Gossip: the adventure in Christ's appeal

Saturday, July 9, 2016
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
    —Luke 14:28-33 (ESV)
Quotation:
    And think of the appeal Christ made to men and women! He had many, but His favourite was to their chivalry and valour. Often He underlines the difficulties of discipleship, warns us what it will cost, that it means risk and loss and sacrifice, and pulling hard against fierce currents; and then He turns and looks at us, with that honouring trust of His in us that sets the blood tingling, and makes the cheeks flush with pride. That, He says quietly, is why I am so sure that you will come: you are too big to keep out of it! And, indeed, in His own day, it was only daring and adventurous spirits who would risk declaring for Him, as it is only daring and adventurous spirits still who have the pluck to try to follow so original and unpopular a Master in the real living-out of life.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924, p. 168 (see the book)
    See also Luke 14:26-33; Matt. 8:20; 10:22; 20:22-23; John 16:23; Acts 21:13; Rom. 8:18,36-37; Heb. 11:13; 2 Pet. 1:13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the courage to follow You unconditionally. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Rutherford: life's reward

Friday, July 8, 2016
Meditation:
    But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
    —Hebrews 2:9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Alas, we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire our own spirits, for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me see within this short time, is worth a world of worlds.
    ... Samuel Rutherford (1600-1664), Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Edinburgh: William Whyte & Co., 1848, letter, Feb. 9, 1637, p. 179 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 2:9; Isa. 11:1; 45:22; Mic. 7:7; Zech. 12:10; John 1:29; 8:56; Eph. 1:18; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 12:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have seen You with my heart’s eyes. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Reid: the precious relic

Thursday, July 7, 2016
Meditation:
    And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
    —Matthew 4:23 (ESV)
Quotation:
    It might help us in our thinking if we drew a distinction between preaching, which the New Testament talks about as a continuing activity in society at large, and sermonising, which we have made into a special activity in the church premises...
    A great many people sermonising in our churches today would be better off and of greater service if they absolved themselves from the bondage and disciplines of the pulpit and came down among their congregations, teaching informally on sounder educational principles. After all, the vital matter in the ministry of the Word is not that a clergyman delivers himself of a discourse but that the people to whom he ministers end up being taught something.
    The tragedy is that the professional clergy have been trained to sermonise and they seem overwhelmed with fears and a sense of insecurity when they contemplate other methods.
    A further problem, of course, is that most of our churches contain a significant number of people who become emotionally disturbed at any departure from what they have always done in the past. To them, the sermon is part of their Christianity—even if it bores them stiff!
    ... Gavin Reid (b. 1934), The Gagging of God, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969, p. 33-34 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 4:23; Mark 1:15; Luke 8:1; 1 Cor. 1:17-18,22-23; 2 Cor. 2:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I confess that I fear departure from the familiar. Teach me to sense Your Spirit’s prompting in all things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Newton: status report

Wednesday, July 6, 2016
    Feast of John Huss, Reformer, Martyr, 1415
    Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, &
    John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535
Meditation:
    But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
    —1 Corinthians 15:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    1. I am not what I ought to be. Ah! how imperfect and deficient. 2. Not what I might be, considering my privileges and opportunities. 3. Not what I wish to be. God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him. 4. I am not what I hope to be; ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as He is. 5. Not what I once was, a child of sin, and slave of the devil. Though not all these, not what I ought to be, not what I might be, not what I wish or hope to be, and not what I once was, I think I can truly say with the apostle, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
    ... John Newton (1725-1807), Letters by The Rev. John Newton of Olney and St. Mary Woolnoth, Josiah Bull, ed., London: Religious Tract Society, ca. 1860, p. 400 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 15:10; Luke 7:2-10; 2 Cor. 5:1-4; Eph. 3:7-8; 1 Tim. 1:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Say the word, Lord, and I will be healed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Tillotson: the Scriptures

Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Meditation:
    Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures...
    —1 Corinthians 15:1-4 (ESV)
Quotation:
    When we say that the Scriptures are plain to all capacities, in all things necessary, we mean that any man of ordinary capacity, by his own diligence and care, in conjunction with the helps and advantages which God hath appointed, and in the due use of them, may attain to the knowledge of everything necessary to his salvation; and that there is no book in the world more plain, and better fitted to teach a man any art or science than the Bible is, to direct and instruct men in the way to heaven.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. V, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon LXXXVII, p. 41 (see the book)
    See also John 7:17; Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:18; 15:1-4; Eph. 2:8-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Thank You, Lord, for preserving Your word for me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Trueblood: democracy

Monday, July 4, 2016
Meditation:
    What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin...
    —Romans 3:9 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Democracy is necessitated by the fact that all men are sinners; it is made possible by the fact that we know it.
    ... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), Foundations for Reconstruction, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946, p. 105 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 3:9-18,23; Ps. 143:2; Matt. 1:21; Rom. 5:12; Gal. 2:16; 3:22; 1 John 1:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, never allow us to forget our sinfulness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Sayers: down to earth indeed

Sunday, July 3, 2016
    Feast of Thomas the Apostle
Meditation:
    That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
    —1 John 1:1-3 (KJV)
Quotation:
    Those who make it a reproach to Christianity that it taught no new morality and invented no new kind of Deity could not be more laughably wide of the mark. What it did was to guarantee that the old morality was actually valid, and the old beliefs literally true. “Ye worship ye know not what, but we know what we worship,” “that which we have seen with our eyes and our hands have handled”—“He suffered under Pontius Pilate.” God died—not in a legend, not in a symbol, not in a distant past nor in a realm unknown, but here, [in the crucifixion of Christ]; the whole great cloudy castle of natural religion and poetic prophecy is brought down to earth and firmly cemented upon that angular and solid cornerstone.
    ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), The Man Born to be King, London: V. Gollancz, 1943, reprint, Ignatius Press, 1990, p. 22 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 1:1-3; Matt. 21:42-44; John 4:22; Eph. 2:19-20; 1 Pet. 2:6-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are my foundation and my hope. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth