O'Brien: pagan Christianity

Saturday, April 16, 2011
Meditation:
    Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
    —2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When we put our confidence in our human formulations regarding how God acts in the world, it’s easy to start thinking in terms of how we can be sure he’ll behave the way we need him to. Anything that hinders us from recognizing that God acts freely out of love for his creation is dangerous, pagan Christianity.
    ... Brandon O’Brien, in a Christianity Today editorial, Sept. 3, 2010 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your will eternally prevail over mine. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Mabie: without ceasing

Friday, April 15, 2011
Meditation:
    Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
    —Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Our wills are not ours to be crushed and broken; they are ours to be trained and strengthened. Our affections are not ours to be blighted and crucified; they are ours to be deepened and purified. The rich opportunities of life are not held out to us only to be snatched away by an invisible hand patiently waiting for the hour when the cup is sweetest; they are given to us that we may grow, alike through their use or their withdrawal. They are real, they are sweet, and they are worthy of our longing for them; we gain nothing by calling them dross, or the world an illusion, or ourselves the victims of deception, or by exalting renunciation as the highest virtue. When these opportunities are denied us, it is a real, not an imaginary, loss which we sustain; and our part is not that of bare renunciation, of simple surrender; our part is to recognize the loss, to bear the pain, and to find a deeper and richer life in doing the will of God.
    ... Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846-1916), The Life of the Spirit, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1901, p. 131 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I rejoice in Your will for me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Yaconelli: Jesus instead of rules

Thursday, April 14, 2011
Meditation:
    People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
    —Mark 10:13-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every time the disciples started establishing rules—no children near Jesus; don’t let the crowd touch Jesus; don’t talk to Samaritan women; don’t let people waste expensive perfumes—Jesus told them to knock it off, and his rebuke was usually followed by a lecture that said, “You still don’t get it! We’re not substituting religious rules with our rules. We are substituting religious rules with Me!” Jesus kept saying “Follow Me,” not “follow My rules.” So most of us have spent our Christian lives learning what we can’t do instead of celebrating what we can do in Jesus.
    ... Mike Yaconelli (1942-2003), Dangerous Wonder, Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1998, p. 53 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, truly You have freed Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Markus Barth: purification of the Church

Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Meditation:
    You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
    —John 15:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The holiness and spotlessness of the Church (Eph. 1:4; 5:27) are a gift and commission which God already has given, and is giving, to the assembled saints upon earth now. The Christians cannot make or call themselves holy. They would be ridiculous pretenders if they did. But they are called to acknowledge what “the word” does and says to them. By the word, they are purified... Despite all the counsel which the Ephesians needed concerning their worship, conduct, and testimony, they were actually God’s elect. They were commissioned and committed to be holy and spotless. They were entitled to believe and proclaim that God, despite all the sin and weakness of man, creates people called saints!
    ... Markus Barth (1915-1994), The Broken Wall, Chicago: Judson Press, 1959, Regent College Publishing, 1959, p. 106-107 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, cleanse me again with Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: worship, the beginning of action

Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Meditation:
    ... and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
    —Revelation 1:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    The redeemed in Heaven crying continually, “Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,” give, say the scriptures, an adoration which, in depth and fullness, no angel of them all can ever equal.
    Yet even then, we have not reached the centre. For when we worship, we are in God’s presence, and it is what He says and does to us that is the all-important thing, not what we say and do toward Him. Since He is here and speaking to us, face to face, it is for us, in a hush of spirit, to listen for, and to, His voice, reproving, counselling, encouraging, revealing His most blessed will for us; and, with diligence, to set about immediate obedience. This and this, upon which He has laid His hand, must go; and this and this to which He calls, must be at once begun. And here and now I start to it. That is the heart of worship, its very co! re and essence.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 24-25 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am listening. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: what is worship?

Monday, April 11, 2011
    Commemoration of George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
    —John 14:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre of it? Is it the offering we bring to God of praise and adoration, of thanksgiving and sacrifice, our praise, our sacrifice to Him? That has its place, not legitimate only, but imperative. And yet to put that in the foreground is to make the service fundamentally man-centered and subjective, which, face to face with God, is surely almost unthinkably unseemly. Or is the ideal we should hold before us that other extreme, so ardently pressed on us these days, that, face to face with the Lord God Almighty, High and Holy, it is for us to forget ourselves and, leaving behind our petty little human joys and needs and sins, rising above thanksgiving and petition and confession, to lose ourselves in an awed adoration of God’s naked and essential being, blessing and praising Him, not even for what he has done for us, and been for us, but for what, in Him! self, He is.
    To me, that seems not an advance, but a pathetic throw-back to the primitive of Brahmanism. We shall not learn to know God better, nor how to worship Him more worthily, by careful rubbing out from memory every item of the wonder of Christ’s revelation of Him. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 24 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have revealed God to me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: the upside down world

Sunday, April 10, 2011
    Feast of William Law, Priest, Mystic, 1761
    Commemoration of William of Ockham, Franciscan Friar, Philosopher, Teacher, 1347
    Commemoration of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Priest, Scientist, Visionary, 1955
Meditation:
    For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
    —1 Timothy 6:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    How many saints has adversity sent to Heaven? And how many poor sinners has prosperity plunged into everlasting misery? A man seems then to be in the most glorious state, when he has conquered, disgraced, and humbled his enemy; though it may be, that same conquest has saved his adversary and undone himself.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728], London: Methuen, 1899, p. 396 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, deliver Your people from the love of money. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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