Wednesday, March 28, 2007

CQOD: 04/02/07 -- Hoskyns: simplification vs. truth

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 2, 2007
Meditation:
    I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
    -- 1 Timothy 3:14-16 (ESV)

Quotation:
    The Creeds... were formulated gradually, as a result of a series of desperate controversies—which are now named, sometimes after the supposed leaders and representatives of a particular interpretation of the Christian religion, and sometimes after the particular interpretation itself. I need not now attempt to make precise these heresies, as they came to be called. It is necessary only to point out that in various ways all these heresies were simplifications. By means of them, the revelation of God to men was made—or appeared to be made—less scandalous. On the other hand, the various clauses of the Creed were not formulated as a new simplification, or as an alternative-ism. They were nothing more than emphatic statements of the Biblical scandal, statements which brought into sharp antagonism the new simplification and the old, Scriptural, many-sided, and vigorous truth.
    ... E. C. Hoskyns (1884-1937), We Are the Pharisees [1960]

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me avoid accomodations in the Gospel, and to shun the world's respect and praise in favor of holding to Your truth.


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CQOD: 04/01/07 -- Maurice: God's will in our times

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 1, 2007
Palm Sunday
Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872
Meditation:
    But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.
    -- Hebrews 10:32-33 (ESV)

Quotation:
    God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves or some dark demon. If we are not fit to cope with that which He has prepared for us, we would have been utterly unfit for any condition that we imagine for ourselves. We are to live and wrestle in this time, and in no other. Let us humbly, tremblingly, manfully look at it, and we shall not wish that the sun could go back its ten degrees, or that we could go back with it. If easy times are departed, it is that the difficult times may make us more in earnest; that they may teach us not to depend on ourselves. If easy belief is impossible, it is that we may learn what belief is, and in whom it is to be placed.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open my eyes, that I may see Your hand in all my circumstances.


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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2007, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 03/31/07 -- Donne: separation from God

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 31, 2007
Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631
Meditation:
    It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
    -- Hebrews 10:31 (ESV)

Quotation:
    When all is done, the hell of hells, the torment of torments, is the everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presence; sayes the Apostle, it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Yet there was a case, in which David found an ease, to fall into the hands of God, to scape the hands of men: When God’s hand is bent to strike, it is a fearefull thing, to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God, is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), LXXX Sermons [1640]

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I know that You will never leave me.


See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2007, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 03/30/07 -- Tillotson: what would Abraham do?

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 30, 2007
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] "I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father." They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did."
    -- John 8:37-40 (ESV)

Quotation:
    Because they were prejudiced against the meanness of our Savior’s birth and condition, and had upon false grounds (though, as they thought, upon the infallibility of tradition and of Scripture interpreted by tradition) entertained quite other notions of the Messiah from what he was really to be, because they were proud and thought themselves too wise to learn of him, and because his doctrine of humility and selfdenial did thwart their interest and bring down their authority and credit among the people; therefore they set themselves against him with all their might, opposing his doctrine and blasting his reputation and persecuting him to the death: and all this while did bear up themselves with a conceit of the antiquity and privileges of their church, and their profound knowledge in the laws of God, and a great external show of piety and devotion and an arrogant presence and usurpation of being the only church and people of God in the world.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Sermons

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, prevent me from using You to my own ends.


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CQOD: 03/29/07 -- Watts: My God, how endless is Thy love!

Christian Quotation of the Day

March 29, 2007
Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974
Meditation:
    This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
    -- Lamentations 3:21-23 (KJV)

Quotation:
    My God, how endless is Thy love!
    Thy gifts are every evening new,
    And morning mercies from above
    Gently distill like early dew.

    Thou spread’st the curtains of the night,
    Great guardian of my sleeping hours;
    Thy sov’reign word restores the light,
    And quickens all my drowsy powers.

    I yield my powers to Thy command,
    To Thee I consecrate my days;
    Perpetual blessings from Thine hand
    Demand perpetual songs of praise.
    ... Isaac Watts (1674-1748), Psalms of David Imitated [1719], Psalm 81

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all my hope is in You.


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