Weil: remission of debts

Saturday, January 11, 2014
    Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
    —Matthew 6:12 (KJV)
Quotation:
    To remit debts is to renounce our own personality. It means renouncing everything that goes to make up our ego, without any exception. It means knowing that in the ego there is nothing whatever, no psychological element, that external circumstances could not do away with. It means accepting that truth. It means being happy that things should be so.
    The words “Thy will be done” imply this acceptance, if we say them with all our soul. That is why we can say a few moments later: “We forgive our debtors.”
    ... Simone Weil (1909-1943), Waiting for God, Emma Craufurd, tr., Putnam, 1951, p. 224 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:12; Ps. 32:1; 130:4; Matt. 6:10,14-15; 18:21-22; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 6:37; 11:4; 17:3-5; Acts 13:38; Eph. 1:7; 4:32
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, change my heart so that I may forgive my debtors. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gordon: Thy will be done

Friday, January 10, 2014
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
    —Matthew 6:10 (KJV)
Quotation:
    Prayer is insistence upon God’s will being done. It needs for its practice a man in sympathetic touch with God. Its basis is Jesus’ victory. It overcomes the opposing will of the great traitor-leader.
    ... Samuel Dickey Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1904, p. 124 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 40:8; 103:19-21; Matt. 6:10; 7:21; 12:50; 26:42; Mark 3:35; John 4:34; 6:40; Rom. 12:2; Col. 1:13-14; Heb. 13:20-21; 1 Pet. 4:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your will soon be accomplished in Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: discipleship and joy

Thursday, January 9, 2014
Meditation:
    May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
    —Romans 15:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey’s end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The Cost of Discipleship, Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 38 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 15:5-6; Matt. 4:19; 8:22; 9:9; 16:24; 19:21; 28:8; Mark 1:17; 2:14; 8:34; 10:21; Luke 5:27; 9:23; 14:27; 18:22; John 1:43; 12:26; 1 Cor. 14:1; Tit. 3:4-7; 2 Tim. 2:15; 1 Pet. 2:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people rejoice in Your service. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Elliot: to touch His garment

Wednesday, January 8, 2014
    18th anniversary of CQOD
    Commemoration of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, martyrs, Ecuador, 1956
Meditation:
    Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
    Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.
    —Matthew 9:20-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on Earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, smile into His eyes—ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself.
    ... Jim Elliot (1927-1956), The Journals of Jim Elliot, ed. Elisabeth Elliot, Revell, 1990, p. 309 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 19:1; Dan. 7:13-14; Matt. 9:20-22; Luke 2:29-32
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant the vision of Your unveiled presence to Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Stott: worshiping in spirit

Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Meditation:
    [Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well:] “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
    —John 4:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Instead of worshiping God “in spirit” (recognizing that he is spirit himself and asks for spiritual worship), idolaters become preoccupied with external, visible, and tangible objects. Even the worship of the people of Israel had a constant tendency to degenerate into formalism and even blatant hypocrisy. The seventh and eighth century [B.C.] prophets were scathing in their denunciation of Israel’s empty religion, and Jesus applied their criticism to the Pharisees of his own day: “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.’” So whatever outward forms we may use in Christian worship (liturgies, processions, drama, ritual, kneeling or raising our arms), we need to ensure that they escape the charge of idolatry by passing the double test of being “in spirit and in truth.”
    ... John R. W. Stott (1921-2011), Basic Christianity, Nottingham, U.K.: Inter-Varsity Press, 2008, third edition, p. 94-95 (see the book)
    See also John 4:23-24; Isa. 1:13-17; 29:13-14; Amos 5:21-24; Mark 7:6-7; John 1:17; Rom. 8:15,26; Gal. 4:6; Col. 3:5; Jude 1:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, give me the discernment to embrace truth and reject the counterfeit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: our Contemporary

Monday, January 6, 2014
    EPIPHANY
Meditation:
    For through [Christ Jesus] we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
    —Ephesians 2:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God has become Man! From henceforth God is no absentee impersonal Omnipotence. God and Man are indissolubly linked. God has not only made His Personal Visit, not only given us the pattern of true and happy living, not only died to reconcile us to Himself, not only risen again both to shatter the fear of death and to prove His own claims, but there is no barrier now between Him and us. God in Christ is our Contemporary, and if that is not Good News it would be difficult to know what is!
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), God With Us: a Message for Christmas, London: Epworth Press, 1957, p. 12 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 2:18; Zech. 12:10; Matt. 26:64; Mark 16:19; John 1:14; Acts 2:32-33; 5:30-31; Rom. 8:34; Col. 3:1; Heb. 8:1-2; 12:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your intercession is life to Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Eckhart: loving God "because"

Sunday, January 5, 2014
Meditation:
    It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.
    —Philippians 1:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow—for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), quoted in Works of Meister Eckhart, London: J. M. Watkins, 1924, p. 52 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 1:15; 2 Kings 5:15-16; Pr. 15:26; Matt. 10:8; Luke 16:13; John 20:29; Acts 8:18-23; 2 Pet. 2:1-3; 1 John 2:16; 4:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, break my self-service. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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