Luther: the promise of resurrection

Saturday, June 11, 2016
    Feast of Barnabas the Apostle
Meditation:
    And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
    —Romans 8:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), Watchwords for the Warfare of Life, Elizabeth Rundle Charles, ed., New York: M. W. Dodd, 1869, p. 317 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:11; Joel 2:23-24; Zech. 10:1; Acts 2:24,32-33; Rom. 4:23-25; Eph. 1:18-20; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 1:21
Quiet time reflection:
    Spirit of God, live within me! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Streeter: God shares our suffering

Friday, June 10, 2016
Meditation:
    [The LORD] said, “Surely they are my people, sons who will not be false to me”; and so he became their Savior. In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
    —Isaiah 63:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In the Old Testament, we find the idea that God enters into the sufferings of His people. “In all their afflictions, He was afflicted.” The relation of God to the woes of the world is not that of a mere spectator. The New Testament goes further, and says that God is love. But that is not love which, in the presence of acute suffering, can stand outside and aloof. The doctrine that Christ is the image of the unseen God means that God does not stand outside.
    ... B. H. Streeter (1874-1937), The Buddha And the Christ, New York: Macmillan Co., 1933, p. 224-225 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 63:8-9; Col. 1:15; Heb. 2:18; 4:15; 1 John 4:8
Quiet time reflection:
    You are with me, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pascal: two wrong directions

Thursday, June 9, 2016
    Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597
    Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373
Meditation:
    If anyone teaches a different doctrine [than submission to masters and faithful service] and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
    —1 Timothy 6:3-5 (ESV)
Quotation:
    It is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight only leads you to the knowledge that it is not in yourselves that you will discover the true and the good. The philosophers promised them to you, and have not been able to keep their promises... Your principal maladies are pride, which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to the earth; and they have done nothing but foster at least one of these maladies. If they have given you God for your object, it has only been to pander to your pride; they have made you think that you were like Him and resembled Him by your nature. And those who have grasped the vanity of such a pretension have cast you down into the other abyss by making you believe that your nature was like that of the beasts of the field, and have led you to seek your good in lust, which is the lot of animals.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #430, p. 142 (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 6:3-5; Matt. 21:13; Mark 12:38-40; Rom. 1:21; Col. 2:8
Quiet time reflection:
    My only hope, Lord, is in You. Dispose of my pride, and grant me confidence in Your grace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allen: indifference to social evils?

Wednesday, June 8, 2016
    Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711
    Commemoration of Roland Allen, Mission Strategist, 1947
Meditation:
    For [Abraham] was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
    —Hebrews 11:10 (ESV)
Quotation:
    We must not admit for one moment the truth of a statement often made that the man who devotes himself to the establishment of the church, declining to be involved in all sorts of activities for the improvement of social conditions, is indifferent to, or heedless of, the sufferings and injustices under which men suffer. He is nothing of the kind; he is simply a man who is sure of his foundation, and is convinced that the only way to any true advancement is spiritual, and is Christ, and therefore he persists, in spite of all appearances, in clinging to Christ as the only foundation, and in building all his hopes for the future on the acceptance of Christ. He is not content with attacks upon symptoms of evil: they seem to him superficial: he goes to the roots. He cannot be content with teaching men “Christian principles of conduct,” “Christian ideals of social life,” still less with the establishment of colleges and clubs. Nothing but Christ Himself, faith in Christ, the obedience of Christ, seems to him equal to the need, and nothing else is his work but the establishment of that foundation. In doing this he is not showing indifference to social evils, he is not standing aloof from beneficent movements; he is actively engaged in laying the axe to the roots of the trees which bear the evil. That is not indifference.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Mission Activities [1927], included in The Ministry of the Spirit, David M. Paton, ed., London: World Dominion Press, 1960, p. 113 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 11:10; Isa. 28:16; 1 Cor. 3:10-11; Eph. 2:19-20; 2 Tim. 2:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me how I can bring knowledge of Christ to those people that so desperately need Him, especially _____ and _____. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Savonarola: wonders

Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Meditation:
    What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
    —James 2:14-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you believe, where are your works? Your faith is something everyone knows, for everyone knows that Christ was [crucified], and that everywhere men pray to Him. The whole world knows that His glory has not been spread by force and weapons, but by poor fishermen. O wise man, do you think the poor fishermen were not clever enough for this? Where they worked, there they made hearts better; where they could not work, there men remained bad; and therefore was the faith true and from God. The signs which the Lord had promised followed their teaching: in His name they drove out the devil; they spoke in new tongues; if they drank any deadly drink, they received therefrom no harm. Even if these wonders had not occurred, there would have been the wonder of wonders, that poor fishermen without any miracle could accomplish so great a work as the faith. It came from God, and so is Christ true, and Christ is thy God, who is in heaven and awaits thee.
    ... Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), The World’s Orators, Guy Carleton Lee, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900, p. 60 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 2:14-17; 2 King 4:39-41; Acts 4:13; Matt. 17:20; Mark 16:17-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let mine not be a dead faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Clifford: the vindication of prayer

Monday, June 6, 2016
    Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945
Meditation:
    O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
    —John 17:25-26 (KJV)
Quotation:
    I cannot answer all the curious questions of the brain, concerning Prayer and Law; not half of them, indeed; and I will not attempt it; but ... I will cast my anchor here, in this revealing fact that He, the Holiest of the holy and the Wisest of the wise, He prays: therefore I am assured this anchorage of Divine example will hold the vessel in the tossings of the wildest sea of doubt, and that I shall be safe as He was if the vessel itself is engulfed in the waves of suffering and sorrow. His act is an argument. His prayer is an inspiration. His achievements are the everlasting and all-sufficient vindication of prayer.
    ... John Clifford (1836-1923), Social Worship, London: James Clarke & Co., 1899, p. 54 (see the book)
    See also John 17:25-26; Matt. 14:23; 26:36; Mark 6:46; 14:32; Luke 6:12; 9:28; 11:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, implant in me a Spirit that knows how to please You in prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Burton: the end of theology

Sunday, June 5, 2016
    Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754
Meditation:
    Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
    —1 Peter 4:8 (ESV)
Quotation:
    After all, Brethren, the whole end of Theology is love. It seems hard to realize that that is so, but so it is. If your theology does not make you loving, it has not Christianized you and to that extent is not a Christian theology. All ecclesiasticism, and all doctrinalizing, is in order to [form] character, and the soul of character is love. Preach the truth in love, and for the development of love.
    ... Nathaniel J. Burton (1822-1887), In Pulpit and Parish, Boston: Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society, 1896, p. 149 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 4:8; Eph. 4:15; Phil. 1:9-10; 2 Thess. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to love as I cannot in my own strength. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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