Arnold: the appearance of Christianity

Saturday, January 9, 2016
Meditation:
Thus says the LORD:
“Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
    and what is the place of my rest?
All these things my hand has made,
    and so all these things came to be,
    declares the LORD.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
    he who is humble and contrite in spirit
    and trembles at my word.”
    —Isaiah 66:1-2 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Every time that the words contrition or humility drop from the lips of prophet or psalmist, Christianity appears.
    ... Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Literature and Dogma, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1875, p. 70 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 66:1-2; Ps. 51:17, Isa. 57:15; 61:1; Micah 6:8; Matt. 5:3-4; 11:29; Luke 18:10-14; John 13:14-15; Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Implant a humble heart in me, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Saint: the end of sacrifice

Friday, January 8, 2016
    20th anniversary of CQOD
    Commemoration of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, martyrs, Ecuador, 1956
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
    —John 12:25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If God would grant us the vision, the word “sacrifice” would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short; we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ. May God help us to judge ourselves by the eternities that separate the Aucas from a comprehension of Christmas and Him, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor so that we might, through His poverty, be made rich.
    ... Nate Saint (1923-1956), in End of the Spear, by Steve Saint, Tyndale House, 2010, p. 309 (see the book)
    See also John 12:25; Matt. 12:47-50; Luke 14:26-27; Acts 20:24; Rev. 12:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my cup overflows with Your goodness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Overstreet: which gospel?

Thursday, January 7, 2016
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”
    —Matthew 23:13-15 (ESV)
Quotation:
    We may look into a church, almost any church, and discover someone who, though he is offered a gospel of love, must subtly convert it into a gospel of hate before he can receive it. The gospel of love—with its emphasis upon brotherhood, equality before God, the dignity of every human being, and man’s social responsibility toward man—does not satisfy the lack that he urgently feels. That calls for something altogether different, for an assurance that he is superior, that he is right where others are wrong—a kind of cosmic teacher’s pet.
    ... Bonaro W. Overstreet (1902-1985), “For the Spirit’s Hunger,” part 2, “In the Beginning: the Need Felt“, in The PTA Magazine, v. XLVI, n. 2 (October, 1951), Chicago: National Parent-Teacher, Inc., 1951, p. 15 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 23:13-15; Ps. 50:16-20; Matt. 23:2-3; Rom. 2:19-23; Phil. 1:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, purify the Gospel in my mind and heart, so that it be not unrighteous. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: loving your children

Wednesday, January 6, 2016
    EPIPHANY
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”
    —Matthew 18:10 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Do you think you love your children better than He who made them? Is not your love what it is because He put it into your heart first? Have you not often been cross with them? Sometimes unjust to them? Whence came the returning love that rose from unknown depths in your being, and swept away the anger and the injustice? You did not create that love. Probably you were not good enough to send for it by prayer. But it came. God sent it. He makes you love your children.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, v. I [1867], London: Strahan & Co., 1873, p. 201 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 18:10; 1 Cor. 7:14; Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21
Quiet time reflection:
    You are the source of all love, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Williams: unity

Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Meditation:
    For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
    —1 Corinthians 12:12-18 (ESV)
Quotation:
    We find not in the Gospel, that Christ hath anywhere provided for the uniformity of churches, but only for their unity.
    ... Roger Williams (1603?-1683), The Bloudy Tenent [1644], London: J. Haddon, 1848, p. 224 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 12:12-18; Ps. 133:1; Matt. 23:8; Acts 4:32; Rom. 12:16; 15:5-6; 2 Cor. 13:11; Eph. 4:3; Phil. 1:27; 2:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, prevent me from being an obstacle to the unity of Your Body. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jenkins: comprehensible perfection

Monday, January 4, 2016
Meditation:
    Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
    —Philippians 3:8-11 (ESV)
Quotation:
    In the person of Christ, the formidable law of God, which by itself appalls us by its vast comprehensiveness and truth, and makes us hide ourselves from its dread sanctity, is brought down into the life of a brother, ... and we see it illustrated and ratified in human action, we see righteousness that makes us feel more bitterly our sin, that makes us look more disparagingly upon our own efforts, yet leaves in us a longing to be like Him, as if we ought to be as He is.
    ... E. E. Jenkins (1820-1905), Life and Christ [1896] (see the book)
    See also Matt. 11:27; John 1:18; Phil. 3:8-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I might become like Christ, so that I can abide Your presence. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Underhill: the reality in love

Sunday, January 3, 2016
    Commemoration of Gladys Aylward, Missionary in China, 1970
Meditation:
Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks :
    so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God :
    when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
    —Psalm 42:1-2 (Coverdale)
Quotation:
    When we look out towards this love that moves the stars and stirs in the child’s heart and claims our total allegiance and remember that this alone is Reality and we are only real so far as we conform to its demands, we see our human situation from a fresh angle; and we perceive that it is both more humble and dependent, and more splendid, than we had dreamed. We are surrounded and penetrated by great spiritual forces, of which we hardly know anything. Yet the outward events of our life cannot be understood, except in their relation to that unseen and intensely living world, the Infinite Charity which penetrates and supports us, the God whom we resist and yet for whom we thirst; who is ever at work, transforming the self-centred desire of the natural creature into the wide-spreading, outpouring love of the citizen of Heaven.
    ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The School of Charity, New York: Longmans, Green, 1934, reprinted, Morehouse Publishing, 1991, p. 11 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 42:1-2; 63:1; John 4:13-14; 7:37; Rom. 8:5-10; 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 22:1
Quiet time reflection:
    I am desperate for You, O Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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