Schaeffer: observable love

Saturday, November 8, 2014
    Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England
Meditation:
    Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
    —1 Corinthians 13:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    So often people think that Christianity is only something soft, only a kind of gooey love that loves evil equally with good. This is not the biblical position. The holiness of God is to be exhibited simultaneously with love. We must be careful therefore, not to say that what is wrong is right, whether it is in the area of doctrine or of life, in our own group or another. Anywhere what is wrong is wrong, and we have a responsibility in that situation to say that what is wrong is wrong. But the observable love must be there regardless of the cost.
    ... Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), The Mark of the Christian, Inter-Varsity Press, 1976, p. 28 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 13:6; Rom. 12:9; Eph. 4:15; 1 John 3:18; 3 John 1:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are teaching Your people to love the way You love. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: the undeveloped germ

Friday, November 7, 2014
    Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
    —Matthew 5:21-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The murderer and the unloving sit on the same bench before the Judge of eternal truth... Until we love our brother,—yes, until we love our enemy,—who is yet our brother,—we contain within ourselves the undeveloped germ of murder. And so with every sin in the tables, or out of the tables.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), Selections from the Writings of George MacDonald, F.L. Dusenberry, 1889, p. 29 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:21-22; Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17; Ps. 37:8; Matt. 5:43-45; Eph. 4:26-27,31-32; 1 Pet. 2:23; 3:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, convict me of my hatred, wherever it is. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Figgis: the wedge

Thursday, November 6, 2014
    Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’”
    —Matthew 10:34-36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Any one can believe that Jesus was a god—what is so hard to credit is that He who hung upon the cross was the God. That is what you are asked as Christians to believe.
    And it is the sword, glittering but fearful. It must cut your life away from the standards of this world, away from its thought and its measures, no less than its aims and hopes. Hard and bitter is the separation; and you will be parted from many great and noble men, some perhaps your own teachers, who can accept about Jesus everything but the one thing needful. The Christian faith, if accepted, drives a wedge between its own adherents and the disciples of every other philosophy or religion, however lofty or soaring. And they will not see this; they will tell you that really your views and theirs are the same thing, and only differ in words, which, if only you were a little more highly trained, you would understand. Even among Christ’s nominal servants there are many who think a little goodwill is all that is needed to bridge the gulf—a little amiability and mutual explanation, a more careful use of phrases, would soon accommodate Christianity to fashionable modes of speaking and thinking, and destroy all causes of provocation. So they would. But they would destroy also its one inalienable attraction: that of being... a wonder, and a beauty, and a terror—no dull and drab system of thought, no mere symbolic idealism.
    ... John Neville Figgis (1866-1919), The Gospel and Human Needs, London: Longman’s, Green & Co., 1911, p. 149-150 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 10:34-36; Mic. 7:5-6; Matt. 24:10; Mark 13:12-13; Luke 21:16; Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 1:19-23; 3:18-19; 2 Cor. 10:5; Col. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:20-21; Heb. 4:12; Rev. 1:16; 21:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Jesus, You are Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Piper: the center

Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Meditation:
The LORD is King for ever and ever;
    the nations will perish from his land.
    —Psalm 10:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If we would meet God in worship, there is only one place we must go, to Jesus Christ. Christianity has no geographical center like Islam and Judaism... He came into the world to explode geographical limitation. There is no temple now. Jerusalem is not the center. Christ is.
    ... John S. Piper (b. 1946), Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, Crossway, 2006, p. 69 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 10:16; 2:8; 110:1; 139:7-10; Dan. 7:14; John 4:23-24; Acts 2:32-36; 1 Cor. 15:24-27; Phil. 2:9-11; Heb. 12:2; 2 Pet. 1:17; Rev. 11:15; 19:16; 21:22-24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your presence and authority are boundless. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gregory of Nazianzus: the divine poverty

Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Meditation:
    For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
    —2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    He who gives riches becomes poor; for He assumes the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the riches of His Godhead. He that is full empties Himself; for He empties Himself of His Glory for a short while, that I may have a share in His Fulness.
    ... St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389/390), from Oration XLV, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, v. VII, Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, ed., Christian literature Company, 1894, p. 426 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 8:9; Isa. 53:2-3; Matt. 8:20; Rom. 15:3; Phil. 2:6-8; Heb. 2:9; 12:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have given Your people sonship. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Henry: the antichrist philosophy

Monday, November 3, 2014
    Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600
    Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639
Meditation:
    My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
    —James 2:1-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We are so steeped in the antichrist philosophy—namely, that success consists in embracing not the values of the Sermon on the Mount but an infinity of material things, of sex and status—that we little sense how much of what passes for practical Christianity is really an apostate compromise with the spirit of the age.
    ... Carl F. H. Henry (1913-2003), Twilight of a Great Civilization, Westchester, Il: Crossway Books, 1988, p. 15 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 2:1-4; Matt. 6:25; 16:26; Mark 4:18-19; 8:36-37; Luke 8:14; 12:15-21; 16:9-13; John 12:42-43; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 5:16; Heb. 12:1; 1 Pet. 1:24-25; 1 John 2:15-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, free Your people from the entanglements of culture. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Moody: holding the blessing

Sunday, November 2, 2014
    Feast of All Souls
Meditation:
    And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
    —Acts 13:52 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A great many think because they have been filled once, they are going to be full for all time after; but O, my friends, we are leaky vessels, and have to be kept right under the fountain all the time in order to keep full. If we are going to be used by God we have to be very humble. A man that lives close to God will be the humblest of men. I heard a man say that God always chooses the vessel that is close at hand. Let us keep near Him.
    ... Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), Glad Tidings, New York: E. B. Treat, 1876, p. 291 (see the book)
    See also Acts 13:52; Isa. 11:1-4; 61:1-3; Mic. 3:8; Luke 1:14-15,41,67; 4:1,14,18-19; 10:21; Acts 2:4; 4:8,31; 6:3-5; 7:55; 9:17; 11:24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, fill me again with Your Spirit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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