CQOD: 09/30/07 -- Fénelon: doing God's will

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 30, 2007Meditation:
    While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."
    He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?"
    Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
    -- Matthew 12:46-50 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    I ought to consider the business which occurs in the daily order of Providence as the work which God appoints me; and I should apply myself to it in a manner worthy of God, namely, with exactness and with tranquility. I ought not to neglect anything or be passionately vehement about anything, for it is dangerous to do the work of the Lord negligently, on the one hand; or, on the other, to appropriate it to ourselves by self-love and false zeal. In this latter case, our actions arise from a principle of self-will: we are eager and anxious for the success, and that under the pretense of seeking the glory of God. O, God, grant me Thy grace to enable me to be faithful in action and resigned in success! My only business is to do Thy will, and to do it as Thy will, not forgetting Thee in the performance of it.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to keep my eyes on You.

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CQOD: 09/29/07 -- Brent: hardness of prayer

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 29, 2007

Feast of Michael & All Angels

Meditation:
    Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping. The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer.
    -- Psalms 6:8,9 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    Pray hardest when it is hardest to pray.
    ... Charles H. Brent (1862-1929)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open my ears that I might hear You in prayer.

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CQOD: 09/28/07 -- Green: priesthood of all believers

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 28, 2007Meditation:
    And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
    -- Hebrews 10:10-12 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    We instinctively contrast the ministry with the laity, the priesthood with the people, the professional with the amateur. But the New Testament church knew nothing of this. This is perfectly astounding when you recall that every society in the world, including Israel, had had its specialized holy seasons, holy places, and holy people. In Christianity, all three were abolished. The keeping of holy days was a matter of indifference to the early Christians. They had no holy buildings, but met in private houses—the incarnation of God had made the secular sacred. As for holy people, why, all believers were called to be that holy people, that universal priesthood envisioned long ago in the Old Testament but never hitherto realized. The mediation of Jesus has abolished the need for an intermediary caste of priests: all can have access to God in virtue of the sacrifice of Christ; all have the priestly responsibility of interceding for man to God; all have the prophetic task of speaking God’s message to men. There is no priestly body within Christianity. It is a one-class society—though you would never guess as much, so grossly has conformity to pagan and Old-Testament models distorted this unique facet of Christ’s community.
    ... E. M. B. Green (b.1930), “Mission and Ministry”

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I may speak the Gospel clearly.

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CQOD: 09/27/07 -- Gossip: interfering with the world

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 27, 2007

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660

Meditation:
    The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."
    -- Isaiah 29:13,14 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    If you wanted a label for us, would you find a better than a Sadducean Age? We also are not worrying about immortality, hardly believe in it, or at least are not sure; we, too, have limited ourselves to this dust-speck of time, leaving unclaimed the vast inheritance beyond of which Christ told us; we, too, are putting all our zeal and passion and enthusiasm into things of this earth here, quite sure that that is the only road to progress, and that this everlasting chatter about the soul is quite beside the point. And they are all so earnest and so certain, work so hard, are animated often by such lofty motives, are so sure that there is really no manner of need for Christ: that given this, and this, and this, each of them pushing forward his particular panacea—the world will manage very well; that to talk about Christ, and changing people’s hearts, and making us new creatures, is merely to lose precious time and wander from the practical into vague day-dreaming of which nothing comes. And year by year their voices grow a little harder, and they eye Christ more and more askance, feel sourly that He is a bit of a nuisance and a stumbling-block to progress, keeping people quiet who should not be quiet, lulling them with these dim, immaterial, fantastic, spiritual hopes of His which they think have no body, and can not have. Once more the whisper grows, “Were He not far better away?” Meantime we can ignore Him, they say; and they do.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent, p. 129 [1926]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your voice be heard throughout the world.

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CQOD: 09/26/07 -- Barclay: seeing in God's light

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 26, 2007

Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942

Meditation:
    There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
    -- Revelation 22:5 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    Here is the great truth that, only when we see things in the light of God, do we see things as they are. It is only when we see things in the light of God that we see what things are really important, and what things are not. Things which seem vastly important, things like ambition, and prestige, and money and gain, lose all their value and importance when they are seen in the light of God. Pleasures and habits and social customs which seem permissible enough, are seen for the dangerous things they are when they are seen in the light of God. Things which seem evils, hardship, toil, discipline, unpopularity, even persecution, are seen in their glory when they are seen in the light of God.
    ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Revelation of John [1961] v.II, p. 276

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

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
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CQOD: 09/25/07 -- Hanson: the earliest ministry

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 25, 2007

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392

Meditation:
    If Timothy comes, see to it that he has nothing to fear while he is with you, for he is carrying on the work of the Lord, just as I am. No one, then, should refuse to accept him. Send him on his way in peace so that he may return to me. I am expecting him along with the brothers.
    -- 1 Corinthians 16:10,11 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    It may seem an anachronism to speak of “the relation of the ordained ministry towards the Church” ... when we are only thinking about St. Paul and his converts. Was there really an ordained ministry as early as that? We need not argue about whether, or how, St. Paul was ordained, but he certainly considered that he and his fellow workers had a special pastoral relation to their converts.... St. Paul was primarily a missionary, which in itself establishes a link with the Servant of the Lord. As a missionary, he was not working on his own, but was supported by a group of assistants without whose help he could never have carried on his work. We know the names of many of them... But there were many more whose names we do not know, sometimes referred to as “the brethren” (e.g., in I Cor. 16:11). This missionary group with St. Paul as its leader is the New Testament equivalent of the ordained ministry of today, and it is significant for us that St. Paul describes this group as carrying out in some sense the work of servants in the Church.
    ... Anthony T. Hanson (1916-1991), The Church of the Servant [1962]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone ordain ministry.

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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: 09/24/07 -- Nouwen: accomplishment?

Christian Quotation of the Day

September 24, 2007Meditation:
    Then [the Sanhedrin] called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
    -- Acts 4:18-20 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? but: Are you in love with Jesus?
    ... Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996), In the name of Jesus, p. 24

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me how to thrust away my own desires for accomplishment and simply love You more.

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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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