Taylor: laboring for purity

Saturday, August 13, 2016
    Feast of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down & Connor, Priest, Teacher, 1667
    Commemoration of Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer, 1910
    Commemoration of Octavia Hill, Worker for the Poor, 1912
Meditation:
    Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work withyour hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
    —1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Avoid idleness, and fill up all the spaces of thy time with severe and useful employment: for lust easily creeps in at those emptinesses where the soul is unemployed and the body is at ease; no easy, healthful, idle person was ever chaste, if he could be tempted. But of all employments, bodily labour is the most useful, and of the greatest benefit for driving away the devil.
    ... Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Holy Living [1650], in The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., v. III, London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1847, p. 65 (see the book)
    See also 1 Thess. 4:11-12; Acts 20:33-35; 1 Cor. 4:12; Eph. 4:28; 2 Thess. 3:7-12; Tit. 3:14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, bless the work of my hands, that it may show the glory of Your mercy to me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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de Sales: praying well

Friday, August 12, 2016
Meditation:
    And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
    —Isaiah 30:20-21 (ESV)
Quotation:
    He prays well who is so absorbed with God that he does not know he is praying.
    ... François de Sales (1567-1622)
    See also Gen. 5:24; Ps. 25:8-9; 119:105; Pr. 3:5-6; Isa. 30:20-21; 58:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I thank You for Your continual presence. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newman: knowing ourselves

Thursday, August 11, 2016
    Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253
    Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890
Meditation:
    ... keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
    —1 Peter 3:16-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Never... think we have a due knowledge of ourselves till we have been exposed to various kinds of temptations, and tried on every side. Integrity on one side of our character is no voucher for integrity on another. We cannot tell how we should act if brought under temptations different from those we have hitherto experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners, but we do not know how great. He alone knows who died for our sins.
    ... John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Parochial Sermons, v. 1, New York: D. Appleton, 1843, p. 30 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 3:16-17; Matt. 4:1; 26:39; 1 Cor. 10:13; Gal. 6:1; Heb. 2:18; 1 Pet. 4:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I ask forgiveness for my sins. In Your mercy, grant that I may receive a clear conscience, so that may represent the Gospel to Your lost sons and daughters. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allshorn: the importance of pride

Wednesday, August 10, 2016
    Feast of Lawrence, Deacon at Rome, Martyr, 258
Meditation:
    Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
    —1 Corinthians 3:18-20 (ESV)
Quotation:
    As Christians, and followers of Jesus, we have not taken pride half seriously enough. But the Devil has. The Devil knows that as long as he can control human pride it does not matter how many prayer meetings, how many services, how much devotion goes on—he can still wreck any group of Christians sooner or later, and frustrate God’s purpose for them; and for the world.
    ... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn, London: SCM Press, 1957, p. 43 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 3:18-20; Isa. 5:21; Rom. 12:16; 1 Cor. 1:18-21; 4:10; 8:1-2; Gal. 6:3;
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I confess my sinful pride and ask that, in Your gracious mercy, You may purge all that pride from me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: sin as a misdirection

Tuesday, August 9, 2016
    Feast of Mary Sumner, Founder of the Mothers’ Union, 1921
Meditation:
    Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
    —Hebrews 3:12 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust, not in the living God but in dying men. The unbeliever denies the self-sufficiency of God and usurps attributes that are not his. This dual sin dishonors God and ultimately destroys the soul of the man.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Knowledge of the Holy, Harper & Row, 1975, p. 42 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 3:12; Gen. 8:21; Jer. 18:21; Lam. 3:17-18; Matt. 17:17; Mark 7:21-23; 16:14; John 20:27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I ask that the unbelief of my friends, ____ and ____, may be alleviated in favor of acknowledgement of You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brunner: eternal life

Monday, August 8, 2016
    Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221
Meditation:
    Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
    —Romans 6:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Eternal life is not an unending continuance of this life—that would, perhaps, be Hell—but Eternal Life is quite a different life, divine, not mundane; perfect, not earthly; true life, not corrupt half-life. We cannot form a conception of Eternal Life. What we imagine is ever simply of the earth, temporal, worldly. Nor could we know anything about our eternal life if it had not appeared in Jesus Christ. In him we realize that we were created for the eternal life. If we ask, what is this eternal life? What sense is there in thinking about it if we can have no conception of it?, the answer is, “It is life with God, in God, from God; life in perfect fellowship.” Therefore it is a life in love, it is love itself. It is a life without the nature of death and of sin, hence without sorrow, pain, anxiety, care, misery. To know this suffices to make one rejoice in eternal life. If there were no eternal life, this! life of time would be without meaning, goal, or purpose, without significance, without seriousness and without joy. It would be nothing, for what ends in nothing, is itself nothing. That our life does not end in nothing, but that eternal life awaits us, is the glad message of Jesus Christ. He came to give us this promise as a light in this dark world. A Christian is a man who has become certain of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
    ... Emil Brunner (1889-1966), Our Faith [1936], tr. John William Rilling, New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1954, p. 151-152 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:8; John 3:16; 4:13-14; 5:39-40; 10:28-30; 20:27; Rom. 8:37-39; Col. 3:3-4;
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my life is hidden in You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Davidman: the withering of morality

Sunday, August 7, 2016
    Commemoration of John Mason Neale, Priest, Poet, 1866
Meditation:
How long will you simple ones love your simple ways?
    How long will mockers delight in mockery
    and fools hate knowledge?
    —Proverbs 1:22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The essential amorality of all atheist doctrines is often hidden from us by an irrelevant personal argument. We see that many articulate secularists are well-meaning and law-abiding men; we see them go into righteous indignation over injustice and often devote their lives to good works. So we conclude that “he can’t be wrong whose life is in the right”—that their philosophies are just as good guides to action as Christianity. What we don’t see is that they are not acting on their philosophies. They are acting, out of habit or sentiment, on an inherited Christian ethic which they still take for granted though they have rejected the creed from which it sprang. Their children will inherit somewhat less of it.
    ... Joy Davidman (1915-1960), Smoke on the Mountain, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955, reprint, Westminster John Knox Press, 1985, p.79 (see the book)
    See also Pr. 1:22; Ps. 10:4; 14:1-3; Pr. 1:7; 27:22; Rom. 1:18-23,28; Eph. 2:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I not be silent before atheism, but speak the Gospel. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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