Guinness: the pendulum of the future

Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Meditation:
Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.
    —Psalm 146:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    With the death of absolutes, the prospects are grim for any lover of justice, freedom, and order. Western culture will lurch drunkenly between chaotic lawlessness and countering authoritarianism, in which some particularly abysmal vacuum of confidence could finally issue in a supreme dictatorship, mocking the Western aspirations for democracy as ineffective and demonstrating the strong alliance between technology and the state. Until then, violence, blood brother of such a totalitarianism, will play its fateful part, naked or disguised, in an inevitable power struggle on all levels.
    ... Os Guinness (b. 1941), The Dust of Death, Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973, p. 160 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we long for Your reign on earth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Maugham: the value of art

Tuesday, April 6, 2010
    Commemoration of Albrecht Dürer, artist, 1528, and Michelangelo Buonarrotti, artist, spiritual writer, 1564
Meditation:
    One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple
    —Psalm 27:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Art—if it is to be reckoned as one of the great values of life—must teach men humility, tolerance, wisdom, and magnanimity. The value of art is not beauty, but right action.
    ... W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), Mr. Maugham Himself, Doubleday, 1954, p. 673 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Author of all beauty, Your light makes clear my life’s path. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: saving faith

Monday, April 5, 2010
Meditation:
    If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
    —Romans 14:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The only saving faith is that which casts itself on God for life or death.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), A Treasury of Sermon Illustrations, Charles Langworthy Wallis, ed., Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1950, p. 116 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my life and death are in Your hands. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Fulbert: Sing, choirs of New Jerusalem

Sunday, April 4, 2010
    Easter
Meditation:
    Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
    —John 20:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
Ye choirs of New Jerusalem,
Your sweetest notes employ,
The Paschal victory to hymn
In songs of holy joy!

For Judah’s Lion burst his chains
And crushed the serpent’s head;
Christ cries aloud through death’s domains
To wake the imprisoned dead.

Triumphant in his glory now,
To him all power is given;
To him in one communion bow
All saints in earth and heaven.

All glory to the Father be,
All glory to the Son,
All glory to the Spirit be
While endless ages run.
    ... Fulbert of Chartres (11th century), tr. Robert Campbell (1814-1868), Songs of Praise, enl. ed., Ralph Vaughan Williams, et al., ed., Oxford University Press, 1931, p. 44 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have made Your victory is ours as well.

CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sayers: Jesus, God and man

Saturday, April 3, 2010
    Holy Saturday
Meditation:
    For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
    —1 Corinthians 15:21-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If [Jesus] were God and nothing else, his immortality means nothing to us; if he were a man and no more, His death is no more important than yours or mine. But if He really was both God and man, then when the man Jesus died, God died too, and when the God Jesus rose from the dead, then man rose too, because they were one and the same person.
    ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, Eerdmans, 1969, p. 16 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Jesus, You are God to men and Man to God. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Graham: message delivered

Friday, April 2, 2010
    Good Friday
Meditation:
    But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
    —Titus 3:4-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, “I love you.”
    ... Billy Graham (b. 1918), The Quotable Billy Graham, Droke House, 1966, p. 82 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Love Incarnate has appeared. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thérèse of Lisieux: the life of love

Thursday, April 1, 2010
    Maundy Thursday
    Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872
Meditation:
    Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
    —John 14:23 (NIV)
Quotation:
The eve His life of love drew near its end,
    Thus Jesus spoke: “Whoever loveth Me,
And keeps My word as Mine own faithful friend,
    My Father, then, and I his guests will be;
Within his heart will make Our dwelling above.
    Our palace home, true type of heaven above.
There, filled with peace, We will that he shall rest,
        With us, in love.”
    ... Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), Poems of St. Teresa, Carmelite of Lisieux, Boston, Angel Guardian Press, 1907, “To Live of Love”, n. 1 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I receive You in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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