Gregory: an eternal reward

Saturday, September 3, 2011
    Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604
Meditation:
    For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.
    —James 1:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Don’t let any abusive word from your neighbor stir up hatred in you, and don't allow any loss of things that pass away to upset you. If you are steadfast in fearing the loss of those things that last forever, you will never take seriously the loss of those that pass away; if you keep your eyes fixed on the glory of our eternal recompense, you will not resent a temporal injury. You must bear with those who oppose you, but also love those you bear with. Seek an eternal reward in return for your temporal losses.
    ... St. Gregory the Great (540?-604), Be Friends of God: spiritual readings, Cowley Publications, 1990, p. 61 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all things of this life are temporary, apart from Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chapman: what destroys, redeems

Friday, September 2, 2011
    Commemoration of Martyrs of Papua New Guinea, 1942
Meditation:
    How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
    —1 Corinthians 15:36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The antithesis between life and death is not so stark for the Christian as it is for the atheist. Life is a process of becoming, and the moment of death is the transition from one life to another. Thus it is possible for the Christian to succumb to his own kind of death-wish, to seek that extreme of other-worldliness to which the faith has always been liable, especially in periods of stress and uncertainty. There may appear a marked preoccupation with death and a rejection of all temporal things. To say that this world is in a fallen state and that not too much value must be set upon it, is very far from the Manichaean error of supposing it to be evil throughout. The Christian hope finds ambivalence in death: that which destroys, also redeems.
    ... Raymond Chapman (b. 1924), The Ruined Tower, London: G. Bles, 1961, p. 132 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my death is a gateway to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brother Lawrence: continuing with God

Thursday, September 1, 2011
    Commemoration of Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710
Meditation:
    The lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the LORD must be tended continually.
    —Leviticus 24:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [He said] that it was a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times; that we are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action as by prayer in the season of prayer.
    That his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the Presence of God, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine Love; and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with God, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that God would give him somewhat to suffer when he should have grown stronger.
    ... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691), The Practice of the Presence of God, New York, Revell, 1895, p. 16-17 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, there is nothing richer than communion with You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bunyan: pray and read

Wednesday, August 31, 2011
    Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651
    Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725
    Commemoration of John Bunyan, Spiritual Writer, 1688
Meditation:
    Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.
    —John 13:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Read and read again, and do not despair of help to understand the will and mind of God therein, though you think they are fast locked up from you. Neither trouble your heads though you have not commentaries and expositions; pray and read, and read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from men. Also, what is from men is uncertain, and is often lost and tumbled over and over by men; but what is from God is fixed as a nail in a sure place... There is nothing that so abides with us as what we receive from God; and the reason why Christians at this day are at such a loss as to some things is, that they are contented with what comes from men’s mouths, without searching and kneeling before God to know of Him the truth of things. Things we receive at God’s hands come to us as truths from the minting house, though old in themselves, yet new to us. Old truths are always new to us if they come with the smell of Heaven upon ! them.
    ... John Bunyan (1628-1688), Christ a Complete Saviour [1692], p. 238 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me understanding of Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rutherford: carried to heaven

Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Meditation:
For you, O God, tested us;
    you refined us like silver.
You brought us into prison
    and laid burdens on our backs.
You let men ride over our heads;
    we went through fire and water,
    but you brought us to a place of abundance.
    —Psalm 66:10-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We love well summer religion, and to be that which sin has made us, even as thin skinned as if we were made of white paper: and would fain be carried to heaven in a close-covered chariot, wishing from our hearts that Christ would give us surety, and his handwrite and his seal, or nothing but a fair summer, until we be landed in at heaven’s gates.
    ... Samuel Rutherford (1600-1664), Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Edinburgh: William Whyte & Co., 1848, p. 561 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have shown me Your gracious hand, even in affliction. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newbigin: the announcement

Monday, August 29, 2011
Meditation:
    In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.
    —Isaiah 11:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Christian message, “the gospel,” was the announcement first to the Jews and then to pagans that God had crowned all his mighty acts by a supreme act in which sin and death were disarmed and all the nations were invited to become part of the people of the God of Abraham. This was not the introduction of a new religion; it was the announcement that God's promises to Israel were now fulfilled and all the nations were invited to become the people of the God of Israel. All the nations, in other words, were invited to find the clue to the puzzle of human life not in the eternal truths of the philosophers but in the story told in the Bible.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), Truth and Authority in Modernity, Gracewing Publishing, 1996, p. 67 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are conquering all. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Augustine: ask for better than wealth

Sunday, August 28, 2011
    Feast of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Teacher, 430
Meditation:
    Ill-gotten treasures are of no value, but righteousness delivers from death.
    —Proverbs 10:2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Picture God as saying to you, “My son, why is it that day by day you rise, and pray, and genuflect, and even strike the ground with your forehead, nay, sometimes even shed tears, while you say to Me: ‘My Father, give me wealth!’ If I were to give it to you, you would think yourself of some importance, you would fancy that you had gained something very great. Yet because you asked for it, you have it. But take care to make good use of it. Before you had it, you were humble; now that you have begun to be rich you despise the poor. What kind of a good is that which only makes you worse? For worse you are, since you were bad already. And that it would make you worse you knew not; hence you asked it of Me. I gave it to you, and I proved you; you have found—and you have found out!... Ask of Me better things than these, greater things than these. Ask of Me spiritual things. Ask of Me Myself!”
    ... St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Sermons, cccxi, 14-15 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let Your wisdom alone rule my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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