Luther: sleeping and waking

Saturday, March 28, 2015
Meditation:
    In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
    —John 16:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Cultivate the habit of falling asleep with the Lord’s Prayer on your lips every evening when you go to bed and again every morning when you get up. And if occasion, place, and time permit, pray before you do anything else.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), Luther’s Works, v. 24, Sermons on the Gospel of John 14-16, Jaroslav Pelikan, ed., Concordia Publishing House, 1974, p. 387 (see the book)
    See also John 16:23-24; Ps. 5:3; 88:13; 119:147; Isa. 26:9; Matt. 6:6,9-12; Mark 1:35
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my heart echos Your prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pascal: two kinds of reasonable people

Friday, March 27, 2015
Meditation:
    Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger.
    —Zephaniah 2:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #194, p. 75 (see the book)
    See also Amos 5:14; Zeph. 2:3; Matt. 5:6; 6:33; 7:7-8; Luke 11:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have made Yourself known to me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Westcott: the mark of saints

Thursday, March 26, 2015
    Feast of Harriet Monsell of Clewer, Religious, 1883
Meditation:
    I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints.
    —Philemon 1:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The mark of a saint is not perfection but consecration. A saint is not a man without faults, but a man who has given himself without reserve to God. In the language of the New Testament every baptized Christian—dead and buried and raised in Christ—is a saint. We are dwelling among saints: we are saints. That is the will of God for us. If it is unaccomplished, the failure comes through our faithlessness.
    ... Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), Social Aspects of Christianity, Macmillan, 1887, p. 156-157 (see the book)
    See also Philemon 1:4-5; John 17:15-19; Rom. 15:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep me from faithlessness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pierce: the broken Heart

Wednesday, March 25, 2015
    Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary
Meditation:
    A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
    Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”
    —Mark 1:40-41 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let my heart be broken with the things that break God’s heart.
    ... Robert Pierce (1914-1978)
    See also Isa. 53:3; Matt. 9:36; 14:14; 20:34; Mark 1:41; 6:34; Col. 3:12; Heb. 4:15; 5:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, refill my heart with Your compassion. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Amiel: the one thing needful

Tuesday, March 24, 2015
    Feast of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, Martyr, 1980
    Commemoration of Paul Couturier, Priest, Ecumenist, 1953
Meditation:
Taste and see that the LORD is good;
    blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
    —Psalm 34:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is but one thing needful—to possess God. All our senses, all our powers of mind and soul, all our external resources, are so many ways of approaching the Divinity, so many modes of tasting and of adoring God. We must learn to detach ourselves from all that is capable of being lost, to bind ourselves absolutely only to what is absolute and eternal, and to enjoy the rest as a loan, a usufruct... To adore, to understand, to receive, to feel, to give, to act: there is my law, my duty, my happiness, my heaven.
    ... Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881), The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, tr. Mrs. Humphry Ward, New York: Macmillan, 1885, p. 1 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 34:8; Eccl. 5:11-16; Isa. 40:6-8; 55:2; Hab. 2:13; Matt. 6:19-21; 16:26; Mark 8:36-37; John 4:13-14; 6:27; 2 Cor. 4:18; Col. 3:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me discern the eternal. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jellett: asking for a miracle?

Monday, March 23, 2015
Meditation:
    Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
    —Mark 2:8-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The truth is that, to ask God to act at all and to ask Him to perform a miracle, are one and the same thing.
    ... John Hewitt Jellett (1817-1888), The Efficacy of Prayer, London: Macmillan, 1878, p. 41 (see the book)
    See also Mark 2:8-11; Matt. 9:4-6; 10:29; Luke 5:22-24; John 7:21-24; 10:24-26,32; 1 Cor. 1:22-23; 12:28
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, that You have saved me is a miracle. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Nee: the savour of the Savior

Sunday, March 22, 2015
Meditation:
    For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
    —2 Corinthians 2:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered—someone who has gone through experiences with the Lord that have brought limitation, and who, instead of trying to break free in order to be ‘used’, has been willing to be imprisoned by Him and has thus learned to find satisfaction in the Lord and nowhere else — then immediately you become aware of something. Immediately your spiritual senses detect a sweet savour of Christ.
    ... Watchman Nee (1903-1972), The Normal Christian Life, Tyndale House Publishers, 1977, p. 281 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 2:15; Matt. 6:33; 1 Cor. 1:18; Eph. 5:1-2; Phil. 3:8; 4:11-13; 1 Tim. 6:6-9; Heb. 10:34; 13:3; Jas. 1:2-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may the aroma of holiness visit me today. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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