Buechner: in the wilderness

Saturday, August 23, 2014
    Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617
Meditation:
    Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”
    —Mark 12:29-30 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The final secret, I think, is this: that the words “You shall love the Lord your God” become in the end less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us—loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief.
    ... Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces, HarperCollins, 2009, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also Mark 12:29-30; Deut. 6:5; Isa. 53:3; Matt. 22:37; Luke 10:27; Rom. 8:38-39
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I grow daily in love for You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Thomas: how not to be worldly

Friday, August 22, 2014
Meditation:
    In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
    —Philippians 1:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Want not to be worldly? Then take Jesus’ view toward life, what’s important, for instance, to give yourself to. If you give yourself to things, you will become hard and cold. We become the thing we worship. We get to be like what we worship. If we love God, what will happen to us? Well, we will get big hearts, for one thing. We will get so we love more people than we did in the beginning. We will find ourselves being open to what God does to us and what He is telling us.
    ... Eugene M. Thomas, in a talk delivered May 15, 1983, on the subject “Not Being Worldly” (see the book)
    See also Phil. 1:4-6; Luke 16:13; Gal. 5:16; Col. 2:6-7; 1 Thess. 3:12; 2 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 4:16-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grow my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Calvin: free will

Thursday, August 21, 2014
Meditation:
    So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
    —Romans 7:21-25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Few have defined what free will is, although it repeatedly occurs in the writings of all. Origen seems to have put forward a definition generally agreed upon among ecclesiastical writers when he said that it is a faculty of the reason to distinguish between good and evil, a faculty of the will to choose one or the other. Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.
    ... 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, II.ii.4, p. 236-237 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 7:14-25; 8:5-8; Gal. 6:8; Jas. 1:13-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me grace to choose the good. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Newbigin: part of Christ's mission

Wednesday, August 20, 2014
    Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153
    Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890
Meditation:
    But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.
    —2 Thessalonians 2:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To be elect in Christ Jesus, and there is no other election, means to be incorporated into his mission to the world, to be the bearer of God’s saving purpose for his whole world, to be the sign and the agent and the first fruit of his blessed kingdom which is for all.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1989, p. 86-87 (see the book)
    See also 2 Thess. 2:13; Rom. 8:23; 9:11-12; Jas. 1:18; 2 Pet. 1:10; Rev. 14:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I be a sign to others. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Tillotson: public repentance

Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Meditation:
    Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.
    —Revelation 3:19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In case our sins have been public and scandalous, both reason and the practice of the Christian Church do require, that, when men have publicly offended they should give public satisfaction and open testimony of their repentance.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VII, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CLX, p. 284-285 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 3:19; Ps. 19:12; 38:18; Jas. 5:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the courage to confess and repent as I should. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Allen: missionary zeal from love

Monday, August 18, 2014
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
    —Matthew 13:44 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love. If I do not love a person I am not moved to help him by proofs that he is in need; if I do love him I wait for no proof of a special need to urge me to help him. Knowledge of Christ is so rich a treasure that the spirit of love must necessarily desire to impart it. The mere assurance that others have it not is sufficient proof of their need. This spirit of love throws aside intellectual arguments that they can do very well without it. But if this spirit is not present, a man is easily persuaded that to impart a knowledge of Christianity (for it is noteworthy that such men always speak of Christianity rather than of Christ) is not necessary, nay, is superfluous expense of energy which might be better used in other ways.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Pentecost and the World, London: Oxford University Press, 1917, included in The Ministry of the Spirit, David M. Paton, ed., London: World Dominion Press, 1960, p. 35 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 13:44; Ps. 18:49; Isa. 43:5-11; John 3:16-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the whole world needs Your grace and mercy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Blake: God appears, and God is Light

Sunday, August 17, 2014
Meditation:
    In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
    —John 1:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
God appears, and God is Light
    To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
    To those who dwell in realms of day.
    ... William Blake (1757-1827), Poems of William Blake, ed. William Butler Yeats, London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1893, p. 472 (see the book)
    See also John 1:4-5; Isa. 9:2; 50:10; 60:1-3,19; Luke 2:30-32; John 8:12; 12:46; Eph. 5:8-14; 1 Pet. 2:9; 1 John 1:5-7; Rev. 22:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You light lifts all Your people out of darkness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt