Owen: objecting to rebirth

April 4, 2009

Meditation:
    Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
    -- John 1:12,13 (NIV)

Quotation:
    Let them pretend what they please, the true reason why any despise the new birth is because they hate a new life. He that cannot endure to live to God will as little endure to hear of being born of God.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), Pneumatologia: Or, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit, III.1 (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You love and protect the new man from sin.

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MacDonald: the most perfect faith

April 3, 2009

Meditation:
    If you make the Most High your dwelling--even the LORD, who is my refuge--then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.
    -- Psalm 91:9,10 (NIV)

Quotation:
    The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home.” Such a faith will not lead to presumption. The man who can pray such a prayer will know better than another, that God is not mocked; that He is not a man that He should repent; that tears and entreaties will not work on Him to the breach of one of His laws; that for God to give a man because he asked for it that which was not in harmony with His laws of truth and right, would be to damn him—to cast him into the outer darkness.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Child in the Midst,” Unspoken Sermons, Series One [1867] (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    You have taught me to desire Your will.

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Pascal: two kinds of men

April 2, 2009

Meditation:
    When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
    On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
    -- Mark 2:16,17 (NIV)

Quotation:
    There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées [1660] (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    You have shown my my unrighteousness, Lord.

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Maurice: children

April 1, 2009
    Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872

Meditation:
    As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
    -- Ephesians 2:1-3 (NIV)

Quotation:
    We do not cease to be children because we are disobedient children.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), The Kingdom of Christ, New York: D. Appleton, 1843, pp. 266-267. (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have not deserved to be Your child.

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Donne: Lord, save me

March 31, 2009
    Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631

Meditation:
    [Jesus:] "He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."
    -- Matthew 21:44 (NIV)

Quotation:
    God, who is Almighty, Alpha and Omega, First and Last, that God is also Love itself; and therefore this Love is Alpha and Omega, First and Last too. Consider Christ's proceeding with Peter in the ship, in the storm: First he suffered him to be in some danger in the storm, but then he visits him with that strong assurance, "Be not afraid, It is I:" any testimony of his presence rectifies all. This puts Peter into that spiritual confidence and courage, "Lord bid me come to thee;" he hath a desire to be with Christ, but yet stays his bidding: he puts not himself into an unnecessary danger, without commandment: Christ bids him, and Peter comes: but yet, though Christ were in his sight, and even in the actual exercise of his love to him, so soon as he saw a gust, a storm, "He was afraid;" and Christ lets him fear, and lets him sink, and lets him cry, but he directs his fear and his cry to the right end: "Lord, save me;" and thereupon he stretched forth his hand and saved him...
    God ... puts his children into good ways, and he directs and protects them in those ways; for this is the constancy and perseverence of the love of Jesus Christ to us, as he is called in this text (Matt. 21:44), a stone.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Sermon preached to the nobility [1619], The Works of John Donne, London: John W. Parker, 1839, vol. 5, p. 31-32. (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I cannot be saved unless You do so.

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Carmichael: trials

March 30, 2009

Meditation:
    My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
    -- James 1:2,3 (KJV)

Quotation:
    If I ask to be delivered from trial rather than for deliverance out of it, to the praise of His glory; if I forget that the way of the Cross leads to the Cross and not to a bank of flowers; if I regulate my life on these lines, or even unconsciously my thinking, so that I am surprised when the way is rough and think it strange, "Think it not strange, Count it all joy," then I know nothing of Calvary love.
    ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), If [1938]

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, implant Your love in my heart.

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Gossip: the sins that crucified Christ

March 29, 2009
    Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974

Meditation:
    "Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.
    "What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them.
    "Crucify him!" they shouted.
    -- Mark 15:9-13 (NIV)

Quotation:
    Who as it that set up the Cross? Not fiends incarnate, but plain flesh and blood like us; quite ordinary men, decent and kindly souls enough, some of whom, no doubt, went to their homes that day from Calvary and took their children on their knees and loved them very genuinely. Only, they were a bit old fashioned in the make-up of their minds, had grown stiff and inelastic in their thinking, inhospitable to new notions—surely a very minor sin at worst—and some feared for their vested interests; and one, poor Pilate, had lost his temper with these impossible Jews in days gone by, and had received a curt warning from Rome that there must be no further bloodshed in Jerusalem, and here was a new trouble at the very worst of times in the whole year, with fanatics in tens of thousands come up for the Feast; and one wanted to save the world by quick-running machinery, and so put Christ into a situation where He could no longer dilly-dally but must do something vivid, dramatic, revolutionary. And the people? No need for us to bother being there at the decision between Jesus and Barabbas. We had the lined streets cheering for Him yesterday. And we have relatives to see, and messages from neighbors to deliver to their kindred. He will be all right; we needn't worry to be there. Such simple and plebian sins—minds grown a trifle out of date, a little selfishness, some temper and its consequences, a bit of worldly wisdom, and an indifference that did nothing at all—these brought about the shame of mankind, and the tragedy of history, and the blot upon our annals that will not rub out. And they are all of them within your heart and mine.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, p.176 [1944] (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, forgive those offenses in me.

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