Pusey: fragment of a psalm

Thursday, April 7, 2011
Meditation:
    And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
    —Colossians 3:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is good to have some brief words of a Psalm, some thought of prayer, which thou mayest use at any moment of leisure. Ye would often have prayed, had ye known what to pray; while ye have been thinking what to pray, the time was gone.
    ... Edward B. Pusey (1800-1882), “Do all to the Lord Jesus” in Parochial Sermons, preached and printed on various occasions, London: Walter Smith, 1884, p. 92 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, implant Your word in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Underhill: the essential offertory

Wednesday, April 6, 2011
    Commemoration of Albrecht Dürer, artist, 1528, and Michelangelo Buonarrotti, artist, spiritual writer, 1564
Meditation:
    Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
    —Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The offertory is the first essential action of the Liturgy, because in it we make the costly and solemn oblation, under tokens, of our very selves and all our substance; that they may be transformed, quickened, and devoted to the interests of God.
    ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The Mystery of Sacrifice, New York: Longmans, Green, 1938, p. 29 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make my offering holy before You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jones: belonging to a Person

Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Meditation:
    When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.
    —John 10:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs, nor a code of action—you are attached primarily to a Person, and secondarily to these other things... You are not called to get to heaven, to do good, or to be good—you are called to belong to Jesus Christ. The doing good, the being good, and the getting to heaven, are the by-products of that belonging. The center of conversion is the belonging of a person to a Person.
    ... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Conversion, New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, p. 244 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people belong only to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: God has work to do

Monday, April 4, 2011
Meditation:
    You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
    —Galatians 5:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority... It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him, is to oppose Him.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), Works of John Owen, v. IX, London: Johnson & Hunter, 1851, Sermon XIII, p. 171 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Teach me Lord, not to hinder the work You are doing. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Foster: the new control center

Sunday, April 3, 2011
Meditation:
    But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
    —1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Prayer frees us to be controlled by God. To pray is to change. There is no greater liberating force in the Christian life than prayer. To enter the gaze of the Holy is never to be the same. To bathe in the Light in quiet wonder and glad surrender is to be slowly, permanently transformed. There is a richer inward orientation, a deep hunger for communion. We feel as if we are being taken over by a new control Center, and so we are.
    ... Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity, HarperCollins, 1989, p. 58 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, center my life on prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Neill: forgiveness

Saturday, April 2, 2011
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.”
    —Luke 6:27-28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Forgiveness] recognises the wrongdoer as a person. He has done wrong, and about this there is no pretence. But that is not the whole truth about him. He is still of infinite value as a person, since every person is unique and irreplaceable by any other. Since he has so greatly injured himself by doing wrong, he is in special need of help, and help that can be rendered only by the one to whom he has done the wrong.
    ... Stephen Neill (1900-1984), A Genuinely Human Existence: Towards a Christian Psychology, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1959, p. 210 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me grace to help those who have injured me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Maurice: the eternity of baptism

Friday, April 1, 2011
    Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872
Meditation:
    ... this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
    —1 Peter 3:21-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    They, looking at Baptism as an act done in an instant, and accomplishing its purpose in an instance, and not rather as the witness of an eternal truth, the sacrament of constant union, the assurance of a continual living presence, are driven to this conclusion: that the moment after it has been performed is a period of ideal purity and excellence, from which the future life even of a saint is a deflection, and which those who have wandered far into sin cannot hope to recover. These must be content, by much prayer and fasting, to seek for God’s mercy, which may, perhaps, though there is no certain promise to uphold the flattering expectation, once again redeem them out of sin and hell... Where is the minister of Christ in London, Birmingham, or Manchester, whom such a doctrine, heartily and inwardly entertained, would not drive to madness? He is sent to preach the Gospel. What Gospel? Of all the thousands whom he addresses, he cannot venture to believe that there are two who, in Dr. Pusey’s sense, retain their baptismal purity. All he can do, therefore, is to tell wretched creatures, who spend eighteen hours out of the twenty-four in close factories and bitter toil, corrupting and being corrupted, that if they spend the remaining six in prayer—he need not add fasting—they may possibly be saved. How can we insult God and torment man with such mockery?
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), The Kingdom of Christ: or Hints on the principles..., letters, by a clergyman of the Church of England, 1837, p. 96 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have purchased Your people from slavery. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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