Thomas a Kempis: knowledge is not enough

Saturday, October 26, 2013
    Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899
    Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, 664
Meditation:
    Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.
    —1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every man naturally desires knowledge; but what good is knowledge without fear of God? Indeed a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars.
    ... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418], Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1877, I.ii.1, p. 31 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 8:1-3; Ps. 25:14; Pr. 1:7; 26:12; Isa. 5:21; Gal. 6:3; 1 Tim. 1:5-7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, take away my foolish distractions, so I may serve You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Aldrich: the family of the unloved

Friday, October 25, 2013
    Commemoration of Crispin & Crispinian, Martyrs at Rome, c.285
Meditation:
    When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
    On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
    —Mark 2:16-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If your church cannot accept the wreckage of broken homes and shattered dreams, it is not the place where Jesus lives. Your church should be the greatest garbage dump in town—a place where the broken, oppressed, misplaced, abandoned, and unloved peoples can come and find a ”family” where they are accepted and loved... as is.
    ... Joseph C. Aldrich (1941-2009), Lifestyle Evangelism, Multnomah Press, 1981, p. 180 (see the book)
    See also Mark 2:16-17; Matt. 5:43-44; 9:12-13; 18:11; Luke 4:18-19; 5:31-32; 15:7,10; 18:10-14; 19:10; Acts 17:30; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; 1 Tim. 1:15-16; 2 Pet. 3:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, forgive me for rejecting those whom You have loved. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sadgrove & Wright: salvation

Thursday, October 24, 2013
Meditation:
    This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
    —Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    Thus the Exodus is accompanied by the law and the sacrifices, pointers to that right relationship with God which was intended to characterize the (politically liberated) people of God. And the return from exile is to be achieved in the context of the work of the Servant who will deal not only with outward enslavement but with the sin of the people. There are no half measures in the Old Testament doctrine of salvation.
    ... Michael Sadgrove (b. 1950) & N. T. Wright (b. 1948), “Jesus Christ the Only Saviour”, in The Lord Christ [1980], John Stott, ed., vol. 1 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 66 (see the book)
    See also Lev. 26:6; Ex. 20:2; 29:46; Ps. 62:1-2; 95:1; 114:1-2; Isa. 1:18; 51:11; 53:4-5; 56:1; Jer. 29:10-14; 32:42-44; Matt. 1:21; 1 Tim. 2:5-6; 1 John 2:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You save Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sadgrove & Wright: peace

Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Meditation:
    [The LORD:] “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
    —Jeremiah 29:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The whole of the Old Testament faith is in a God who saves his people in history. It is a real material salvation he brings, yet more than that. It is wholeness of life for man individually and in community which contains a spiritual dimension as well. All this is implied in the Old Testament’s use of the word shalom—peace; not merely an absence of war, but well-being on every level. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Michael Sadgrove (b. 1950) & N. T. Wright (b. 1948), “Jesus Christ the Only Saviour”, in The Lord Christ [1980], John Stott, ed., vol. 1 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 66 (see the book)
    See also Jer. 29:4-7; Ps. 29:11; 85:8; 122:6-8; Isa. 2:4; 45:7; Jas. 3:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let there be peace once again in the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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de Sales: the world's demands

Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Meditation:
    You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
    —James 4:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    People spend every night for a month dancing, and no one will complain of being the worse; but if they keep the one watch of Christmas Eve, we shall hear of endless colds and maladies the next day! Is it not as plain as possible that the world is an unjust judge; indulgent and kindly to its own children, harsh and uncharitable to the children of God?
    We cannot stand well with the world save by renouncing His approval.
    ... François de Sales (1567-1622), Introduction to the Devout Life [1609], London: Rivingtons, 1876, p. 291-292 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 4:4; Matt. 5:11-12; 10:22; Mark 13:13; Luke 6:22; John 7:7; 15:18-19; 2 Cor. 4:2; Heb. 12:2; 1 John 2:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, assist me in renouncing the world’s approval. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Yancey: fear of heaven

Monday, October 21, 2013
Meditation:
    See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—even eternal life.
    —1 John 2:24-25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We fear heaven as our ancestors feared hell. The notion seems quaint, cowardly, an escape from this world’s problems. What inversion of values, I wonder, has led us to commend a belief in annihilation as brave and dismiss a hope for blissful eternity as cowardly?
    ... Philip Yancey (b. 1949), Soul Survivor, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001, p. 221 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 2:24-25; Ps. 133:3; Matt. 25:46; John 3:16; 5:24-25; 6:40; 14:2-3; 1 Cor. 1:26-29; 15:53-54; 2 Cor. 5:1; Col. 1:27; 2 Tim. 1:8-10; Tit. 3:4-7; 1 Pet. 1:3-5,21; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your promises are true. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Underhill: the fuel fo growth always present

Sunday, October 20, 2013
Meditation:
    Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody
    —1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is no need for peculiar conditions in order to grow in the spiritual life, for the pressure of God’s Spirit is present everywhere and at all times. Our environment itself, our home and our job, is the medium through which we experience His moulding action and His besetting love. It is not Christian to try to get out of our frame, or to separate our outward life from our life of prayer, since both are the creation of one Charity. The third-rate little town in the hills, with its limited social contacts and monotonous manual work, reproves us when we begin to fuss about our opportunities and our scope. And this quality of quietness, ordinariness, simplicity, with which the saving action of God enters history, endures from the beginning to the end.
    ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The School of Charity, New York: Longmans, Green, 1934, reprinted, Morehouse Publishing, 1991, p. 46 (see the book)
    See also 1 Thess. 4:11-12; Ps. 19:7; 119:130; Matt. 11:25; 18:2-3; John 1:46; 2 Cor. 5:9; Phil. 4:11-13; 1 Tim. 6:6-8; Heb. 13:5; 1 Pet. 2:1-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, quell the desires of worldly ambition in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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