Johnston: what failed?

Saturday, November 23, 2013
    Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
    —Matthew 18:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The neglect of the spiritual cannot be laid directly at the door of advertising. It may be better laid at the door of the church [that] has failed to preach the God of the Bible, heaven and hell, repentance, faith, and eternal life. It can be argued that a society only gets the advertising it deserves. Yet the power to commend certain patterns of spending behaviour to millions with regularity is an open invitation to orchestrate the covetousness, envy, lust, and desire to dominate, which lie in the heart of sinful man.
    ... Raymond Johnston (1927-1985), “The Power of the Media”, in The Changing World, Bruce Kaye, ed., vol. 3 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 55 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 18:6; Isa. 59:7; Matt. 15:17-20; Mark 7:20-23; Luke 12:15; 1 Cor. 10:32-33; Eph. 5:3-4; Col. 3:5; 1 Tim. 6:9-10; Jas. 1:13-15; 4:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead Your people away from covetousness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: one in need

Friday, November 22, 2013
    Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230
    Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
    —Matthew 5:40-42 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It will not bother me in the hour of death to reflect that I have been ‘had for a sucker’ by any number of imposters; but it would be a torment to know that one had refused even one person in need.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to an American Lady, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1986, p. 108 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:40-42; 25:32-46; Luke 6:30; 14:12-14; 2 Cor. 9:6-7; Gal. 2:9-10; 1 Tim. 6:17-19; Heb. 13:16; 1 John 3:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me a fool, so that I may be wise. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kingsley: delivery from sin

Thursday, November 21, 2013
Meditation:
    For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
    —Romans 6:23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is our comfort, there is our hope—Christ, the great healer, the great physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us from the remains of our old sins, the consequences of our own follies. Not, indeed, at once, or by miracle; but by slow education in new and nobler motives, in purer and more unselfish habits. And better for us, perhaps, that He should not cure us at once, lest we should fancy that sin was a light thing, which we could throw off whenever we chose; and not what it is, an inward disease, corroding and corrupting, the wages whereof are death. Therefore it is, that because Christ loves us He hates our sins, and cannot abide or endure them, will punish them, and is merciful and loving in punishing them, as long as a tincture or remnant of sin is left in us.
    ... Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), All Saints’ Day, and other sermons, ed. William Harrison, London: Kegan Paul, 1878, p. 299-300 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:23; Isa. 57:15; Matt. 1:21; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31-32; 19:10; John 3:17; Acts 20:21; 1 Tim. 1:15; 2 Tim. 2:25-26; 2 Pet. 3:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I hate my sins and desire to leave them. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Noyes: This outer world

Wednesday, November 20, 2013
    Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870
    Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876
Meditation:
    Nothing impure will ever enter [the City of God], nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
    —Revelation 21:27 (NIV)
Quotation:
This outer world is but the pictured scroll
    Of worlds within the soul,
A coloured chart, a blazoned missal-book
    Wherein who rightly look
May spell the splendours with their mortal eyes
    And steer to Paradise.
    ... Alfred Noyes (1880-1958), Collected Poems, v. II, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1913, p. 66 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 21:27; 3:5; 13:8; 20:12,15; 21:1-2; 22;7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I follow You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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D'Arcy: in a dry and thirsty land

Tuesday, November 19, 2013
    Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680
    Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231
    Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280
Meditation:
In his pride the wicked does not seek him;
    in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
    —Psalm 10:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Leave Him [God] out of our explanations, and the life of thought is decapitated... Without God, everything dries up.
    ... Martin C. D’Arcy (1888-1976), Mirage and Truth, The Centenary Press, 1935, p. 95 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 10:4; 14:1-3; 42:1-2; John 1:4; Rom. 1:21-23,28; Eph. 2:11-12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, in You is life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Seaver: every circumstance an opportunity

Monday, November 18, 2013
Meditation:
    Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
    —Hebrews 12:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It was his steadfast and unalterable conviction that for a man who has wrapped his will in God’s will, put his life consciously in the stream of the divine Life, freed his soul from all personal ambitions, taken his life on trust as a divine gift—that for such a man there is an over-ruling Providence which guards and guides him in every incident of his life, from the greatest to the least. He held that all annoyances, frustrations, disappointments, mishaps, discomforts, hardships, sorrows, pains, and even final disaster itself, are simply God’s ways of teaching us lessons that we could never else learn. That circumstances do not matter, are nothing, but that the response of the spirit that meets them is everything; that there is no situation in human life, however apparently adverse, nor any human relationship, however apparently uncongenial, that cannot be made, if God be in the heart, into a thing of perfect joy; that, in order to attain this ultimate perfection, one must accept every experience and learn to love all persons... that the worth of life is not to be measured by its results in achievement or success, but solely by the motive of one’s heart and the effort of one’s will.
    ... George Seaver (1890-?), The Faith of Edward Wilson, London: J. Murray, 1948, quoted in A Treasury of the Kingdom: an anthology, Emmeline Alethea Blackburn, ed., Oxford University Press, 1954, p. 183 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 12:5-11; Deut. 8:5; Pr. 3:11-12; Rom. 8:38-39; Heb. 5:7-10; Jas. 1:2-4,12; 1 Pet. 1:15-16; Rev. 3:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep me in the center of Your will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Halverson: come to church?

Sunday, November 17, 2013
    Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
    —Luke 6:36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Nowhere in the Bible is the world exhorted to “come to church.” But the church’s mandate is clear: she must go to the world... the work of the ministry belongs to the one in the pew, not the one in the pulpit.
    ... Richard C. Halverson (1916-1995), The Timelessness of Jesus Christ, Regal Books, 1982, p. 104 (see the book)
    See also Luke 6:36; Prov. 3:3-4; Joel 2:28-31; Matt. 24:14; 28:19-20; Rom. 12:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:18-19; Col. 1:28
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may the ministry of Your people to the world prosper and increase. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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