Lewis: safe from love

Saturday, February 14, 2015
    Feast of Cyril & Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 & 885
    Commemoration of Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269
Meditation:
    Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
    —1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (KJV)
Quotation:
    To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up save in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Four Loves, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1960, p. 121 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 13:4-7; Pr. 10:12; Col. 3:12; 1 Pet. 4:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, you are love. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newbigin: the life of the Church

Friday, February 13, 2015
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
    —Acts 1:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Church lives neither by her faithfulness to her message nor by her abiding in one fellowship with the apostles; she lives by the living power of the Spirit of God.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God, London, SCM Press, 1953, New York: Friendship Press, 1954, p. 105 (see the book)
    See also Acts 1:8; Deut. 8:3; Rom. 15:13; 1 Cor. 3:11; 1 Thess. 1:5; 2 Tim. 2:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, your presence give life to your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Barclay: evil

Thursday, February 12, 2015
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!”
    —John 8:44-45 (NIV)
Quotation:
    However difficult the idea of a power of evil may be theologically or philosophically, it is an idea which experience understands only too well. Those who cannot believe in and accept the good news of Christ are those who have so given themselves over to the evil of the world that they can no longer hear God’s invitation. It is not that God has shut them out or abandoned them; they by their own conduct have shut themselves off from him.
    ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Letters to the Corinthians, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2nd ed., 1956, p. 219 (see the book)
    See also John 8:44-45; Isa. 30:9-12; John 3:19; 10:25-27; 12:42-43; Rom. 2:7-8; Heb. 3:12-13;
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, without Your grace, I resist the Gospel. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Yancey: changing the deal

Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Meditation:
    The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.
    —James 1:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In a world ruled by law, grace stands as a sign of contradiction. We want fairness; the gospel gives us an innocent man nailed to a cross who cries out, “Father, forgive them.” We want respectability; the gospel elevates tax collectors, prodigals, and Samaritans. We want success; the gospel revises the terms, moving the poor and downtrodden to the head of the line and the wealthy and famous to the rear.
    ... Philip Yancey (b. 1949), Soul Survivor, New York: Doubleday, 2001, p. 139 (see the book)
    See also Jas.1:9-10; Matt. 9:10-13; 11:19; 19:30; Mark 2:15-17; 9:35; 10:31; Luke 5:30-32; 13:30; 23:34
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I be released from clinging to things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Mangalwadi: the challenge

Tuesday, February 10, 2015
    Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543
Meditation:
    For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
    —Romans 8:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To bear witness to the Kingship of Christ is to pick a fight with the prince of death, who wishes to keep this world in bondage to decay.
    ... Vishal Mangalwadi (b. 1949), in Nailing India to the Cross, Albinus Minz, M. Kiran & Company, 2000, p. 198 (see the book)
    See also John 12:31; Rom. 8:20-21; Eph. 2:1-2; 6:12; Col. 2:15; 2 Pet. 1:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have overcome the prince of this world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kreeft: love, the ultimate meaning

Monday, February 9, 2015
Meditation:
    This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
    —1 John 4:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    Our own deepest instincts are to see love as the highest wisdom and ultimate meaning of life. The theology of divine love, which anchors this instinct in the nature of ultimate reality itself, tells us that our deepest values “go all the way up”. It also extends this instinctive wisdom, that sees love as the ultimate meaning of things, into the entire creation. The arms of the Savior on the cross reach up to the Absolute and down to the depths of the human heart and across the whole universe from atoms to archangels. When Jesus threw open his arms on the Cross, he said, in effect: “See? That’s how much I love you.”
    ... Peter Kreeft (b. 1937), The God Who Loves You, Ignatius Press, 2004, p. 105 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:9-10; Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:6-7,24; John 3:16-17; 12:27; Rom. 3:25-26; Eph. 5:1-2; 1 John 2:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love is without limit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kreeft: the dungeon of the enlightenment

Sunday, February 8, 2015
Meditation:
    To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
    —Deuteronomy 10:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [The theology of divine love] frees us from the dusty, dirty, smelly little dungeon of a universe that “Enlightenment” thought gave us: a universe in which love and beauty and praise and value are mere subjective fictions invented by the human mind, a universe in which the only things that are objectively real are blind bits of energy randomly bumping into each other. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Peter Kreeft (b. 1937), The God Who Loves You, Ignatius Press, 2004, p. 105 (see the book)
    See also Deut. 10:14; Ex. 19:5-6; 1 Chr. 29:11; Job 38:4-7; Ps. 19:1; 24:1; 1 Cor. 10:26
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit fills the earth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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