Yancey: what kind of faith

Saturday, February 2, 2013
    THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE
Meditation:
    As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.”
    —Luke 11:29-30 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Some Christians long for a world well-stocked with miracles and spectacular signs of God’s presence. I hear wistful sermons on the parting of the Red Sea and the ten plagues and the daily manna in the wilderness, as if the speakers yearn for God to unleash his power like that today. But the follow-the-dots journey of the Israelites should give us pause. Would a burst of miracles nourish faith? Not the kind of faith God seems interested in, evidently. The Israelites give ample proof that signs may only addict us to signs, not to God.
    ... Philip Yancey (b. 1949), Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud, p. 36 (see the book)
    See also Luke 11:29-30; Ex. 16:3-4; 17:1-7; Matt. 12:38-39; 16:4; Mark 8:11-12; John 2:18-21; 4:48; 1 Cor. 1:22-24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the only true source for faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Foster: out of control

Friday, February 1, 2013
    Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
    —Matthew 6:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. That puts us in the “on-top” position, where we are competent and in control. But when praying, we come “underneath,” where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.
    ... Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, HarperCollins, 1992, p. 7-8 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:5-6; Ps. 19:14; Matt. 6:31-32; Luke 11:1; Rom. 8:26-27; 1 Cor. 2:9-10 Jas. 4:2-3; Jude 1:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may You be my only concern in prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Maclaren: sloth

Thursday, January 31, 2013
    Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888
Meditation:
    [Jesus] said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’”
    —Luke 8:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    This generation abhors mystery, and demands that the deepest truths of the highest subject, which is religion, shall be so broken down into mincemeat that the “man in the street” can understand them in the intervals of reading the newspaper. There are only too many of us who are disposed to grasp at the most superficial interpretation of Christian truth, and lazily to rest ourselves in that.
    ... Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910), The Holy of Holies, London: Alexander & Shepheard, 1890, p. 363 (see the book)
    See also Luke 8:10; Ps. 1:2; 42:7; 1 Cor. 2:7-10; Eph. 3:2-5; Col. 1:25-27; 2:2-3; 1 Tim. 3:8-9,16; 1 Pet. 1:10-12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Lead Your people to desire the deep truths. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newbigin: embodied in culture

Wednesday, January 30, 2013
    Commemoration of Lesslie Newbigin, Bishop, Missionary, Teacher, 1998
Meditation:
    But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.”
    —Acts 14:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The idea that one can or could at any time separate out by some process of distillation a pure gospel unadulterated by any cultural accretions is an illusion. It is, in fact, an abandonment of the gospel, for the gospel is about the word made flesh. Every statement of the gospel in words is conditioned by the culture of which these words are a part, and every style of life that claims to embody the truth of the gospel is a culturally conditioned style of life. There can never be a culture-free gospel. Yet the gospel, which is from beginning to end embodied in culturally conditioned forms, calls into question all cultures including the one in which it was originally embodied.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), Foolishness to the Greeks: the Gospel and Western culture, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1986, p. 4 (see the book)
    See also Acts 14:11-17; 2:4-11; 26:13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You call us in our own language. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Underhill: turning to reality

Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Meditation:
How lovely is your dwelling place,
    O LORD Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.
    —Psalm 84:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Prayer means turning to Reality, taking our part, however humble, tentative and half-understood, in the continual conversation, the communion, of our spirits with the Eternal Spirit; the acknowledgment of our entire dependence, which is yet the partly free dependence of the child. For Prayer is really our whole life toward God: our longing for Him, our “incurable God-sickness,” as Barth calls it, our whole drive towards Him. It is the humble correspondence of the human spirit with the Sum of all Perfection, the Fountain of Life. No narrower definition than this is truly satisfactory, or covers all the ground.
    ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The Spiritual Life, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1937, reprinted, Morehouse Publishing, 1985, p. 61 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 84:1-2; 42:1-2; 62:7; 63:1-2; 143:6; Isa. 26:8-9; Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 4:16; Phil. 2:17; Heb. 13:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am driven to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Aquinas: aspiring to the higher thought

Monday, January 28, 2013
    Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274
Meditation:
    [The LORD:] “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’”
    —Isaiah 65:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No man tends to do a thing by his desire and endeavour unless it be previously known to him. Wherefore since man is directed by divine providence to a higher good than human frailty can attain in the present life, ... it was necessary for his mind to be bidden to something higher than those things to which our reason can reach in the present life, so that he might learn to aspire, and by his endeavours to tend to something surpassing the whole state of the present life. And this is especially competent to the Christian religion, which alone promises goods spiritual and eternal: for which reason it proposes many things surpassing the thought of man.
    ... Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274), Summa Contra Gentiles [1264], Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1923, I.v, p. 9-10 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 65:1; Matt. 6:33; 7:7; Luke 11:9; 12:31; Rom. 10:20; 11:33; 1 Cor. 12:31; Phil. 4:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Your Spirit leads me to higher things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Orchard: Like summer seas

Sunday, January 27, 2013
Meditation:
Awake, my soul!
    Awake, harp and lyre!
    I will awaken the dawn.
I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations;
    I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;
    your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
    —Psalm 57:8-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Like summer seas that lave with silent tides a lonely shore, like whispering winds that stir the tops of forest trees, like a still small voice that calls us in the watches of the night, like a child’s hand that feels about a fast-closed door; gentle, unnoticed, and oft in vain; so is Thy coming unto us, O God.
    Like ships storm-driven into port, like starving souls that seek the bread they once despised, like wanderers begging refuge from the whelming night, like prodigals that seek the father’s home when all is spent; yet welcomed at the open door, arms outstretched and kisses for our shame; so is our coming unto Thee, O God.
    Like flowers uplifted to the sun, like trees that bend before the storm, like sleeping seas that mirror cloudless skies, like a harp to the hand, like an echo to a cry, like a song to the heart; for all our stubbornness, our failure and our sin; so would we have been to Thee, O God.
    Amen.
    ... William Edwin Orchard (1877-1955), The Temple: a book of prayers, 3rd ed., New York, E. P. Dutton, 1918, p. 149 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 57:8-10; 1 Kings 19:11-12; Ps. 4:1-4; Matt. 8:24-27; Luke 12:27; 15:21-24; John 6:32-35; Rev. 3:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your patient love surrounds me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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