Haines: the priesthood of all believers

Saturday, November 20, 2010
    Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870
    Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876
Meditation:
    There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
    —1 Corinthians 12:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is obvious ... that there are many lay people who can counsel more effectively than the minister can in such areas as adjusting to widowhood, coming to terms with advancing age, bringing principle to bear upon business decisions, because they have experience in these fields which the minister does not personally have. At the very least, they can add a note of reality to what the minister offers.
    In many cases, the group takes up where the individual counseling left off, supplementing it or even eliminating it entirely. I have been repeatedly thankful that a group was available to give steady guidance to a person who had made a fresh start in Christian living, but who still had a long way to go. This has been especially true in cases of loneliness, moderate emotional instability, inability to understand others, and need of continued guidance in the use of prayer and the Bible and the accepting and giving of love. In the nature of the case no amount of individual counseling can fully deal with these needs. The “priesthood of all believers” becomes a realized fact, with each person helping to open up for his neighbor the way to God.
    ... Howard B. Haines (d. 2000), “Fellowship Groups: ‘Intercessory Love’”, in Spiritual Renewal through Personal Groups, John L. Casteel, ed., NY: Association Press, 1957, p. 132-133 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me the work You are calling me to do today. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Mechthild: A fish in water does not drown

Friday, November 19, 2010
    Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680
    Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231
    Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280
Meditation:
    [John:] The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.
    —John 3:29 (NIV)
Quotation:
A fish in water does not drown.
A bird in the air does not plummet.
Gold in fire does not perish. Rather, it gets its purity and its radiant color there.
God has created all creatures to live according to their nature.
How, then, am I to resist my nature?
I must go from all things to God,
Who is my Father by nature,
My brother by His humanity,
My bridegroom by love,
And I His bride from all eternity.
    ... Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca. 1212-ca. 1282), The Flowing Light of the Godhead, Frank J. Tobin, tr., Paulist Press, 1998, p. 161 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, hasten Your return and be united with Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Calvin: naturalist atheists

Thursday, November 18, 2010
Meditation:
    They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
    —Romans 1:25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    At this day... the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds, minds which are not afraid to employ the seed of Deity deposited in human nature as a means of suppressing the name of God. Can anything be more detestable than this madness in man, who, finding God a hundred times both in his body and his soul, makes his excellence in this respect a pretext for denying that there is a God? He will not say that chance has made him different from the brutes; ... but, substituting Nature as the architect of the universe, he suppresses the name of God.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559], tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, I.v.4, p. 60 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have shined the light of truth before us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Hanson: the Servant-Church

Wednesday, November 17, 2010
    Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning...”
    —Luke 12:35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Servant Messiah carries out his ministry in the lives of his ministers. His life is reproduced in their lives, so they also are servants. But this ministry is exercised in and towards the Church, so as to enable the Church itself to carry out the ministry of the Servant. The Messiah came as a Servant; his ministers are servants; and the Church he created is a Servant-Church.
    ... Anthony T. Hanson (1916-1991), The Church of the Servant, London: SCM Press, 1962, p. 60 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep me ready to serve. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Robertson: the lonely conviction

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
    Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093
    Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1240
Meditation:
    “You believe at last!” Jesus answered. “But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.”
    —John 16:31-32 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The charm of the words of great men, those grand sayings which are recognized as true as soon as heard, is this, that you recognize them as wisdom which has passed across your own mind. You feel that they are your own thoughts come back to you, else you would not at once admit them: “All of that has floated across me before, only I could not say it, and did not feel confident enough to assert it: or had not conviction enough to put it into words.” Yes, God spoke to you what He did to them: only, they believed it, said it, trusted the Word within them; and you did not. Be sure that often when you say, “It is only my own poor thought, and I am alone,” the real correcting thought is this: “Alone, but the Father is with me,”—and therefore I can live that lonely conviction.
    ... Frederick W. Robertson (1816-1853), Sermons, v. I, Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1861, p. 239-240 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are always with me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Parkhurst: the blessings of the minute

Monday, November 15, 2010
Meditation:
    Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.
    —John 21:12-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you will study the history of Christ’s ministry from Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession. The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in body, mind and heart, individual men. The completed beauty of Christ’s life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of beauty—talking with the woman at the well; going far up into the North country to talk with the Syrophenician woman; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart, that kept him out of the kingdom of Heaven; shedding a tear at the grave of Lazarus; teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; preaching the Gospel one Sunday afternoon to two disciples going out to Emmaus; kindling a fire and broiling fish, that His disciples might have a breakfast waiting for them when they came ashore from a night of fishing, cold, tired, discouraged. All of these things, you see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of God’s interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.
    ... Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842-1933), The Blind Man’s Creed, New York: Randolph, 1883, p. 178-179 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, do not allow me to overlook the small tasks You have set before me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Brother Lawrence: Good when He gives

Sunday, November 14, 2010
    Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796
Meditation:
    Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.
    —Deuteronomy 8:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
Good when He gives, supremely good;
    Nor less when He denies:
Afflictions, from His sovereign hand,
    Are blessings in disguise.
    ... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691), attributed, The Practice of the Presence of God, New York, Revell, 1895, p. 4 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me know Your goodness in correction. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt