Friday, March 09, 2007

CQOD: 03/15/07 -- Allshorn: the object of prayer

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 15, 2007
Meditation:
    For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
    -- Hosea 6:6 (KJV)

Quotation:
    The primary object of prayer is to know God better; we and our needs should come second.
    ... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), Notebooks [1957]

Quiet time reflection:
    Teach me, Lord, to please You.


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CQOD: 03/14/07 -- Bernard: new wine

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 14, 2007
Meditation:
    And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit...
    -- Ephesians 5:18 (ESV)

Quotation:
    Prayer is a wine which makes glad the heart of man.
    ... St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I taste the ecstasy of Your Spirit's touch.


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CQOD: 03/13/07 -- Chantal: ambition vs. prayer

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 13, 2007
Meditation:
    But [the Lord] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
    -- 2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)

Quotation:
    I have come to see that I do not limit my mind simply enough to prayer that I always want to do something myself in it, wherein I do very wrong and wish most definitely to cut off and separate my mind from all that, and to hold it with all my strength, as much as I can, to the sole regard and simple unity. By allowing the fear of being ineffectual to enter into the state of prayer, and by wishing to accomplish something myself, I spoilt it all.
    ... Jeanne Françoise Chantal (1572-1641)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, drive all thought of self from my communion with You.


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CQOD: 03/12/07 -- Jones: prayer

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 12, 2007
Meditation:
    O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
    -- Psalm 63:1-4 (ESV)

Quotation:
    Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us—an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions He had in mind in their creation. Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God... Prayer is commitment. We don’t merely co-operate with God with certain things held back within. We, the total person, co-operate. This means that co-operation equals commitment. Prayer means that the total you is praying. Your whole being reaches out to God, and God reaches down to you... Prayer is communion. Prayer is a means, but often it is an end in itself. There are times when your own wants and the needs of others drop away and you want just to look on His face and tell Him how much you love Him... Prayer is commission. Out of the quietness with God, power is generated that turns the spiritual machinery of the world. When you pray, you begin to feel the sense of being sent, that the divine compulsion is upon you...
    ... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Growing Spiritually [1953]

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I hear Your voice in the silence of my heart.


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CQOD: 03/11/07 -- de Sales: understanding and healing from prayer

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 11, 2007
Meditation:
    For through [Christ] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
    -- Ephesians 2:18 (ESV)

Quotation:
    Prayer opens the understanding to the brightness of Divine Light, and the will to the warmth of Heavenly Love—nothing can so effectually purify the mind from its many ignorances, or the will from its perverse affections. It is as a healing water which causes the roots of our good desires to send forth fresh shoots, which washes away the soul’s imperfections, and allays the thirst of passion.
    ... François de Sales (1567-1622)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are making me whole.


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Monday, March 05, 2007

CQOD: 03/10/07 -- Brooks: Prayer's foregound and background

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 10, 2007
Meditation:
    And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."
    -- Matthew 26:39 (ESV)

Quotation:
    Every true prayer has its background and its foreground. The foreground of prayer is the intense, immediate desire for a certain blessing which seems to be absolutely necessary for the soul to have; the background of prayer is the quiet, earnest desire that the will of God, whatever it may be, should be done. What a picture is the perfect prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane! In front burns the strong desire to escape death and to live; but behind there stands, calm and strong, the craving of the whole life for the doing of the will of God... Leave out the foreground, let there be no expression of the will of him who prays, and there is left a pure submission which is almost fatalism. Leave out the background, let there be no acceptance of the will of God, and the prayer is only an expression of self-will, a petulant claiming of the uncorrected choice of him who prays. Only when the two are there together, the special desire resting on the universal submission, the universal submission opening into the special desire, is the picture perfect and the prayer complete.
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the faith to know that You hear my prayers and make Your will known.


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CQOD: 03/09/07 -- Owen: talk less and pray more

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 9, 2007
Meditation:
    Hear a just cause, O LORD; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!
    -- Psalm 17:1 (ESV)

Quotation:
    If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be better than they are in the world: at least, we should be better enabled to bear them.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my heart listens for Your voice.


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CQOD: 03/08/07 -- Studdert Kennedy: certainty

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 8, 2007
Commemoration of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929
Meditation:
    He also told them a parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?
    -- Luke 6:39 (ESV)

Quotation:
    Religion leaves a million questions unanswered and apparently unanswerable. Its purpose and object is not to make a man certain and cocksure about everything but to make him certain about those things of which he must be certain if he is to live a human life at all. Religion does not relieve us from the duty of thought; it makes it possible for a man to begin thinking. It does not put an end to research and enquiry, it gives a basis from which real research is made possible and fruitful of results; a basis without which thinking only means wandering round in circles, and getting nowhere in the end, and research means battering at a brass door that bruises our knuckles, and does not yield by the millionth part of an inch.
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Wicket Gate [1923]

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the source for all truth.


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CQOD: 03/07/07 -- Phillips: the living memorial

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 7, 2007
Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203
Meditation:
    For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
    -- 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (ESV)

Quotation:
    God in His providence has not allowed the survival of actual physical objects. But we have infinitely more than this, for instead of dead relics, however “authentic” and well preserved, we have a living life-line, stretching unbroken to Christ Himself. We have all the comfort and security that comes from historic tradition, but instead of being given the sad nostalgia of looking at an object and saying, “Look, how wonderful! This is what He touched then,” we are given an evergreen memorial [in communion] which says, “This is what He touches now.”
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Appointment with God [1956]

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I receive Your body and blood.


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CQOD: 03/06/07 -- Barclay: little is much

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 6, 2007
Meditation:
    Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten.
    -- John 6:11-13 (ESV)

Quotation:
    It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we will not bring to Christ what we have and what we are. If, just as we are, we would lay ourselves on the altar of service of Jesus Christ, there is no saying what Christ could do with us and through us. We may be sorry and embarrassed that we have not more to bring—and rightly so; but that is not reason for failing or refusing to bring what we have and what we are. Little is always much in the hands of Christ.
    ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John [1975] v.1, p.207-8

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, take my little and make what You will of it.


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