CQOD: 03/05/07 -- Calvin: God's means

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 5, 2007Meditation:
    Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant.
    -- Psalm 119:76 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    For God, ... declaring that he will be gentle and kind to all, gives to the utterly miserable hope that they will get what they have sought. Accordingly we must note the general forms by which no one from first to last (as people say) is excluded, provided sincerity of heart, dissatisfaction with ourselves, humility, and faith are present in order that our hypocrisy may not profane God’s name by calling upon him deceitfully. Our most gracious Father will not cast out those whom he not only urges, but stirs up with every possible means, to come to him.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, iii.20.14 [1559]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am faithless; You are faithful.

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CQOD: 03/04/07 -- Carmichael: Yes, Lord!

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 4, 2007

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647

Meditation:
    He also told them a parable: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old."
    -- Luke 5:36 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    [May] the Lord lead further and further those who do in earnest want to live the Joshua [i.e., transformed] life. It means a daily dying to self and what self wants; a daily turning to our Master with a “Yes, Lord” to everything, even to what is most against the grain. May He quicken those who have not yet begun to live this life to see what they are missing, before it is too late.
    ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), Edges of His Ways [1955]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Yes, Lord.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2007, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 03/03/07 -- Gossip: becoming a Christian

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 3, 2007Meditation:
    But that is not the way you learned Christ!-- assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
    -- Ephesians 4:20-24 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    If Christ and His work and His sacrifice do not result in Christlikeness in you and me, then for us it is quite valueless, and has entirely failed; and, insofar as you and I are concerned, Christ was thrown away in vain. How, then, is it with you and me? Be very sure that upon Calvary it was no strange, immoral favoritism that came into operation, whereby—because of some beliefs that remain mere dead letters, that produce no change whatever in their characters—some people living the same kind of life as others and following the same selfish ends and interests as they, are given a destiny entirely different. That is the vainest of vain dreams. Rather is this the supreme revelation of a new way of living life; and only those who—blunderingly, it may be, but yet honestly—seek to adopt and imitate it can be counted really Christian folk.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent [1926]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me a life that imitates Yours.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD: 03/02/07 -- Law: submission to God's work

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 2, 2007

Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672

Meditation:
    ... those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
    -- Galatians 5:24 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    God is always present and always working towards the life of the soul and its deliverance from captivity under flesh and blood. But this inward work of God, though never ceasing or altering, is yet always and only hindered by the activity of our own nature and faculties, by bad men through their obedience to earthly passions and by good men through their striving to be good in their own way, by their natural strength and a multiplicity of holy labors and contrivances. Both these sorts of people obstruct the work of God upon their souls. For we can cooperate with God no other way than by submitting to the work of God, and seeking, and leaving ourselves to it.
    ... William Law (1686-1761)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, only in Christ can Your will for me be accomplished.

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CQOD: 03/01/07 -- Allen: expecting a response

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 1, 2007

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601

Meditation:
    And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
    -- Matthew 4:19 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    To preach the Gospel requires that the preacher should believe that he is sent to those whom he is addressing at the moment, because God has among them those whom He is at the moment calling; it requires that the speaker should expect a response.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or ours? [1927]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I hear Your call to me.

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CQOD: 02/28/07 -- Tozer: counterfeits for the Spirit

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 28, 2007Meditation:
    ... my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
    -- 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit; these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, save us from the enemy's attacks. Make Your authentic Spirit known to us.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD: 02/27/07 -- Herbert: Immortal Love

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 27, 2007

Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633

Meditation:
    Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
    -- Psalm 98:4 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Immortal Love, author of this great frame, Sprung from that beauty which can never fade; How hath man parcel’d out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, While mortal love doth all the title gain! Which siding with invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain (Thy workmanship), and give thee share in neither. Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit: The world is theirs; they two play out the game, Thou standing by: and though thy glorious name Wrought our deliverance from th’ infernal pit, Who sings thy praise? only a scarf or glove Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.
    ... George Herbert (1593-1633)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, to love and praise You is the air I breathe.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2007, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 02/26/07 -- Brooks: perilous freedom

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 26, 2007Meditation:
    So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
    -- John 8:36 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Freedom is thrust upon us, and we must take it whether we will or not. Happiest is he who takes it most completely and most joyfully, but also most seriously and with the deepest sense of its dangers.
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my freedom is in Christ alone.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2007, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 02/25/07 -- MacDonald: love before justice

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 25, 2007Meditation:
    You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
    -- Matthew 5:43-45 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    The pure eye for the true vision of another’s claims can only go with the loving heart. The man who hates can hardly be delicate in doing Justice, say, to his neighbor’s love, to his neighbor’s predilections and peculiarities. It is hard enough to be just to our friends; and how shall our enemies fare with us?
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “Love Thine Enemy,” Unspoken Sermons, Series One [1867]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me how to do this harder love.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2007, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 02/24/07 -- Bruce: second things put first

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 24, 2007Meditation:
    Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
    -- 1 Corinthians 1:13 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    In church government... our primary concern is to reflect the nature of God. Christ became man in order that He might redeem men from their fallen state, from their selfishness and self-isolating divisions from God and from each other; so that, gathered together in one in Him, man may offer to God that likeness to Himself in love for which he was created. Church government is primarily concerned with this: with worship, with the drawing of the whole life of the whole world into this reflection of the nature of God. It is secondly—and only secondly—concerned with the quarrels and peccadilloes of those who are not, as a matter of fact, imitating God’s nature very faithfully.
    ... Michael Bruce, “The Layman and Church Government”

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your church is to be in the image of Christ.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2007, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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