Houston: setting our compass

Saturday, March 3, 2012
Meditation:
    For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.
    —1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We need to set our compass with three markers: (1) the Word of God; (2) a true analysis of the facts of our experience; and (3) the sensing of the mind of the Spirit by... this council.
    ... Thomas Houston, former president, World Vision International, in a private communication from World Vision
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead Your people through the problems of Christian community. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Browning: Earth breaks up, time drops away

Friday, March 2, 2012
    Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672
Meditation:
    When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
    —Revelation 1:17-18 (NIV)
Quotation:
Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,—
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, All in all,
King of kings, Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words,
“I died, and live for evermore!”
    ... Robert Browning (1812-1889), The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Browning, Macmillan, 1912, p. 420 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the eternal one! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: words to pass the defenses

Thursday, March 1, 2012
    Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601
Meditation:
    Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
    —Colossians 3:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The preacher and the writer may seem to have an... easy task. At first sight, it may seem that they have only to proclaim and declare; but in fact, if their words are to enter men’s hearts and bear fruit, they must be the right words, shaped cunningly to pass men’s defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds. This means, in practice, turning a face of flint toward the easy cliché, the well-worn religious cant and phraseology, dear, no doubt, to the faithful, but utterly meaningless to those outside the fold. It means learning how people are thinking and how they are feeling; it means learning with patience, imagination and ingenuity the way to pierce apathy or blank lack of understanding. I sometimes wonder what hours of prayer and thought lie behind the apparently simple and spontaneous parables of the Gospel.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Making Men Whole, London: Highway Press, 1952, p. 44 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant the word of truth to the shepherds of Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bondfield: sin

Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Meditation:
    So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
    —Romans 7:12-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess—to know the right order of values and deliberately to choose the lower ones; I learnt that, however much these values may differ with different people at different stages of spiritual growth, for one’s self there must be no compromise with that which one knows to be the lower value.
    ... Margaret Bondfield (1873-1953), A Life’s Work, Hutchinson, 1948, p. 355 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, guard me from sin. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chesterton: atheistic optimism

Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”
    —Luke 12:27-31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.
    ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), What I Saw in America, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1922, p. 236 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your unseen hand lies behind all goodness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Herbert: The God of love my shepherd is

Monday, February 27, 2012
    Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633
Meditation:
    ... my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
    —Philippians 4:19 (NIV)
Quotation:
The God of love my shepherd is,
    And he that doth me feed:
While he is mine and I am his,
    What can I want or need?

He leads me to the tender grasse,
    Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently passe:
    In both I have the best.

Or if I stray, he doth convert,
    And bring my minde in frame:
And all this not for my desert,
    But for his holy name.

Yea, in deaths shadie black abode
    Well may I walk, not fear:
For thou art with me, and thy rod
    To guide, thy staffe to bear.

Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
    Ev’n in my enemies’ sight;
My head with oyl, my cup with wine
    Runnes over day and night.

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
    Shall measure all my dayes;
And as it never shall remove,
    So neither shall my praise.
    ... George Herbert (1593-1633), The Poetical Works of George Herbert, New York: D. Appleton, 1857, p. 219-220 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are my sole safety.

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Calvin: the idol factory

Sunday, February 26, 2012
Meditation:
    Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
    —Colossians 3:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When [Moses] relates that Rachel stole her father’s idols, he speaks as of a common corruption. Whence we may infer, that the mind of man is, if I may be allowed the expression, a perpetual manufactory of idols. After the deluge, there was, as it were, a regeneration of the world; but not many years elapsed before men fabricated gods according to their own fancy.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559], tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, I.xi.8, p. 104 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, cast out the idols in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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