Kingsley: more than a Sunday religion

Monday, March 7, 2011
    Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
    —Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    One good man,—one man who does not put his religion on once a week with his Sunday coat, but wears it for his working dress, and lets the thought of God grow into him, and through and through him, till everything he says and does becomes religious, that man is worth a thousand sermons—he is a living Gospel—he comes in the spirit and power of Elias—he is the image of God. And men see his good works, and admire them in spite of themselves, and see that they are Godlike, and that God’s grace is no dream, but that the Holy Spirit is still among men, and that all nobleness and manliness is His gift, His stamp, His picture; and so they get a glimpse of God again in His saints and heroes, and glorify their Father who is in heaven.
    ... Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), Twenty-five Village Sermons, London: John W. Parker, 1858, p. 197-198 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your Holy Spirit work within me to transmit Your light to all around me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Faber: Jesus is God! The solid earth

Sunday, March 6, 2011
Meditation:
    When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.”
    —John 13:31-32 (NIV)
Quotation:
Jesus is God! The solid earth,
    The ocean broad and bright,
The countless stars, like golden dust,
    That strew the skies at night,
The wheeling storm, the dreadful fire,
    The pleasant wholesome air,
The summer’s sun, the winter’s frost,
    His own creations were.

Jesus is God! The glorious bands
    Of golden angels sing
Songs of adoring praise to Him,
    Their Maker and their King.
He was true God in Bethlehem’s crib,
    On Calvary’s cross true God,
He who in heaven eternal reigned,
    In time on earth abode.

Jesus is God! There never was
    A time when He was not:
Boundless, eternal, merciful,
    The Word the Sire begot!
Backward our thoughts through ages stretch,
    Onward through endless bliss,—
For there are two eternities,
    And both alike are His!

Jesus is God! Alas! they say
    On earth the numbers grow,
Who His Divinity blaspheme
    To their unfailing woe.
And yet what is the single end
    Of this life’s mortal span,
Except to glorify the God
    Who for our sakes was man?
    ... Frederick William Faber (1814-1863), Hymns, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1877, p. 38 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we praise you as God and King in the glory granted by the Father.

CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Wesley: in debt to the rich

Saturday, March 5, 2011
Meditation:
    Then [Jesus] said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
    —Luke 12:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let all our chapels be built plain and decent; but not more expensively than is absolutely unavoidable: otherwise the necessity of raising money will make rich men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent upon them, yea, and governed by them. And then farewell to the Methodist-discipline, if not doctrine too.
    ... John Wesley (1703-1791), instructions to Methodists in the U.S. [1784], in A Constitutional History of American Episcopal Methodism, John James Tigert, Nashville: Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1908, p. 592 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant Your people fidelity to Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Schaeffer: humanism does not heal

Friday, March 4, 2011
    Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647
Meditation:
    “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near,” says the LORD. “And I will heal them.”
    —Isaiah 57:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Humanism is not wrong in its cry for sociological healing, but humanism is not producing it.
    ... Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), Pollution and the Death of Man [1970], reprint, Good News Publishers, 1992, p. 74 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the world is crying out for Your healing touch. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Phillips: world reconciliation to God

Thursday, March 3, 2011
Meditation:
    All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
    —2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We are, as God’s “ambassadors,” ... cheerfully and constantly to bear our share of the cost of that work of reconciliation. In all humility, we can say that ... God is in every true Christian “reconciling the world unto Himself.”
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Making Men Whole, London: Highway Press, 1952, p. 43 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to proclaim Your message of reconciliation by word and life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Stott: becoming human

Wednesday, March 2, 2011
    Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’”
    —Mark 7:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To become Christian is in a real sense to become human because nothing dehumanizes more than rebellion against God or humanizes more than reconciliation to God and fellowship with God. But to assert joyfully that salvation includes humanization is not at all the same thing as saying that humanization (rescuing men from the dehumanizing process of modern society) equals salvation.
    ... John R. W. Stott (b. 1921), Christian Mission in the Modern World, London: Falcon; Downers Grove: IVP, 1975, p. 105 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have promised to the spirit as well as the body. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Foxe: discomfort in the pews

Tuesday, March 1, 2011
    Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601
Meditation:
    Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
    When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
    Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
    —Matthew 19:23-26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    With his continual doctrine [Bishop Hooper] adjoined due and discreet correction, not so much severe to any as to them which for abundance of riches, and wealthy state, thought they might do what they listed. And doubtless he spared no kind of people, but was indifferent to all men, as well rich as poor, to the great shame of no small number of men now-a-days; whereof many we see so addicted to the pleasing of great and rich men, that in the mean time they have no regard to the meaner sort of poor people, whom Christ hath bought as dearly as the other.
    ... John Foxe (1516-1587), The Book of Martyrs, v. III, London: George Virtue, 1844, p. 41 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, forbid that I discriminate against the poor. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt