Pascal: both truths

Saturday, March 10, 2012
Meditation:
    I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
    —Romans 11:25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The knowledge of God without that of man’s misery causes pride. The knowledge of man’s misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #527, p. 173 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me understanding of Your glory without pride. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: man-centered Christianity

Friday, March 9, 2012
Meditation:
    “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?”
    —Isaiah 45:9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Saviour of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable. This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make man the star of the show.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Man: The Dwelling Place of God, Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian Publications, Inc., 1966, p. 27 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that on You alone are my thoughts. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Studdert Kennedy: in Christ's name

Thursday, March 8, 2012
    Commemoration of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.”
    —John 14:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Prayer in Christ’s name means prayer in Christ’s spirit. The greatest of all prayers does not contain the Name, but is drenched with the spirit. What is Christ’s spirit? In a word, “heroism.” God and my duty first—a long way first. God’s will above and beyond all other things. My pals and other people second. Myself and my own desires last, and a long way last, almost nowhere. That is Christ... There is no such thing as selfish prayer. There is no such thing as prayer which does not put God first. That is the essence of it. That is the spirit. The name without the spirit is as futile as the mumbo-jumbo of a conjuror.
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Hardest Part, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919, p. 102-103 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit gives me the prayers I pray. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Basil: sin slain in the flesh

Wednesday, March 7, 2012
    Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203
Meditation:
    O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
    —1 Corinthians 15:55 (KJV)
Quotation:
    If what was reigned over by death was not that which was assumed by the Lord, death would not have ceased working his own ends, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have been made our gain; He would not have killed sin in the flesh; we who had died in Adam should not have been made alive in Christ; the fallen to pieces would not have been framed again; the shattered would not have been set up again; that which by the serpent’s trick had been estranged from God would never have been made once more His own.
    ... St. Basil the Great (330?-379), letter 261.2, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, v. VIII, Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, ed., New York: Christian Literature Company, 1895, p. 300 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, in You our estrangement ends. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pink: outrage of the natural man

Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Meditation:
    Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
    —Isaiah 64:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Nothing riles the natural man more and brings to the surface his innate, inveterate enmity against God than to press upon him the eternality, the freeness, and the absolute sovereignty of divine grace. That God should have formed His purpose from everlasting, without in anywise consulting the creature, is too abasing for the unbroken heart. That grace cannot be earned or won by any efforts of man is too self-emptying for self-righteousness. That grace singles out whom it pleases to be its favored objects arouses hot protests from haughty rebels.
    ... A. W. Pink (1886-1952), The Nature of God, Moody Publishers, 1999, p. 81 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your elect owe all to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bishop: whom grace is for

Monday, March 5, 2012
Meditation:
    For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
    —Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the axe of justice—so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures—so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him—so blind that they cannot see Him—so deaf that they cannot hear Him and so dead that He Himself must open their graves and then lift them into resurrection.
    ... G. S. Bishop, The Doctrines of Grace, Gospel Publishing House, 1910, p. 156 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone save. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: focused on Heaven

Sunday, March 4, 2012
    Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647
Meditation:
    All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
    —Hebrews 11:13-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity, New York: MacMillan, 1952, reprint, HarperCollins, 2001, p. 75 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people move the world for Your sake. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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