Toplady: The Work, which his Goodness began

Saturday, January 10, 2015
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:
The Work, which his Goodness began,
    The Arm of his Strength will complete;
His Promise is Yea and Amen,
    And never was forfeited yet:
Things future, nor things that are now,
    Not all things below nor above,
Can make him his Purpose forego,
    Or sever my Soul from his Love.
    ... Augustus Toplady (1740-1778), Hymns and Sacred Poems, London: D. Sedgwick, 1860, p. 140 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 1:4-6; John 6:29; Rom. 8:28-30; 2 Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:11; Phil. 2:12-13; 1 Thess. 1:3; Tit. 3:4-6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have marked Your people with a indelible guarantee. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Capon: All God needs...

Friday, January 9, 2015
Meditation:
    The Jews were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having studied?”
    Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me.”
    —John 7:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    All God needs to make a universe is nothing; all he needs to make a preacher is a nobody.
    ... Robert Farrar Capon (1925-2013), The Foolishness of Preaching, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1997, p. 26 (see the book)
    See also John 7:15-16; Gen. 1:2; Amos 7:14-15; Matt. 11:25; Acts 4:13; 1 Cor. 1:27
Quiet time reflection:
    Sovereign Lord, You raise up Your servants as You will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wesley: Scripture interprets Scripture

Thursday, January 8, 2015
    19th anniversary of CQOD
    Commemoration of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, martyrs, Ecuador, 1956
Meditation:
    Then [Jesus] opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
    —Luke 24:45 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church. And Scripture is the best expounder of Scripture. The best way, therefore, to understand it is carefully to compare Scripture with Scripture, and thereby learn the true meaning of it.
    ... John Wesley (1703-1791), The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, v. X, New York: J. & J. Harper, 1827, p. 52 (see the book)
    See also Luke 24:45; Ps. 119:18; 2 Cor. 3:14-18; 4:4-6; Eph. 5:13-14; 2 Tim. 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wright: overarching the OT

Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Meditation:
    The ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
    —Isaiah 51:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The loneliness of God looking for his partners, Adam and Eve, in the Garden; the grief of God before the flood; the head-shaking exasperation of God at Babel—all these, God knows, he will have to continue to experience. And worse—there will be numerous further acts of judgment as well as mercy as the story unfolds. But unfold it will. The overarching picture is of the sovereign Creator God who will continue to work within his world until blessing replaces curse, homecoming replaces exile, olive branches appear after the flood and a new family is created in which the scattered languages can be reunited. That is the narrative which forms the outer frame for the canonical Old Testament.
    ... N. T. Wright (b. 1948), Evil and the Justice of God, InterVarsity Press, 2013, p. 53 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 51:11; Gen. 3:9; 6:6; 8:11; 11:5-8; Isa. 35:10; Acts 2:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people await the day when Your will is done throughout the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Nee: the Answer

Tuesday, January 6, 2015
    EPIPHANY
Meditation:
    Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
    —Luke 2:25-26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God will answer all our questions in one way and one way only. Namely, by showing us more of his Son.
    ... Watchman Nee (1903-1972), The Normal Christian Life, Tyndale House Publishers, 1977, p. 12 (see the book)
    See also Luke 2:25-26; 1 Cor. 1:7; Eph. 3:4; 1 Pet. 1:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me more of my Savior. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: execution of sin

Monday, January 5, 2015
Meditation:
    But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”
    —Hebrews 1:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    For evil in the abstract, nothing can be done. It is eternally evil. But I may be saved from it by learning to loathe it, to hate it, to shrink from it with an eternal avoidance. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “Justice”, in Unspoken Sermons, Third Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1889, p. 124 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 1:8-9; Ps. 45:7; 97:10; 101:3; 119:104; Pr. 8:13; Amos 5:15; Rom. 12:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I do not hate my sin enough. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: apostasy

Sunday, January 4, 2015
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
    —Luke 6:46 (NIV)
Quotation:
    For what great difference is there, whether men renounce Christianity; or, professing to believe it, do in their works deny it? ... We ought to reflect with shame upon the purer ages of the church, and sadly to consider, how few among us would in those days have been accounted Christians; and upon this consideration to be provoked to an emulation of those better times, and to a reformation of those faults and miscarriages, which, in the best days of Christianity, were reckoned inconsistent with the Christian profession; and to remember, that though the discipline of the church be not now the same it was then, yet the judgment and severity of God is; and that those who live in any vicious course of life, though they continue in the communion of the church, yet they shall be shut out of the kingdom of God.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VI, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CXX, p. 88,90 (see the book)
    See also Luke 6:46; Matt. 21:28-32; 23:31-32; Mark 7:6-8; Gal. 6:7; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:29
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, relieve my insincerity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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