Smith: seeing God in everything

Saturday, June 1, 2013
    Feast of Justin, Martyr at Rome, c.165
    Commemoration of Angela de Merici, Founder of the Institute of St. Ursula, 1540
Meditation:
    Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
    —Hebrews 13:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Nothing else but this seeing God in everything will make us loving and patient with those who annoy and trouble us. They will be to us then only the instruments for accomplishing His tender and wise purposes towards us, and we shall even find ourselves at last inwardly thanking them for the blessings they bring us.
    ... Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911), Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, London: F. E. Longley, 1876, p. 93 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 13:5-6; Gen. 15:1; Ps. 46:1-3; 54:4; 56:10-11; 121:2-8; 139:7-8; 118:7-9; Matt. 10:40-42; 18:3-5; 25:40; Mark 9:41; Rom. 8:31; 1 John 4:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your loving care grants confidence to Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sayers: the most helpful message

Friday, May 31, 2013
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’”
    —Matthew 15:17-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Surprisingly] the Christian Church now finds herself called upon to proclaim the old and hated doctrine of sin as a gospel of cheer and encouragement. The final tendency of the modern philosophies—hailed in their day as a release from the burden of sinfulness—has been to bind man hard and fast in the chains of an iron determinism. The influences of heredity and environment, of glandular make-up and the control exercised by the unconscious, of economic necessity and the mechanics of biological development, have all been invoked to assure man that he is not responsible for his misfortunes and therefore not to be held guilty. Evil has been represented as something imposed upon him from without, not made by him from within. The dreadful conclusion follows inevitably, that as he is not responsible for evil, he cannot alter it... Today, if we could really be persuaded that we are miserable sinners—that the trouble is not outside us bu! t inside us, and that therefore, by the grace of God, we can do something to put it right, we should receive that message as the most hopeful and heartening thing that can be imagined.
    ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, Eerdmans, 1969, p. 41 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 15:17-20; 6:22-23; 12:34; 23:25-28; Mark 7:15,18-23; Luke 11:34-36; 17:20-21; Rom. 8:6-8; Eph. 3:20-21; Jas. 1:13-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let Your redemption from sin be preached again. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: labor and gambling

Thursday, May 30, 2013
    Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
    Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
    Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933
Meditation:
    Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
    —Mark 4:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Now he that is up early and late, that sweats and labours ... that he may be some time or other rich, and live in pleasure and indulgence, lives no more to the glory of God, than he that plays and games for the same ends. For though there is a great difference between trading and gaming, yet most of that difference is lost, when men once trade with the same desires and tempers, and for the same ends that others game.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728], London: Methuen, 1899, p. 54 (see the book)
    See also Mark 4:18-19; Deut. 31:20; Ps. 37:16-17; Eccl. 5:10; Isa. 5:8-10; Matt. 6:19-21; Luke 12:15-21; 1 Tim. 6:6-11,17-19; Jas. 5:1-5; 1 John 3:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to dedicate my labors to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: Christian suffering

Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Meditation:
    But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
    —1 Peter 4:13-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. When it comes, it is not an accident, but a necessity. It is not the sort of suffering which is inseparable from this mortal life, but the suffering which is an essential part of the specifically Christian life.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The Cost of Discipleship, Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 88 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 4:13-14; Mark 8:31-38; Acts 9:15-16; Rom. 8:18; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:29-30; 3:10-11; Col. 1:24; Jas. 1:2-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit leads Your people through all trials. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thomas a Kempis: Jesus the treasure

Tuesday, May 28, 2013
    Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089
Meditation:
    And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
    —1 John 5:11-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    He who finds Jesus finds a rare treasure, indeed, a good above every good, whereas he who loses Him loses more than the whole world. The man who lives without Jesus is the poorest of the poor, whereas no one is so rich as the man who lives in His grace.
    ... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418], Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1877, II.viii.2, p. 96 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 5:11-12; Pr. 2:4-5; Matt. 6:19-21; 10:39; 13:44-46; Luke 9:24-25; Eph. 3:8; Col. 2:2-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have enriched Your people beyond measure. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: express Christ in life

Monday, May 27, 2013
    Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564
Meditation:
    How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
    —1 John 3:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We have been adopted as sons by the Lord with this one condition: that our life express Christ, the bond of our adoption. Accordingly, unless we give and devote ourselves to righteousness, we not only revolt from our Creator with wicked perfidy, but we also abjure our Savior Himself.
    ... 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, III.vi.3, p. 616 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 3:1-2; John 1:12-13; Rom. 8:13-17; Gal. 3:26-27; 4:4-6; Phil. 2:14-16; Heb. 2:10-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may my life exhibit Your presence. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: no escape

Sunday, May 26, 2013
    Trinity Sunday
    Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
    Commemoration of Arthur John Gossip, spiritual writer, 1954
Meditation:
    When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”
    —Mark 5:6-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    You cannot escape Christ, do what You will. You reject His divinity, but, so doing, you have not evaded Him. If He is just a man like us, then obviously you must be a man like Him!
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926, p. 271 (see the book)
    See also Mark 5:6-8; Isa. 53:7; Matt. 16:13-16; 22:42-45; 27:12-14; Mark 15:3-5; 1 Pet. 2:23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your power is over all. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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