Ambrose on death

Monday, December 7, 2009
    Feast of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397
Meditation:
    Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”
    —Revelation 14:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To the good man to die is gain... The foolish fear death as the greatest of evils, the wise desire it as a rest after labours and the end of ills.
    ... St. Ambrose of Milan (339-397), quoted in The Life and Times of St. Ambrose, v. II, Frederick Homes Dudden, The Clarendon Press, 1935, p. 513,651 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have taken away my fear of death. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Williams: 12 needful things

Sunday, December 6, 2009
    Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326
Meditation:
    So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
    —1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Twelve marks of spiritual health [in] our communion with God: (1) God’s children ought to walk in constant amazement of spirit as to God, His nature, and works. (2) The glorifying of God is the great work of God’s children. (3) Delightful privacy with God argues strong affection. (4) Frequent prayer an argument of much of God’s Spirit; True prayer is the pouring out of the heart to God; God’s children are most in private with God; The prayers of God’s people most respect spiritual mercies; God’s people wait for and rest in God’s answer. (5) God’s people are sensible of their unworthiness. (6) God Himself is regarded as the portion of His people. (7) Ready obedience to God. (8) The patience of God’s children under God’s hand. (9) The mournful confession of God’s people. (10) God’s people long after God in an open profession of His ordinances. (11) Their hearts are ready and prepared. (12) God’s people’s sense of their own insufficiencies.
    ... Roger Williams (1603?-1683), Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health [1652], Westminster Press, 1951, p. 59-74 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, fill my life and my actions with Your presence. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: the uses of election

Saturday, December 5, 2009
Meditation:
    Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
    —Ephesians 1:3-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Few realize how much injury the dogma that baptism is necessary for salvation, badly expounded, has entailed. As a consequence, they are less cautious. For, where the opinion has prevailed that all are lost who have not happened to be baptized with water, our condition is worse than that of God’s ancient people—as if the grace of God were now more restricted than under the Law!
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. II, tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, IV.xv.20, p. 491-492 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You chose Your church before the world began. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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DeKoster: disputation

Friday, December 4, 2009
    Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637
Meditation:
    Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
    —Colossians 4:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The conduct of disputation by verbal brickbat, by innuendo, and by light-fingered intellectual dexterity, is a mordant reminder of the time when controversies were settled by faggot and sword. The truth is hardly less the loser because the inquisitor has altered his methods. All of us who seek to explore the wide reaches of God’s revelation, and strive to bring the thinking of others under the domination of Christ, do well to seek first to bring our own rhetorical techniques under that same dominion—under the discipline, that is, of love.
    ... Lester DeKoster (1916-2009)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may my words always honor You and Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Ham: solitary Christian?

Thursday, December 3, 2009
    Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552
Meditation:
    God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.
    —1 Corinthians 1:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relation to Christ can only be realized when one has “come to himself” as a member of His Body, the Christian fellowship.
    ... William T. Ham, “Candles of the Lord”, in Spiritual Renewal through Personal Groups, John L. Casteel, ed., NY: Association Press, 1957, p. 169 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, banish all hardness in my heart towards any of Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Buechner: extinct prayers

Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Meditation:
    “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
    —Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Something terrible happens, and you might say, “God help us!” or “Jesus Christ!”—the poor, crippled prayers that are hidden in the minor blasphemies of people for whom in every sense God is dead, except that they still have to speak to him, if only through clenched teeth.
    ... Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), The Magnificent Defeat, Seabury Press, 1966, p. 126 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach my tongue patience. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Ryle on faith

Tuesday, December 1, 2009
    Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916
Meditation:
    [Job:] “Yet [the wicked] say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’”
    —Job 21:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.
    ... J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), A Call to Prayer, published in the 1850’s as a pamphlet, p. 1 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, pray Yourself within me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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