Saturday, November 13, 2010

Maurice: the spirit of judging

Saturday, November 13, 2010
    Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836
Meditation:
    You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
    —Romans 2:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Of all spirits, I believe the spirit of judging is the worst, and it has had the rule of me, I cannot tell you how dreadfully and how long... This, I find, has more hindered my progress in love and gentleness than all things else. I never knew what the words, “Judge not that ye be not judged,” meant before; now they seem to me some of the most awful, necessary, and beautiful in the whole Word of God.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), letter to his motherThe Life of Frederick Denison Maurice: Chiefly Told in His Own Letters, v. 1, ed. John Frederick Maurice, London: Macmillan, 1885, p. 129-130 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, purge my heart of the judging spirit.
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Friday, November 12, 2010

Pierce: how beautiful the feet

Friday, November 12, 2010
Meditation:
I waited patiently for the LORD;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
    he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
    —Psalm 40:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God is wanting you to give Him the despised, the humdrum things in your life—like feet—and let Him make them beautiful.
    ... Robert Pierce (1914-1978), founder and president, World Vision, in a private communication from World Vision
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, consecrate my feet into the path of Your choosing.
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Thursday, November 11, 2010

Earle: the source of authenticity

Thursday, November 11, 2010
    Feast of Martin, Monk, Bishop of Tours, 397
Meditation:
    For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.
    —2 Corinthians 13:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It was the experience of the disciples who knew Jesus both before and after the Resurrection, and the conviction which they communicated to others, that laid the foundation of faith. This faith, once given, proved to be—like the Person who gave rise to it—essentially self-authenticating. And ever since, the Church has looked to the Cross, a symbol of weakness, as its unique source of power in preaching the Gospel, its authority both to teach and to preach has been of this kind. No amount of liaison between the Church and the source of any other authority, political or moral, must be allowed to obscure the simplicity—and the mystery—of the authority of Christ.
    ... Nick Earle (b. 1926), What’s Wrong with the Church?, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961, p. 18 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your church look for direction only to You.
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Chadwick: the example of Judas

Wednesday, November 10, 2010
    Feast of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 461
Meditation:
    Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God.
    —Philippians 1:27-28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Contemplating this blighted and sinister career, the lesson is burnt in upon the conscience, that since Judas by transgression fell, no place in the Church of Christ can render any man secure. And since, falling, he was openly exposed, none may flatter himself that the cause of Christ is bound up with his reputation, that the mischief must needs be averted which his downfall would entail, that Providence must needs avert from him the natural penalties for evil-doing. Though one was as the signet upon the Lord’s hand, yet was he plucked thence. There is no security for any soul except where love and trust repose, upon the bosom of Christ.
    Now if this be true, and if sin and scandal may conceivably penetrate even the inmost circle of the chosen, how great an error it is to break, because of these offenses, the unity of the Church, and institute some new communion, purer far than the Churches of Corinth and Galatia, which were not abandoned but reformed, and more impenetrable to corruption than the little group of those who ate and drank with Jesus.
    ... G. A. Chadwick (1840-1923), The Gospel of St. Mark [1887], London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1891, p. 90-91 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let Your church rely on no power but Yours.
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Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Phillips: the whole Gospels

Tuesday, November 9, 2010
    Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433
Meditation:
    Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
    —Ephesians 6:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    This astonishing sense of spiritual attack which, it seems to me, must inevitably follow the continual reading of the four Gospels, without preconception but with an alert mind, is not the sole privilege of the translator. It can happen to anyone who is prepared to abandon proof-texts and a closed attitude of mind, and allow not merely the stories but the quality of the Figure Who exists behind the stories to meet him afresh. Neat snippets of a few verses are of course useful in their way, but the overall sweep and much of the significance of the Gospel narratives are lost to us unless we are prepared to read the Gospels through, not once but several times.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), New Testament Christianity, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1956, chapt. i, p. 11 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is my strength.
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Monday, November 08, 2010

Sanday & Headlam: Free-will and Divine Sovereignty

Monday, November 8, 2010
    Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England
Meditation:
    But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
    —Romans 9:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [The solution lies] in a complete realization of what we mean by asserting that God is Almighty. The two ideas of Free-will and Divine Sovereignty can not be reconciled in our own minds, but that does not prevent them from being reconcilable in God’s mind. We measure Him by our own intellectual standard if we think otherwise. And so our solution of the problem of Free-will and of the problems of history and of individual salvation, must finally lie in the full acceptance and realization of what is implied by the infinity and the omniscience of God.
    ... William Sanday (1843-1920) & Arthur C. Headlam (1862-1947), A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1896, 10th ed., New York: Scribners, 1905, p. 350 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I acknowledge Your sovereignty and seek Your grace.
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Sunday, November 07, 2010

Bernard of Clairvaux: fasting

Sunday, November 7, 2010
    Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
    —Matthew 6:16-18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If the appetite alone hath sinned, let it alone fast, and it sufficeth. But if the other members also have sinned, why should they not fast, too? ... Let the eye fast from strange sights and from every wantonness, so that that which roamed in freedom in fault-doing may, abundantly humbled, be checked by penitence. Let the ear, blameably eager to listen, fast from tales and rumours, and from whatsoever is of idle import, and tendeth least to salvation. Let the tongue fast from slanders and murmurings, and from useless, vain, and scurrilous words, and sometimes also, in the seriousness of silence, even from things which may seem of essential import. Let the hand abstain from ... all toils which are not imperatively necessary. But also let the soul herself abstain from all evils and from acting out her own will. For without such abstinence the other things find no favour with the Lord.
    ... Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Selections from His Letters, Meditations, Sermons, Hymns and Other Writngs, tr. Horatio Grimley, CUP Archive, n.d., p. 208-209 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, instruct me to keep my appetites in check.
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