Backhouse & Jansen: why He wants prayer

Saturday, May 31, 2014
Meditation:
    About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.
    —Acts 10:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Though you may think yourselves ever so dull, and incapable of sublime attainments, yet by prayer the possession and enjoyment of God is easily obtained; for He is more desirous to give Himself to us than we can be to receive Him.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Mme. Guyon (1648-1717), William Backhouse (1779/80-1844) & James Jansen (1784-1821), A Guide to True Peace [1813], Pendle Hill by Harper & Brothers, 1946, p. 15 (see the book)
    See also Acts 10:9-10; Matt. 18:12-14; Luke 1:46-48; Acts 13:32; Rom. 12:12; 14:17-18; 15:13; Jude 1:24-25
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open my arms, so that I might receive Your gifts. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Watson: the hidden ones

Friday, May 30, 2014
    Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
    Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
    Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933
Meditation:
    For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
    —Colossians 3:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The saints of God are called hidden ones. Why so? not only because they are hid in God’s decree, and hid in Christ’s wounds, but oftentimes God hides them in a time of danger and calamity: they are hidden ones. He reserved to himself seven thousand that had not bowed the knee to Baal. The prophet knew not where there was one, but God knew there were seven thousand.
    ... Thomas Watson (c.1620-1686), preached Aug. 19, 1662, in Farewell Sermons of Some of the Most Eminent of the Nonconformist Ministers, London: Gale and Fenner, 1816, p. 211 (see the book)
    See also Col. 3:3; 1 Kings 19:14,18; Ps. 83:3; Isa. 3:10-11; John 14:27; 2 Cor. 3:3-4; Phil. 4:7; 1 Pet. 3:4; Heb. 4:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am safe with You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: the intercessor

Thursday, May 29, 2014
    Ascension
Meditation:
    Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
    —Romans 8:34 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ, our High-priest, is ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father, where, without ceasing, he makes intercession for us, where St. Paul, with very excellent, glorious words, pictures Christ to us; as in his death, he is a sacrifice offered up for sins; in his resurrection, a conqueror; in his ascension, a king; in making mediation and intercession, a high-priest.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), Table-Talk [1566], CXC (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:34; Ps. 110:1; Matt. 26:64; Mark 16:19; Luke 22:69; Rom. 8:26; Heb. 1:3; 8:1-2; 12:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have the ear of God for our sakes. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Inge: active faith

Wednesday, May 28, 2014
    Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089
Meditation:
    For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
    —Galatians 5:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What St. Paul dreads, and protests against in his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, is a baptized Pharisaism which would remain in all essentials pre-Christian. He is determined that Faith shall not lose its new active meaning, as a decisive moral act of trust; he dreads that it may become again Jewish and passive, a mere fidelity to the terms of a covenant. He is fighting for the new content of the word Faith, as a Christian virtue. But it is as a Christian virtue bound up inextricably with the other Christian virtues, and especially with Love, which is its proper activity..., that he claims such importance for it.
    ... William R. Inge (1860-1954), Faith and its Psychology, Scribner, 1910, p. 13 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 5:6; Rom. 10:9; Gal. 5:1-2; 6:15; Jas. 2:18; 1 Pet. 1:8-9; 1 John 4:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love is the engine of the church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: predestination

Tuesday, May 27, 2014
    Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564
Meditation:
    So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
    —Romans 11:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When they inquire into predestination, they are penetrating the sacred precincts of divine wisdom. If anyone with carefree assurance breaks into this place, he will not succeed in satisfying his curiosity and he will enter a labyrinth from which he can find no exit. For it is not right for man unrestrainedly to search out things that the Lord has willed to be hidden in Himself; nor is it right for him to investigate from eternity that sublime wisdom, which God would have us revere but not understand, in order that through this also He should fill us with wonder. He has set forth by His Word the secrets of His will that He has decided to reveal to us. These He decided to reveal in so far as He foresaw that they would concern and benefit us.
    ... 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.xxi.1, p. 142 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 11:2-6; Ex. 33:19; Matt. 6:8; 22:14; Acts 2:23; Rom. 8:29-30; 9:15-18; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:4-5; 1 Pet. 2:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, with Your mysteries, Your church is content. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: no time for Christ

Monday, May 26, 2014
    Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
    Commemoration of Arthur John Gossip, spiritual writer, 1954
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.”
    Luke 8:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Even those of us who are inside it will agree that, in the main, the Church, and all for which it stands, occupy a palpably smaller place in the life of the average member than it did in former days. We explain it on the ground that life has become fuller, and that, of necessity, our attention nowadays has to percolate over a wide area instead of rushing foam-flecked down a narrower channel—which is to say, in other words, that Christ is getting lost to us in the crush and throng of things, does not loom up as arresting, as unique, as all-important, as He did to our forefathers. Yet that, when you come to think of it, is no bad definition of unspirituality.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926, p. 61-62 (see the book)
    See also Luke 8:14; Matt. 6:24-25; 13:22; Mark 4:18-19; 8:27-29; Luke 16:13; 18:24-25; 21:34; Rom. 7:18; 1 Tim. 6:9-10; 1 John 2:15-17; Jas. 3:13-15; Jude 1:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, reform my priorities, so that I place Christ first. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Robinson: more truth yet

Sunday, May 25, 2014
    Feast of the Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk of Jarrow, Historian, 735
    Commemoration of Aldhelm, Abbot of Mamsbury, Bishop of Sherborne, 709
Meditation:
    Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
    —2 Peter 3:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry: for I am verily persuaded, the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word.
    ... John Robinson (1576?-1625), to the “Mayflower” emigrants, in The History of the Puritans, or Protestant Noncomformists, Daniel Neal, Harper, 1844, vol. 1, p. 269 (see the book)
    See also 2 Pet. 3:15-16; John 15:26; 16:13-14; Rom. 8:24-25; 1 Cor. 13:12; 2 Cor. 4:18; 5:7; Gal. 2:20; Heb. 10:38; 11:1; 1 Pet. 1:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit leads us to Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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