Tillotson: repentance

Saturday, December 12, 2009
Meditation:
    The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.
    —1 Timothy 5:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let no man deceive you with vain words, or with vain hopes, or with false notions of a slight and sudden repentance: as if heaven were a hospital founded on purpose to receive all sick and maimed persons, that when they can live no longer to the lusts of the flesh and the sinful pleasures of this world, can but put up a cold and formal petition to be admitted there.
    No, no, as sure as God is true, they shall never see the Kingdom of God, who, instead of seeking it in the first place, make it their last refuge and retreat.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. III, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon LIV, p. 574 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let the urgency of Your kingdom be known to all. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: amplification

Friday, December 11, 2009
Meditation:
    It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.
    —Hosea 11:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When an unskillful servant gathers many herbs, flowers, and seeds in a garden, you gather them out that are useful, and cast the rest out of sight. Christ deals so with our performances. All the ingredients of self that are in them on any account He takes away, and adds incense to what remains, and presents it to God. This is the cause that the saints at the last day, when they meet their own duties and performances, they know them not, they are so changed from what they were when they went out of their hand. “Lord, when saw we Thee naked or hungry?” So God accepts a little, and Christ makes our little a great deal.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), An Exposition upon Psalm CXXX [1668], in Works of John Owen, v. VI, New York: R. Carter & Bros., 1851, p. 603 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my hands are empty, yet You fill them with the resources of Your grace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Merton: union with God

Thursday, December 10, 2009
    Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968
Meditation:
    No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
    —John 6:46 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We must remember that our experience of union with God, our feeling of His presence, is altogether accidental and secondary. It is only a side effect of His actual presence in our souls, and gives no sure indication of that presence in any case. For God Himself is above all apprehensions and ideas and sensations, however spiritual, that can ever be experienced by the spirit of man in this life.
    ... Thomas Merton (1915-1968), No Man is an Island, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955; reprint, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 225 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Though I am alone, Lord, I receive Your assurance that You are with me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thomas a Kempis: humility

Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Meditation:
    Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
    —1 Corinthians 13:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What doth it profit thee to enter into deep discussions concerning the Holy Trinity, if thou lack humility, and be thus displeasing to the Trinity? For verily it is not deep words that make a man holy and upright; it is a good life which maketh a man dear to God. I had rather feel contrition than be skillful in the definition thereof. If thou knewest the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what should this profit thee without the love and grace of God?
    ... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418], Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1877, p. 29-30 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep me from being puffed up with knowledge and implant Your love in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: life without God's Word

Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Meditation:
    But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
    —Hebrews 3:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The deceit, the lie of the devil consists of this, that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without God’s Word. Thus he dangles before man’s fantasy a kingdom of faith, of power, and of peace, into which only he can enter who consents to the temptations; and he conceals from men that he, as the devil, is the most unfortunate and unhappy of beings, since he is finally and eternally rejected by God.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Temptation, London: SCM Press, 1955, p. 25 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I not to be deceived by temptation. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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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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