Tozer: God's speech

Saturday, February 7, 2015
Meditation:
    For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
    —2 Peter 1:21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us to put into our familiar human words.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948], Christian Publications, 1982, p. 72 (see the book)
    See also 2 Pet. 1:21; Matt. 3:17; 10:19-20; 17:5; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:11-12; John 1:1-2; 2 Tim. 3:16-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people thirst for Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Fox: the light of Jesus

Friday, February 6, 2015
Meditation:
    The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
    —Romans 8:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the letter; but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate Spirit and power, as did the Holy men of God, by whom the Holy Scriptures were written. Yet I had no slight esteem of the Holy Scriptures; they were very precious to me, for I was in that Spirit by which they were given forth; and what the Lord opened in me, I afterwards found was agreeable to them.
    ... George Fox (1624-1691), Journal, v. I, Philadelphia: B. & T. Kite, 1808, [1648] p. 111 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:16; John 14:16-17; 15:26; 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 John 5:6-7
Quiet time reflection:
    Spirit of God, Your people are listening. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thielecke: the dark night

Thursday, February 5, 2015
    Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
    —Matthew 6:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Over all the world there reigns a night so dark that hope seems quite impossible. This is the prophets’, the Bible’s picture of the world.
    And here, against that background, we are given the news, no, not only the “news,” it is actually demonstrated to us in the fact of “Jesus,” that this hope nevertheless is there, miraculously and incomprehensibly there—and that the heart of a Father is beating for us.
    Everything that this Jesus says, and what is more, everything he does is the reflection, the reverberation of that heart. Every one of his sayings is a pastoral, brotherly address.
    ... Helmut Thielicke (1908-1986), Our Heavenly Father, tr. John W. Doberstein, New York: Harper & Row, 1960, p. 22-23 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:6-15; 2 Sam. 22:29; Ps. 112:4; Isa. 9:2; John 1:4-5; 3:19; 12:46; Eph. 2:11-13; 6:12; 1 Pet. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Father, in Your Son, we hope. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Erasmus: the greater work of redemption

Wednesday, February 4, 2015
    Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
    —Luke 5:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    How much more wonderful the work of redemption is in comparison with creation. It is more marvelous that God was made man than that He created the angels. That He wailed in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, rather than that He reigns in the heavens He created... The creation of the world was a work of power, but the redemption of the world was a work of mercy.
    ... Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536), The Essential Erasmus, J. P. Dolan, ed., New York: New American Library, 1964, p. 231-232 (see the book)
    See also Luke 5:23-24; Job 38:4-7; Matt. 9:5; 16:13-17; Mark 2:9; Luke 2:6-7; 21:28; Rom. 3:22-24; 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:30; Heb. 1:14; John 5:27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, without Your mercy, I am lost. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jones: Christ and healing

Tuesday, February 3, 2015
    Feast of Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, 865
Meditation:
    When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick... So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.
    —Luke 9:1-2,6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When the main stream of Christian faith accepted a dualism in life and began to confine itself largely to the “spiritual,” then physical health was relegated to the cults. This was to the credit of the cults and to the discredit of the orthodox. For healing has been in the Christian movement from the beginning; it was in the person of its Founder. Jesus cured disease as an integral part of the coming of the Kingdom; it was the Kingdom active within the body.
    ... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), The Christ of the American Road, Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1944, p. 163 (see the book)
    See also Luke 9:1-6; Jer. 33:6; Mal. 4:2; Matt. 4:23; 9:20-22; 14:14; Luke 6:17-19; John 7:23; 1 Cor. 12:28; Rev. 22:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the cure for all that ails me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: rejoicing in bearing and forgiving

Monday, February 2, 2015
    THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE
Meditation:
    [Jesus to His disciples:] “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.”
    —John 15:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We may suffer the sins of our brother; we do not need to judge. This is a mercy for the Christian; for when does sin ever occur in the community that he must not examine and blame himself for his own unfaithfulness in prayer and intercession, his lack of brotherly service, of fraternal reproof and encouragement—indeed, for his own personal sin and spiritual laxity, by which he has done injury to himself, the fellowship, and the brethren? Since every sin of a member burdens and indicts the whole community, the congregation rejoices, in the midst of all the pain and the burden that the brother’s sin inflicts, that it has the privilege of bearing and forgiving.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together [1954], tr. Daniel W. Bloesch & James H. Burtness, Fortress Press, 2004, p. 102 (see the book)
    See also John 15:1-8; Ps. 46:4-5; Rom. 2:15-29; Eph. 2:21-22; Heb. 3:6; 1 Pet. 2:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we praise You, in that through You we can forgive. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Peterson: our daily troubles

Sunday, February 1, 2015
    Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525
Meditation:
He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.
    —Psalm 121:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We practice patent-medicine religion: we know that God created the universe and has accomplished our eternal salvation. But we can’t believe that he condescends to watch the soap opera of our daily trials and tribulations; so we purchase our own remedies for that. To ask him to deal with what troubles us each day is like asking a famous surgeon to put iodine on a scratch. But Psalm 121 says that the same faith that works in the big things works in the little things.
    ... Eugene H. Peterson (b. 1932), A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, InterVarsity Press, 2000, p. 40 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 121; Deut. 28:6; Ps. 91:9-10; Pr. 2:7-8; 3:23; Isa. 49:10; Matt. 6:13; Rom. 8:28; 2 Tim. 4:18; 1 Pet. 1:3-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I commit all my cares to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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