Owen: assessing your condition

Saturday, September 26, 2015
    Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942
Meditation:
    Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
    —James 4:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), An Exposition upon Psalm CXXX [1668], in Works of John Owen, v. VI, New York: R. Carter & Bros., 1851, p. 605 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 4:7; Ps. 130:4; Matt. 4:3-11; Luke 4:1-13; Eph. 4:26-27; 6:11-12; 1 Pet. 5:8-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me hate my sin. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Andrewes: the cost of peace

Friday, September 25, 2015
    Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
    Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392
Meditation:
    “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” [Jonah] replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
    ...
    Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.
    —Jonah 1;12,15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Jesus] sheweth them His hands and His side, as much to say; See what I have suffered to procure your peace. Your peace cost Me this;—see you hold it dear. Now sure, if there were any one thing better than other, those hands would not have withheld it, and that heart would wish it. And peace it doth wish, therefore nothing more to be wished.
    There need no other sign be given but that of the Prophet Jonas, that Christ wished His wish: so the tempest may cease, and peace as a calm ensue, spare me not, “take me, cast me into the sea,” make me a peace-offering and kill me. This is enough to shew it is to be wished, to make it precious in our eyes. For we undervalue it at too low a rate, when that which cost so dear, for every trifling ceremony we are ready to lose it. Our faint persuasion in this point is the cause we are faint in all the rest.
    ... Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Ninety-six Sermons, v. II, Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841, p. 244 (see the book)
    See also Jonah 1:12,15; Matt. 12:39-41; 16:4; Luke 2:14; 11:29-30; 19:42; John 14:27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You sacrificed all for us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Smith: God's watchfulness

Thursday, September 24, 2015
Meditation:
    But now, this is what the LORD says—he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.”
    —Isaiah 43:1-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We may be perfectly sure of this, that the time of our need is the time of His closest and tenderest watchfulness. What would we think of a mother who should run away from her children the moment they got into trouble? And yet this hateful thing, which we would resent in any human mother, some of God’s own children do not hesitate to ascribe to Him!
    ... Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911), Every-day Religion, New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1893, p. 111 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 43:1-3; Ps. 18:6; 116:1-2; Isa. 43:16-17; Matt. 4:24; Luke 4:40; Rom. 15:13; Heb. 4:14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I may rely on You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Warfield: true man and true God

Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Meditation:
    Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!
    —Philippians 2:6-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The glory of the Incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze, not a humanized God or a deified man, but a true God-man—one who is all that God is and at the same time all that man is: on whose almighty arm we can rest, and to whose human sympathy we can appeal. We cannot afford to lose either the God in the man or the man in the God; our hearts cry out for the complete God-man whom the Scriptures offer us.
    ... Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921), Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, v. 1, Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., 1970, p. 166 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 2:6-8; Matt. 28:18; John 3:31; 5:26-27; 20:27-28; Heb. 4:15; Jas. 2:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Jesus, You are my Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thomas a Kempis: patience in adversity

Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
    —Matthew 5:11-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The truly patient man considereth not by what man he is tried, whether by one above him, or by an equal or inferior, whether by a good and holy man, or a perverse and unworthy; but indifferently from every creature, whatsoever or how often soever adversity happeneth to him, he gratefully accepteth all from the hand of God and counteth it great gain: for with God nothing which is borne for His sake, however small, shall lose its reward.
    ... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418], Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1877, III.xix.3, p. 150 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:11-12; 10:40-42; Mark 9:41; Luke 6:22-23,35; Eph. 6:7-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me patient. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sproul: loving holy God

Monday, September 21, 2015
    Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist
Meditation:
    We love because he first loved us.
    —1 John 4:19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    How can we love a holy God? The simplest answer I can give to this vital question is that we can’t. Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power. The only kind of God we can love by our sinful nature is an unholy god, an idol made by our own hands. Unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds his holy love into our hearts, unless He stoops in His grace to change our hearts, we will not love Him. He is the One who takes the initiative to restore our souls. Without Him we can do nothing of righteousness. Without Him we would be doomed to everlasting alienation from His holiness. We can only love Him because He first loved us.
    ... R. C. Sproul (b. 1939), Classic Teachings on the Nature of God, Hendrickson Publishers, 2010, p. 131 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:19; Luke 7:47; John 15:16; Eph. 2:3-5; Tit. 3:3-7; 1 John 4:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am helpless to love without Your love implanted in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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M'Cheyne: the pleasures of forgiveness

Sunday, September 20, 2015
    Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871
Meditation:
    [Paul:] “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.”
    —Acts 13:38-39 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The pleasures of being forgiven are as superior to the pleasures of an unforgiven man, as heaven is higher than hell. The peace of being forgiven reminds me of the calm, blue sky, which no earthly clamours can disturb. It lightens all labour, sweetens every morsel of bread, and makes a sick bed all soft and downy—yea, it takes away the scowl of death. Forgiveness may be yours now. It is not given to those who are good. It is not given to any because they are less wicked than others. It is given only to those who, feeling that their sins have brought a curse on them, which they cannot lift off, ‘look unto Jesus,’ as bearing all away.
    ... Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843), Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Dundee: W. Middleton, 1845, p. 48 (see the book)
    See also Acts 13:38-39; Ps. 32:1-2; Matt. 11:29-30; 26:28; Acts 2:38; 5:31; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:13-14; Heb. 12:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am blessed by Your forgiveness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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