to God, yea, they will turn in a moment, and perfect their holiness in an instant; but so soon as that impression wears off (as it will do on every occasion, and upon none at all) such persons are as dead and cold towards God as the lead or iron, which but now ran in a fiery stream, is now when the heat is departed from it.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, send Your grace, to keep my mind and heart focussed on Your will.

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CQOD: 02/06/07 -- Eckhart: turned away from God?

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 6, 2007

Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597

Meditation:
    Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."
    -- John 14:23 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    The man who will and can go to our Lord in all freedom... must be such that his love for the Sacrament and for our Lord grows more and more by this [Holy Communion], and that the reverence is not diminished by frequently approaching it. For often what is one man’s life may be another’s death. Therefore you should observe yourself, whether your love for God is growing and your reverence is not destroyed. Then, the more frequently you go to the Sacrament, the better you will become, and the better and more profitable it will be. And therefore be not turned away from your God by words and sermons.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Spiritual Instructions

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I seek You in communion.

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CQOD: 02/05/07 -- Allen: recognizing unity

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 5, 2007Meditation:
    Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
    -- 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    It is not true that the assertion of spiritual principle is vain because we can not see at the moment how to express that principle in action. It would assuredly make a difference if Christians, in their approach one to another, realized that, in spite of appearances, they were in fact one. If, in their seeking after external reunion, they realized that they were seeking not to create a unity which does not yet exist, but to find an expression for a unity which does exist, which is indeed the one elemental reality, they would approach one another in a better frame of mind. The common recognition of the principle would in itself be a unifying force of great value, and would dispose those who shared it to approach questions of difference in a spirit of unity which would immensely assist their deliberations.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Pentecost and the World [1917]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, send the knowledge of Your Spirit into every part of the Body.

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CQOD: 02/04/07 -- Gossip: people's ignorance of God

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 4, 2007

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189

Meditation:
    Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
    -- Matthew 7:9-11 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced that men did not know God. They can’t, He said, or they could not live as they are doing. Some of them are so anxious and worried, with all God’s care and strength and love to lean against! They cannot know of it, and be so fidgety and nervous as they are. Some of them are afraid. Their consciences have drawn so grim a picture of Him that fearfully they shrink out of His presence, wish there were not God! Frightened of God, with His free and full and eager forgiveness, with His incredible generosity, with His compassionate heart that nobody can sour into illwill, do what he may. And even the best of them are not quite sure. Their faith at most is but a timorous hope, and a trembling perhaps; no more. Often in the Synagogue He had watched them sobbing out their penitential psalms and begging God to turn from anger and be gracious toward them... And it amazed Christ. Look at His sun, He cries, how it streams down in all its midday fullness on the most unworthy, and at the rain, how it falls healingly upon the fields of the least grateful, and how He keeps thrusting His benefits and blessings into the most soiled hands, loading the most impossible people with His kindnesses. If only I could make them see God as He really is: if only they could realize that He is their Father, that what their own child is to them, that, and far more, each of them is to Him.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent [1926]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You turn my fear into gladness.

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CQOD: 02/03/07 -- Calvin: imperfect offerings

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 3, 2007

Feast of Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, 865

Meditation:
    But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
    -- James 1:25 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    But sons who are more generously and candidly treated by their fathers do not hesitate to offer them incomplete and halfdone and even defective works, trusting that their obedience and readiness of mind will be accepted by their fathers, even though they have not quite achieved what their fathers intended. Such children ought we to be, firmly trusting that our services will be approved by our most merciful Father, however small, rude, and imperfect these may be.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion [1559]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, it is You who transforms my imperfect offerings into glory.

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CQOD: 02/02/07 -- Law: admirers of piety

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 2, 2007

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE

Meditation:
    And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
    -- Ezekiel 36:26 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Persons that are well affected to religion, that receive instructions of piety with pleasure and satisfaction, often wonder how it comes to pass that they make no greater progress in that religion which they so much admire. Now the reason of it is this: it is because religion lives only in their head, but something else has possession of their heart; and therefore they continue from year to year mere admirers and praisers of piety, without ever coming up to the reality and perfection of its precepts.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, c. VII [1728]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord of all newness, I was once dead, and now I live.

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CQOD: 02/01/07 -- Newbigin: a visible fellowship

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 1, 2007

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525

Meditation:
    For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them
    -- Matthew 18:20 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure upsurges of fresh spiritual vitality, breaking through and revolting against the hardened structure of the older body, and claiming, in the name of the Spirit, liberty from outward forms and institutions. And we have seen how rapidly they develop their own forms, their own structures of thought, of language, and of organization. It would surely be a very unbiblical view of human nature and history to think—as we so often, in our pagan way, do—that this is just an example of the tendency of all things to slide down from a golden age to an age of iron, to identify the spiritual with the disembodied, and to regard visible structure as equivalent to sin. We must rather recognize here a testimony to the fact that Christianity is, in its very heart and essence, not a disembodied spirituality, but life in a visible fellowship, a life which makes such total claim upon us, and so engages our total powers, that nothing less than the closest and most binding association of men with one another can serve its purpose.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God [1953]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant to our fellowship the continual presence of Your Spirit.

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CQOD: 01/31/07 -- Kilmer: Why do the nations rage?

Christian Quotation of the Day

January 31, 2007

Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888

Meditation:
    I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
    -- Psalm 2:7-9 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells That the wind sways above a ruined shrine. Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine. Light songs we breathe, that perish with our breath, Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod. They shall not live who have not tasted death. They only sing who are struck dumb by God.
    ... Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let Your reign begin in me.

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CQOD: 01/30/07 -- Hammarskjöld: life from God

Christian Quotation of the Day

January 30, 2007Meditation:
    [God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'
    -- Acts 17:26-28 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason.
    ... Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961), Markings, p. 56 [1964]

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Quiet time reflection:
    My only source of life is You, Lord.

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CQOD: 01/29/07 -- Inge: God's grace

Christian Quotation of the Day

January 29, 2007Meditation:
    As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace...
    -- 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    It is becoming impossible for those who mix with their fellow men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally.
    ... W. R. Inge (1860-1954)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Open my eyes, Lord, to see Your servants wherever they are.

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