Sherrill: lost

Saturday, January 22, 2011
Meditation:
    Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
    —Isaiah 8:21-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is a Gospel to men who are without God, sinful, bewildered, anxious, discouraged, self-sufficient and proud, yet destroying themselves and others, caught in a desperate plight from which they cannot extricate themselves. The Bible characterizes men in such a state as “lost,” and as being “without hope in the world”...
    And let no one suppose that such a term as “lost” is merely a bit of conventional theological jargon. It stands for a terrible reality, a reality which modern man in his modern predicament knows only too well from his own bitter experience. It gives rise to the voices of despair which haunt our radios, our newspapers, our fiction and poetry, our stage and screen, our doctors’ offices, our hospital wards, our grisly nightmare of atomic war, and the conversation of common people who no sooner meet than they begin to bemoan the fate that has overtaken the world.
    ... Lewis J. Sherrill (1892-1957), Lift Up Your Eyes, Richmond: John Knox Press, 1949, p. 7 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open our eyes to the lost, that we might represent the Gospel to them. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lawrence: to know God more

Friday, January 21, 2011
    Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304
Meditation:
    And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
    —Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let all our employment be to know GOD; the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him. And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love; and if our love of GOD were great, we should love Him equally in pains and pleasures.
    ... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691), The Practice of the Presence of God, New York, Revell, 1895, p. 44 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me see Your presence in affliction and prosperity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rolle: three degrees of love

Thursday, January 20, 2011
    Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
    —John 15:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    That thou mayest win to the sweetness of God’s love, I set here three degrees of love, in the which thou shouldst be aye waxing. The first is called insuperable, the second inseparable, the third singular. Thy love is insuperable when nothing may overcome it, that is, neither weal, nor woe, nor anguish, just of flesh nor the liking of this world... Thy love is inseparable when all thy thoughts and thy wills are gathered together and fastened wholly in Jesus Christ, so that thou mayest no time forget Him, but aye thou thinkest on Him... Thy love is singular when all thy delight is in Jesus Christ and in no other thing finds joy and comfort.
    ... Richard Rolle (1290?-1349), The Commandments, in English Spirituality in the Age of Wyclif, David Lyle Jeffrey, tr., Regent College Publishing, 1988, p. 156 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have accepted us into the bonds of love. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sayers: cleaning up the Gospel

Wednesday, January 19, 2011
    Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.”’ But wisdom is proved right by all her children.”
    —Luke 7:33-35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Setting aside the scandal caused by His Messianic claims and His reputation as a political firebrand, only two accusations of personal depravity seem to have been brought against Jesus of Nazareth. First, that He was a Sabbath-breaker. Secondly, that He was “a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners”—or (to draw aside the veil of Elizabethan English that makes it all sound so much more respectable) that He ate too heartily, drank too freely, and kept very disreputable company, including grafters of the lowest type and ladies who were no better than they should be. For nineteen and a half centuries, the Christian Churches have laboured, not without success, to remove this unfortunate impression made by their Lord and Master. They have hustled the Magdalens from the Communion-table, founded Total Abstinence Societies in the name of Him who made the water wine, and added improvements of their own, such as ! various bans and anathemas upon dancing and theatre-going. They have transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and, feeling that the original commandment “Thou shalt not work” was rather half-hearted, have added to it a new commandment, “Thou shalt not play.”
    ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), Unpopular Opinions, London: Gollancz, 1946, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1947, p. 3 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me know the joy of Your presence. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Carmichael: Be triumphant, be triumphant

Tuesday, January 18, 2011
    Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951
Meditation:
    His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
    —Ephesians 3:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
Be triumphant, be triumphant,
    Let the spiritual watchers see
That thy God doth strengthen thee,
    That in him is victory.
    ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), Rose from Brier [1933], London: SPCK, 1950, p. 143 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all my hope and trust is in You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gore: the perilous use of ecclesiastical authority

Monday, January 17, 2011
    Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356
    Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, 1932
Meditation:
    Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
    —1 Corinthians 11:27 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Now what ought to have been the attitude of thoughtful Christians towards ecclesiastical authority, resulting from our Lord’s whole attitude towards it? I think that the Catholic Church ought to have maintained and used ecclesiastical and sacerdotal authority, but that its maintenance and its use ought to have been accompanied with a continual fear. Because they had before them this fact, that however divinely authoritative, however securely resting on a basis of legitimate and genuine inspiration, yet the ecclesiastical authority of the Old Covenant, by no process of sudden revolution, but simply by a process of gradual development, was capable of becoming something so utterly alien in spirit from what it was intended to be, that when the Christ came, to prepare for whom and to welcome whom was the one reason for which it existed, it did in fact reject Him utterly.
    ... Charles Gore (1853-1932)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, correct Your church as you correct Your children. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Winter: structural introversion in the Church

Sunday, January 16, 2011
Meditation:
    We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
    —2 Corinthians 5:20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The introverted church is one which puts its own survival before its mission, its own identity above its task, its internal concerns before its apostolate, its rituals before its ministry. Undue emphasis on the static structure of the Church has led to the disappearance of a significant lay ministry in denominational Protestantism.
    ... Gibson Winter (1916-2002), The Suburban Captivity of the Churches, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961, p. 103 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, correct our focus, so that our institutions reflect Your grace to the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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