CQOD: 04/27/07 -- Rossetti: Am I a stone?

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 27, 2007

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894

Meditation:
    Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's[b] house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses--as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)
    -- Hebrews 3:1-4 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
        That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
        To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
    And yet not weep?

    Not so those women loved
        Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
        Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
    Not so the thief was moved;

    Not so the Sun and Moon
        Which hid their faces in a starless sky:
        A horror of great darkness at broad noon
    I only I.

    Yet give not o’er
        But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
        Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
    And smite a rock.
    ... Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my heart was made of stone till You took it over.

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CQOD: 04/26/07 -- Tillotson: the promises of the Gospel

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 26, 2007Meditation:
    And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."
    -- Mark 11:25-26 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    It is a great mistake, and of very pernicious consequence to the souls of men, to imagine that the gospel is all promises on God’s part, and that our part is only to believe them and to rely upon God for the performance of them, and to be very confident that He will make them good, though we do nothing else but only believe that He will do so. That the Christian religion is only a declaration of God’s goodwill to us, without any expectation of duty from us—this is an error which one could hardly think could ever enter into any who have the liberty to read the Bible and attend to what they read and find there. The three great promises of the gospel are all very expressly contained in our Savior’s first sermon upon the mount. There we find the promise of blessedness often repeated but never absolutely made, but upon certain conditions, plainly required on our part, as repentance, righteousness, humility, mercy, peaceableness, meekness, patience. Forgiveness of sins is likewise promised, but only to those who make a penitent acknowledgement of them and ask forgiveness for them, and are ready to grant that forgiveness to others which they beg of God for themselves. The gift of God’s Holy Spirit is likewise promised, but it is upon condition of our earnest and importunate prayer to God. The gospel is everywhere full of precepts enjoining duty and obedience upon our part, as well as of promises on God’s part, assuring blessings to us—nay, full of terrible threatenings also if we disobey the precepts of the gospel.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me Christian character.

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CQOD: 04/25/07 -- Mascall: the nature of the resurrection

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 25, 2007

Feast of Mark the Evangelist

Meditation:
    For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
    -- 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about the nature of the transformation which our Lord’s body underwent in his resurrection, and if we know anything about physics and biology we are quite likely to ask them. But, since we are concerned with an occurrence which is by hypothesis unique in certain relevant aspects, we are most unlikely to be able to give confident answers to them. [Paul M.] van Buren’s remarks about biology and the twentieth century are nothing more than rhetoric or, at best, are simply empirical statements about his own psychology. The first century knew as well as the twentieth that dead bodies do not naturally come to life again, and no amount of twentieth-century knowledge about natural processes can tell us what may happen by supernatural means.
    ... E. L. Mascall (b.1905), The Secularization of Christianity [1965]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your will alone has raised me from death to life.

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CQOD: 04/24/07 -- Lewis: the true language of Christian doctrine

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 24, 2007

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624

Meditation:
    For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
    -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    The [Christian] “doctrines” are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), letter [1931]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I never forget Your Passion, even for a moment.

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CQOD: 04/23/07 -- Vaughn: I greet Thy sepulcher

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 23, 2007

Feast of George, Martyr, Patron of England, c.304
Commemoration of Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1988

Meditation:
    Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
    -- John 20:17 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    I greet Thy sepulcher, salute Thy grave,
    That blest enclosure, where the angels gave
    The first glad tidings of Thy early light,
    And resurrection from the earth and night.
    I see that morning in Thy convert’s tears,
    Fresh as the dew, which but this downing wears.
    I smell her spices; and her ointment yields
    As rich a scent as the now primrosed fields:
    The Day-star smiles, and light, with Thee deceased,
    Now shines in all the chambers of the East.
        ... Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the Light of the world.

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CQOD: 04/22/07 -- Anderson: undeniable and undenied

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 22, 2007Meditation:
    Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
    -- John 20:8-9 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    All the references to the empty tomb come in the Gospels, which were written for Christians who wanted to know the facts. In the public preaching, to those who were not yet convinced, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, there was an insistent emphasis on the resurrection, but not a single reference to the tomb. For this I can see only one explanation. There was no point in speaking of the empty tomb, for everyone—friend and foe alike—knew that it was empty. The only points worth arguing about were why it was empty, and what its emptiness proved.
    ... J. N. D. Anderson (b.1908), Christianity: the Witness of History [1969]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Father, I acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and believe that You raised Him from the dead.

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CQOD: 04/21/07 -- Sheppard: the finished work

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 21, 2007

Feast of Anselm, Abbot of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1109

Meditation:
    When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
    -- John 19:30 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    “It is finished.” It is hard for us to know the intonation with which these words of the dying Christ were spoken. If they came as the sufferer’s sigh of relief, they must also have been the worker’s glad cry of achievement. Everything had been done that could be, man had been offered a sight of God as He really was. For those of us who believe that, in seeing Jesus, we see God, the Cross is not a coarse framework of blood-stained wood, but the most precious emblem of man’s dearest hopes; it is the great pledge which we sorely need, that love is stronger than hate, grace than sin, life than death.
    ... H. R. L. Sheppard (1880-1937), Two Days Before [1924]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your work is always perfected.

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CQOD: 04/20/07 -- Gossip: standing with Christ

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 20, 2007Meditation:
    Peter answered him, "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away." Jesus said to him, "Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." Peter said to him, "Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!" And all the disciples said the same.
    -- Matthew 26:33-35 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Perhaps we feel that we do not see much to encourage us. “I do not envy those who have to fight the battle of Christianity in the twentieth century,” wrote Marcus Dods. “Yes, perhaps I do; but it will be a stiff fight.” Of course, he did, and anybody with his valiant spirit would. There was a day when our Lord passed through cheering streets wildly enthusiastic; and another day when He watched the crowds deserting Him, till even the disciples themselves seemed to be withering, and He looked at them sadly. “Will you also go away?” He said. And Peter strode across the sudden empty spaces widening around Him, and put his back to Christ’s. “No,” he cried; “there are two of us, at least,” and faced the world, Christ’s poor minority of one. I would rather have been Peter than one of the shouting mob. And today, perhaps, we may get our chance of that.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd [1924]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the courage to stand with You.

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CQOD: 04/19/07 -- MacDonald: conforming to Him

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 19, 2007

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012

Meditation:
    But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
    -- 1 Peter 4:13-14 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Consuming Fire,” Unspoken Sermons, Series One [1867]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all that I suffer is nothing compared with what You suffered for me.

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CQOD: 04/18/07 -- Hanson: the final rebellion

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 18, 2007Meditation:
    [Jesus:] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'
    -- Matthew 23:37-39 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Here [in Matthew 23] is an interpretation of Israel’s history according to which God’s people have always been disobedient and rebellious: their alienation from God, it is clearly implied, is to reach its climax in the murder of the Messiah himself.
    ... Anthony T. Hanson (1916-1991)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, extinguish the rebellious Jerusalem inside me.

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CQOD: 04/17/07 -- Barclay: our sense of need

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 17, 2007Meditation:
    [Jesus:] How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"
    -- John 5:44-47 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    So long as we judge ourselves by human comparisons, there is plenty of room for self-satisfaction, and self-satisfaction kills faith, for faith is born of the sense of need. But when we compare ourselves with Jesus Christ, and through Him, with God, we are humbled to the dust, and then faith is born, for there is nothing left to do but to trust to the mercy of God.
    ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John [1975] (Vol.1) p. 201

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I may become one who is concerned only with pleasing You.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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