Guinness: success and failure

Friday, January 7, 2011
Meditation:
    That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
    —2 Corinthians 12:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    On the one hand, in matters of the spirit, nothing fails like success. On the other hand, in matters of the spirit, nothing succeeds like failure.
    ... Os Guinness (b. 1941), Dining with the Devil, Grand Rapids, Mich. Hourglass Books, 1993, p. 89 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have shown us the strength in humility. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Barth: on grace

Thursday, January 6, 2011
    EPIPHANY
Meditation:
    Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
    —Romans 5:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Grace is the incomprehensible fact that God is well pleased with a man, and that a man can rejoice in God. Only when grace is recognized to be incomprehensible is it grace. Grace exists, therefore, only where the Resurrection is reflected. Grace is the gift of Christ, who exposes the gulf which separates God and man, and, by exposing it, bridges it.
    ... Karl Barth (1886-1968), The Epistle to the Romans, translated from the 6th edition by Edwyn C. Hoskyns, London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1933, 6th ed., Oxford University Press US, 1968, p. 31 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have crossed the gap between us that I could never have crossed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: the origins of scriptural authority

Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Meditation:
    But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
    —Galatians 1:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ is the Master; the Scriptures are only the servant. The true way to test all the Books is to see whether they work the will of Christ or not. No Book which does not preach Christ can be apostolic, though Peter or Paul were its author. And no Book which does preach Christ can fail to be apostolic, although Judas, Ananias, Pilate, or Herod were its author.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), quoted in The Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit, Auguste Sabatier, London: Williams & Norgate, 1904, p. 158 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the origin of all truth and authority. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Edwards: God's church has never failed

Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Meditation:
    [The LORD:] “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”
    —1 Kings 19:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The work of God in converting souls, opening blind eyes, unstopping deaf ears, raising dead souls to life, and rescuing the miserable captivated souls out of the hands of Satan, was begun soon after the fall of man, has been carried on in the world ever since to this day, and will be to the end of the world. God has always, ever since the first erecting of the church of the redeemed after the fall, had such a church in the world. Though oftentimes it has been reduced to a very narrow compass, and to low circumstances; yet it has never wholly failed.
    ... Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), The Works of President Edwards, v. II, Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, Jun., 1808, p. 535 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have not given up on us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Muggeridge: the last hope

Monday, January 3, 2011
    Commemoration of Gladys Aylward, Missionary in China, 1970
Meditation:
[Jesus:]
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
    —Matthew 5:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every recourse this world offers, moral as well as material, has been drawn on and explored with no effect, when in the shivering cold every stick of wood has been thrown on the fire and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out—it’s then that Christ’s hand reaches out, sure and firm. Then Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, then his light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness for ever.
    ... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), The End of Christendom, W. B. Eerdmans, 1980, p. 56 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are hope to the hopeless. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Basil: God in the flesh

Sunday, January 2, 2011
    Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389
    Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, Staretz, 1833
Meditation:
    The ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
    —Isaiah 51:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If, then, the sojourn of the Lord in flesh has never taken place, the Redeemer paid not the fine to death on our behalf, nor through Himself destroyed death’s reign. For if what was reigned over by death was not that which was assumed by the Lord, death would not have ceased working his own ends, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have been made our gain; He would not have killed sin in the flesh: we who had died in Adam should not have been made alive in Christ; the fallen to pieces would not have been framed again; the shattered would not have been set up again; that which by the serpent’s trick had been estranged from God would never have been made once more His own. All these boons are undone by those that assert that it was with a heavenly body that the Lord came among us.
    ... St. Basil the Great (330?-379), in Letter CCLXI, to the Sozopolitans (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have truly lived among us, that we might live with You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pierce: what God blesses

Saturday, January 1, 2011
    Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus
Meditation:
    Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the LORD delivers him in times of trouble.
    —Psalm 41:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I don’t ask God to bless what I do. I pray He will help me to do what He blesses.
    ... Robert Pierce (1914-1978), founder and president, World Vision, in a private communication from World Vision
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me into Your will this year. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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