Wilde: the broken gates

Saturday, March 12, 2016
Meditation:
    For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
    —Isaiah 57:15 (ESV)
Quotation:
And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
    Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
    And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
    And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
    In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
    Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper’s house
    With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break
    And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
    And cleanse his soul from sin?
How else but through a broken heart
    May Lord Christ enter in?
    ... Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), from The Ballad of Reading Gaol [1898], in The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, v. IV, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 215 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 57:15; Ps. 34:18; 51:17; 147:3; Matt. 5:3,8; Rev. 3:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have granted brokenness to Your servants.

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Owen: Christian motivation

Friday, March 11, 2016
Meditation:
    For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.
    —2 Corinthians 5:10-11 (KJV)
Quotation:
    It is the “terror of the Lord” that causes us to “persuade” others, but it is the “love of Christ that constraineth us” to live to Him.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), The Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance Explained and Confirmed [1654], in Works of John Owen, v. XI, London: Johnson & Hunter, 1853, ch. X, p. 395 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 5:10-11,14; Matt. 25:31-46; Acts 10:24; 17:31; 1 Pet. 4:5; 1 John 4:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may You extend Your grace to _____ and _____. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Forsyth: the mediator

Thursday, March 10, 2016
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “... If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
    Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
    —John 14:7-9 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Is a mediator between the eternal spirit and the finite an unreality, an intrusion? The mystic soul may impatiently think so, but the moral soul finds such mediation the way to reality; and the mystic experience is not quite trustworthy about reality. The pagan gods had not mediators, because they were not real or good gods; but the living God has a living Revealer. To know the living God is to know Christ, to know Christ is to know the living God. We do not know God by Christ but in Him. We find God when we find Christ; and in Christ alone we know and share His final purpose. Our last knowledge is not the contact of our person with a thing or a thought; it is intercourse of person and person.
    ... P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921), This Life and the Next, New York: MacMillan, 1918, p. 62 (see the book)
    See also John 14:7-11; Matt. 11:27; 28:18; Luke 10:22; John 1:18; 17:6-8,26; 2 Cor. 4;6; Col. 1:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Because of You, gracious Lord, I believe. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chadwick: apathy and unbelief

Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Meditation:
    When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
    —Mark 2:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Is it not plain that all spiritual apathy comes not from over-trust but from unbelief, either doubting that sin is present death, or else that holiness is life and that Jesus has a gift to bestow, not in heaven, but promptly, which is better to gain than all the world? Therefore salvation is linked with faith, which earns nothing but elicits all, like the touch that evokes electricity, but which no man supposes to have made it.
    ... G. A. Chadwick (1840-1923), The Gospel According to St. Mark, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1891, p. 48-49 (see the book)
    See also Mark 2:1-12; Matt. 8:6-13; 9:2-7,20-22; Luke 5:18-26; 7:44-50; 9:24-25; Rom. 3:22-24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my belief is so weak. Send Your spirit to strengthen me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Studdert Kennedy: confronting the world

Tuesday, March 8, 2016
    Commemoration of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929
Meditation:
    For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
    —1 Corinthians 1:17-18 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The tremendous power of mass-suggestion, which we call the world, can only be confronted, and its victims cured, if they are received into a body which is filled with a vivid, vigorous, and conscious community life of the Spirit. Individuals are powerless to cope with a power so subtle and all-pervasive as this mass-suggestion is. If we are to save and rescue sinners, there must grow up in our Church a Spirit of Love and Brotherhood, a Christian community-life, transcending class and national distinctions, as pungent, as powerful, as impossible to escape as the Spirit of the world. No Apostolic Succession, no Ecclesiastical correctness, no rigidity of orthodox doctrine, can be themselves and in themselves give us this; it comes, and can only come, from a clearer vision of the Christ, a more complete surrender to His call and to the bearing of His Cross.
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Wicket Gate, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1923, p. 193 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 1:17-18; Luke 14:27; Rom. 11:33; 1 Cor. 1:21-23; 2:4-5; 2 Cor. 2:15-16; 4:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I cannot save others, but You can and do. Send Your Spirit, Lord, so that _____ and _____ shall come to faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dryden: patience

Monday, March 7, 2016
    Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203
Meditation:
    And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
    —1 Thessalonians 5:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The fortitude of a Christian consists in patience,... not in enterprises which the poets call heroic, and which are commonly the effects of interest, pride, and worldly honor.
    ... John Dryden (1631-1700), The Poetical Works of John Dryden, v. II, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909, p. 288 (see the book)
    See also 1 Thess. 5:14; John 15:19; Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 4:4; Gal. 5:22-23; Eph. 4:2; 5:1-2; Col. 3:12-13; 1 Tim. 6:10-11; 1 John 2:15-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me patience against the world’s seductive forces. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Merton: the big, warm, sweet interior glow

Sunday, March 6, 2016
Meditation:
    Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
    —1 John 4:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.
    ... Thomas Merton (1915-1968), New Seeds of Contemplation [1961], New Directions Publishing, 1972, p. 194 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:1; Jer. 29:8-9; Matt. 7:15-16; 2 Tim. 4:3; 2 Pet. 2:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to truth, regardless of my discomfort. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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