Phelps: What blessing can I wish you

Saturday, December 14, 2013
    Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591
Meditation:
    Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
    —2 Peter 1:2-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
What blessing can I wish you, O my friends,
Save that the joyful calm of Christmas-tide
Should wrap your hearts so close that never jar
Of the world’s care or grief can enter in,
But only love, to keep you pitiful,
And faith, and hope, to keep you strong and true;
“A Merry Christmas” and “A Glad New Year,”
I wish you, and may God’s exceeding love
Enfold you all, until His tender hand
Shall lead you safely Home, to love’s own land!
    ... Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911), included in The Marching Morrows, Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, Boston: Merrymount Press, 1901, p. 178 (see the book)
    See also 2 Pet. 1:2-3; Ps. 23:2-3,6; 52:8; 84:5; Luke 2:10-14; 1 Cor. 13:13; Eph. 3:20-21; Phil. 2:12-13; 4:6-7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your embrace is love. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Johnson: unreformed

Friday, December 13, 2013
    Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304
    Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
    —John 5:39-40 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.
    ... Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D., v. V, New York: William Durell, 1811, p. 109 (see the book)
    See also John 5:39-40; Ps. 119:11; Isa. 6:9-10; Jer. 8:9; Matt. 23:37; Mark 12:10-11; John 1:11; 3:19; 5:46; Rom. 3:1-4; 2 Pet. 1:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the Living Word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Neill: making Himself known

Thursday, December 12, 2013
Meditation:
    At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
    —Mark 1:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God may be inscrutable; but if He is really God, there can be nothing to prevent Him from making known everything about Himself that can be known by man. And this is exactly what He has done.
    ... Stephen Neill (1900-1984), Jesus Through Many Eyes, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976, p. 145
    See also Mark 1:9-11; Ex. 3:1-6,13-14; Matt. 3:17; 16:17; 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 3:22; 9:35; John 3:16; 14:9; 15:15; 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:1-2; 2:2-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we know You through Your Son. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Underhill: life indivisible

Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Meditation:
    For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.
    —Colossians 2:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Indeed, if God is All and His Word to us is All, that must mean that He is the reality and controlling factor of every situation, religious or secular; and that it is only for His glory and creative purpose that it exists. Therefore our favourite distinction between the spiritual life and the practical life is false. We cannot divide them. One affects the other all the time.
    ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The Spiritual Life, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1937, reprinted, Morehouse Publishing, 1985, p. 35 (see the book)
    See also Col. 2:9-12; Ps. 51:10; Eze. 36:26; Rom. 12:2; 13:14; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; 2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 1:21-23; 3:7-10; 1 Thess. 4:3-6; 2 Tim. 2:19; Heb. 2:11; 2 Pet. 1:2-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word integrates my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Merton: to be grateful

Tuesday, December 10, 2013
    Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968
Meditation:
    Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.
    —Philippians 1:12-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us—and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful man knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.
    ... Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Thoughts in Solitude [1958], Macmillan, 1999, p. 48 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 1:12-13; Ps. 34:8; 106:1; 145:9; Matt. 10:29; Luke 21:17-18; 22:35; John 6:11; Rom. 8:28; 1 John 4:7-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have tasted Your goodness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Augustine: the way He's the Way

Monday, December 9, 2013
Meditation:
    Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
    —Philippians 2:5-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    He enters by the door who enters by Christ, who imitates the suffering of Christ, who is acquainted with the humility of Christ, so as to feel and know that, if God became man for us, men should not think themselves God, but men. He who, being man, wishes to appear God, does not imitate Him who, being God, became man. Thou art not bid to think less of thyself than thou art, but to know what thou art.
    ... St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Sermon 87(137).4 (NPNF 16::518), in Catena aurea, v. VI, Thomas Aquinas, Oxford: J. Parker, 1874, p. 344-345 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 2:5-11; Isa. 53:3-7; John 10:1-5; 14:6-7; 17:14-23; Rom. 12:3,16; 1 Cor. 3:18; 8:2; Gal. 6:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am Your image made of dust. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: the vastness within

Sunday, December 8, 2013
    Advent II
Meditation:
    No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
    —1 John 4:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The widest thing in the universe is not space, it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions... [Christians] should seek for inner enlargement till their outward dimension gives no hint of the vastness within.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Root of the Righteous, Christian Publications, 1955, p. 112-113 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:12; Gen. 1:26; Prov. 28:14; Eph. 4:15-16; 1 Thess. 3:12; 2 Thess. 1:3; 2 Pet. 1:5-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, ever enlarge my heart to be like Yours. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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