Tillotson: sinful sorrow over sin

Saturday, February 13, 2016
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
    —Matthew 15:10-11 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Sin is a base and ill-natured thing, and renders a man not so apt to be affected with the injuries he hath offered to God, as with the mischief which is likely to fall upon himself.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VII, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CLX, p. 287 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 15:10-11; Ps. 32:5; 38:18; 51:3; 52:2-4; Pr. 28:13; Isa. 59:12-15; Matt. 15:18-20; Jas. 3:5-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Holy Spirit, guard my tongue from sin, for Jesus’ sake. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kierkegaard: completing the work

Friday, February 12, 2016
Meditation:
    And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
    —John 1:32-34 (ESV)
Quotation:
    If a poet or an artist puts himself into his Productions he is criticised. But that is exactly what God does, he does so in Christ. And precisely that is Christianity. The creation was really only completed when God included himself in it. Before the coming of Christ God was certainly in the creation, but as an invisible sign, like the watermark in paper. But the creation was completed by the Incarnation because God thereby included himself in it.
    ... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Journals, ed. Alexander Dru, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 324 (see the book)
    See also John 1:32-34; Matt. 3:17; 11:27; 17:5; Mark 1:1,11; Luke 3:22; John 1:14,18,49; 3:16-18; 10:30; 1 John 2:23; 4:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I know You stand beside me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Augustine: the evil turning

Thursday, February 11, 2016
Meditation:
    Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.
    —Ecclesiastes 10:3 (ESV)
Quotation:
    When the will abandons what is above itself and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil—not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked. Therefore it is not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has become so by wickedly and inordinately desiring an inferior thing.
    ... St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), The City of God, v. I [426], Marcus Dods, ed., as vol. 1 of The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Edinbugh: T & T Clark, 1871, XII.vi, p. 488-489 (see the book)
    See also Eccl. 10:3; Matt. 15:11,17-20; Mark 7:15,18-23; Luke 11:38-41; Tit. 1:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Hide me, Lord, from the evil that my own will would lead me to. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sayers: the Kingdom of Heaven

Wednesday, February 10, 2016
    Ash Wednesday
    Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.”
    —Matthew 13:47-48 (NIV)
Quotation:
    “The Kingdom of Heaven,” said the Lord Christ, “is among you.” But what, precisely, is the Kingdom of Heaven? You cannot point to existing specimens, saying, “Lo, here!” or “Lo, there!” You can only experience it. But what is it like, so that when we experience it we may recognize it? Well, it is a change, like being born again and relearning everything from the start. It is secret, living power—like yeast. It is something that grows, like seed. It is precious like buried treasure, like a rich pearl, and you have to pay for it. It is a sharp cleavage through the rich jumble of things which life presents: like fish and rubbish in a draw-net, like wheat and tares; like wisdom and folly; and it carries with it a kind of menacing finality; it is new, yet in a sense it was always there—like turning out a cupboard and finding there your own childhood as well as your present self; it makes demands, it is like an invitation to a royal banquet—gratifying, but not to be disregarded, and you have to live up to it; where it is equal, it seems unjust; where it is just it is clearly not equal—as with the single pound, the diverse talents, the labourers in the vineyard, you have what you bargained for; it knows no compromise between an uncalculating mercy and a terrible justice—like the unmerciful servant, you get what you give; it is helpless in your hands like the King’s Son, but if you slay it, it will judge you; it was from the foundations of the world; it is to come; it is here and now; it is within you. It is recorded that the multitudes sometimes failed to understand.
    ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), The Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement, London: Golanz, 1963, p. 281 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 13:47-48,24-30,33,44-46; 20:1-16; 22:1-14; Mark 4:26-29; Luke 13:20-21; 15:8-10; 16:1-9; John 3:3-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I was a spiritual zero, and You have given me the Kingdom. Blessed is Your Name. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chesterton: not an ethical society

Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Meditation:
    Then [Jesus] entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
    Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him.
    —Luke 19:45-47 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Those who charged the Christians with burning down Rome with firebrands were slanderers; but they were, at least, far nearer to the nature of Christianity than those among the moderns who tell us that the Christians were a sort of ethical society, being martyred in a languid fashion for telling men they had a duty to their neighbours, and only mildly disliked because they were meek and mild.
    ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), The Everlasting Man, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925, Wilder Publications, 2008, p. 201 (see the book)
    See also Luke 19:45-48; Matt. 21:45-46; 24:9; Mark 11:18; 13:12; Luke 11:49-51; 21:16-17; John 12:25; Rom. 8:36; Rev. 12:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You grant Your people boldness in Your cause. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: the "processed" Jesus

Monday, February 8, 2016
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
    ”‘a man against his father,
        a daughter against her mother,
    a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
        a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
    “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
    —Matthew 10:34-38 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What I am concerned with here is not to write a new life of Jesus, but to set down my witness to the continued shocks which his words and deeds gave me as I approached the Gospels uninsulated by the familiar cover of beautiful language. The figure who emerged is quite unlike the Jesus of conventional piety, and even more unlike that imagined hero whom members of various causes claim as their champion. What we are so often confronted with today is a “processed” Jesus. Every element that we feel is not consonant with our “image” of him is removed, and the result is more insipid and unsatisfying than the worst of processed food.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Ring of Truth, London: Hodder & Stoughton; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967, p. 91-92 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 10:34-38; Luke 12:49-53; John 7:40-49; Acts 13:45-50; 14:1-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I long to set my eyes on You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Webster: the missionary motive

Sunday, February 7, 2016
Meditation:
    [Peter:] “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.”
    Acts 3:13-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The missionary goes out to men of other faiths and of no faith, not to argue, not to make comparisons, never to claim a superior knowledge or revelation, but to tell of a glorious deed, of the New Creation that has occurred and of the New Being that has appeared and into which men may enter. This is testimony, the apostolic testimony, and this, with the energy of love, is the missionary motive. The insistent task of missionary education and responsibility is to engender this motive throughout the Church, a task that can only be accomplished as men are confronted anew with the message of the Bible and with its supreme and central story, the story of the cross.
    ... Douglas Webster (1920-1986), Local Church and World Mission, New York: Seabury, 1964, p. 71-72 (see the book)
    See also Acts 3:13-15; Rom. 1:14-15; 1 Cor. 9:16; 2 Cor. 4:13,14; 5:11-21; 2 Thess. 1:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, implant Your love in me, that I may speak Your Gospel. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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