Yancey: marking time

Saturday, December 6, 2014
    Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326
Meditation:
    For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
    —1 Corinthians 4:20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.
    ... Philip Yancey (b. 1949), Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud, p. 36 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:13-16; Rom. 15:13; 1 Cor. 4:20; 11:1; Eph. 4:1; Phil. 2:14-16; Col. 1:13-14,27; 1 Thess. 2:11-12; 1 Tim. 4:12; Tit. 1:2; 2:7-8; Heb. 4:6; 1 Pet. 2:21; Rev. 5:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help us to demonstrate the Kingdom to those around us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Anderson: the virgin birth

Friday, December 5, 2014
Meditation:
    And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
    —Luke 1:26-28 (KJV)
Quotation:
    I have put no emphasis on the virgin birth in the course of this chapter. This is not because I do not believe in it, for I do; but because, as I understand it, the account of Christ’s miraculous birth was given in the Gospels for the sake of those who had already come to believe in him and who wished to know the facts, but was never used as a means of evoking faith in those who were not yet convinced on other grounds as to who he was. After all, a virgin birth would be possible without any implications of deity.
    ... J. N. D. Anderson (1908-1994), Christianity: the Witness of History, Tyndale Press, 1969, p. 59 (see the book)
    See also Luke 1:26-35; Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:22-23; Luke 1:1-4; 2 Cor. 11:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open my heart to the riches of Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Grou: Christ's virtues

Thursday, December 4, 2014
    Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637
Meditation:
    Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
    “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
    Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
    —John 6:32-35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is not in the gifts He received but in the virtues He practiced that Christ is our model. That which is asked of you, so that you may resemble Him, is to make the same use as He did of the gifts of God, according to the measure in which you have received them.
    ... Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803), quoted in The Light of Christ, Evelyn Underhill, New York: Longmans, Green, 1949, p. 101 (see the book)
    See also John 6:32-35; Matt. 11:29; John 13:15; Rom. 15:5-6; Eph. 5:1-2; Phil. 3:10-11; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6; 3:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may the Spirit’s fruits find a place in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Maclaren: the sound of the alarm

Wednesday, December 3, 2014
    Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552
Meditation:
[Mary:]
“His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.”
    —Luke 1:50 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Fear, the apprehension of personal evil, has the same function in the moral world as pain has in the physical. It is a symptom of disease, and is intended to bid us look for the remedy and the Physician. What is an alarm bell for, but to rouse the sleepers, and to hurry them to the refuge? And so this wholesome, manly dread of the certain issue of discord with God is meant to do for us what the angels did for Lot—to lay a mercifully violent hand on the shoulder of the sleeper, and shake him into aroused wakefulness, and hasten him out of Sodom, before the fire bursts through the ground, and is met by the fire from above. The intention of fear is to lead to that which shall annihilate it by taking away its cause.
    ... Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910), Triumphant Certainties: and Other Sermons, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1905, p. 300 (see the book)
    See also Luke 1:50; Gen. 19:12-13; Deut. 6:13; Ps. 103:17-18; 111:10; 119:120; Pr. 1:7; Hag. 1:12; 1 John 4:12,18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, our fear makes us return to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: facing the facts

Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Meditation:
    About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
    —Matthew 27:46 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No book in the whole world has faced the fact of sorrow, and the mystery of pain so honestly, and with such steady eyes as the New Testament. It is not for nothing that the Christian symbol is—a Cross; and a most wonderful fact that it was a voice from the agony of crucifixion that has made masses of men entirely sure that God is Love.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 98 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 22:1; Isa. 53:3-8; Matt. 27:46; John 15:13; Rom. 8:18,22; 2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Pet. 1:6; 2:21,24; 4:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your suffering gives witness to the truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: a new will

Monday, December 1, 2014
    Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916
Meditation:
    Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
    —2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Holy Spirit teaches us in Scripture, that our mind is smitten with so much blindness, that the affections of our heart are so depraved and perverted, that our whole nature is so vitiated, that we can do nothing but sin, until he forms a new will within us.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles [1551], tr. J. Owen, Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1855, p. xvii (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 5:17; Ps. 14:2-3; Rom. 3:10-18,23; 7:18; 8:13-14; Eph. 2:1-5; Tit. 3:3-7; 1 Pet. 4:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, hasten the growth of the new spirit within me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: God with us

Sunday, November 30, 2014
    Advent I
    Feast of Andrew the Apostle
Meditation:
    And this was [John’s] message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
    —Mark 1:7-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We rejoice in the fact that God has actually been here—and that is one half of the meaning of Advent.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Good News: Thoughts on God and Man, New York: Macmillan, 1963, p.158 (see the book)
    See also Mark 1:7-8; Isa. 7:14; 9:6; Mark 13:34-37; Luke 2:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the true man. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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