Watts: My God, how endless is Thy love!

Saturday, November 26, 2016
    Commemoration of Isaac Watts, Hymnwriter, 1748
Meditation:
    This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
    —Lamentations 3:21-23 (KJV)
Quotation:
My God, how endless is Thy love!
Thy gifts are ev’ry ev’ning new;
And morning mercies from above
Gently distill like early dew.

Thou spread’st the curtains of the night,
Great guardian of my sleeping hours;
Thy sov’reign word restores the light,
And quickens all my drowsy pow’rs.

I yield my pow’rs to Thy command,
To Thee I consecrate my days;
Perpetual blessings from Thine hand
Demand perpetual songs of praise.
    ... Isaac Watts (1674-1748), Hymns and Spiritual Songs [1707], in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, ed. Samuel Melanchthon Worcester, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1834, book I, hymn 81, p. 333-334 (see the book)
    See also Lam. 3:21-23; Ps. 30:5; Isa. 33:2; 45:7; Zeph. 3:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all my hope is in You.

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Calvin: condemning the impulses to rebellion

Friday, November 25, 2016
    Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century
Meditation:
    Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
    —1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)
Quotation:
    It may seem absurd to some that all desires by which man is by nature affected are so completely condemned—although they have been bestowed by God himself, the author of nature. To this I reply that we do not condemn those inclinations which God so engraved upon the character of man at his first creation, that they were eradicable only with humanity itself; but only those bold and unbridled impulses which contend against God’s control.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559], tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, III.iii.12, p. 544 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 2:15-17; John 15:19; Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:1-2; 1 John 4:4-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me self-control. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Whale: the Man in the midst

Thursday, November 24, 2016
    Thanksgiving (U.S.)
Meditation:
    Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
    —Matthew 3:13-17 (ESV)
Quotation:
    It is God Himself, personally present and redeemingly active, who comes to meet men in this Man of Nazareth. Jesus is more than a religious genius, such as George Fox, and more than a holy man, such as the lovable Lama in Kipling’s Kim. He himself knows that he is more... The Gospel story is a tree rooted in the familiar soil of time and sense; but its roots go down into the Abyss and its branches fill the Heavens; given to us in terms of a country in the Eastern Mediterranean no bigger than Wales, during the Roman Principate of Tiberius Caesar in the first century of our era, its range is universal; it is on the scale of eternity. God’s presence and his very Self were made manifest in the words and works of this Man. In short, the Man Christ Jesus has the decisive place in man’s ageless relationship with God.
    He is what God means by ‘Man’. He is what man means by ‘God’.
    ... John S. Whale (1896-1997), Christian Doctrine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966, pp. 101,104 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 3:13-17; Isa. 9:6; Mic. 5:2; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:1-2,32; 8:56-58; Col. 1:17; Heb. 13:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Jesus, You are God in the flesh. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Nicholas of Cusa: What is eternal life?

Wednesday, November 23, 2016
    Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100
Meditation:
    But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
    —Rom. 6:22-23 (ESV)
Quotation:
    [Eternal life is] naught else than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life: It is unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; ’tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love’s imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure.
    ... Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464), The Vision of God [1453], tr., Emma Gurney Salter, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1928, p. 17 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:22-23; Isa. 35:1-2; Matt. 13:43; Rev. 7:17; Rom. 2:7; 1 John 2:24-25
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have given me life that cannot end. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: prayer

Tuesday, November 22, 2016
    Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230
    Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963
Meditation:
    First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
    —1 Timothy 2:1-4 (ESV)
Quotation:
    I too had noticed that our prayers for others flow more easily than those we offer on our own behalf. And it would be nice to accept your view that this just shows we are made to live by charity. I’m afraid, however, I detect two much less attractive reasons for the ease of my own intercessory prayers. One is that I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him. And the other is like unto it. Suppose I pray that you may be given grace to withstand your besetting sin (short list of candidates for this post will be forwarded on demand). Well, all the work has to be done by God and you. If I pray against my own besetting sin there will be work for me. One sometimes fights shy of admitting an act to be a sin for this very reason.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 65 (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 2:1-4; Eph. 1:15-19; 3:14-19; Phil. 1:4-5,9-10; Col. 1:9; 4:12; 1 Thess. 3:12-13; Phlmn. 1:4-6; Jas. 5:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, do not permit me to remain blind to my sin, but to pray for myself as I pray for others. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Davidman: atheism

Monday, November 21, 2016
Meditation:
    For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
    —Romans 1:19-20 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The old pagans had to choose between a brilliant, jangling, irresponsible, chaotic universe, alive with lawless powers, and the serene and ordered universe of God and law. We modern pagans have to choose between that divine order, and the gray, dead, irresponsible, chaotic universe of atheism. And the tragedy is that we may make that choice without knowing it—not by clear conviction but by vague drifting, not by denying God, but by losing interest in Him.
    A nominal deist will say: “Yes, of course there must be some sort of Force that created the galaxy. But it’s childish to imagine that It has any personal relation to me!” In that belief atheism exists as an undiagnosed disease. The man who says, “One God,” and does not care, is an atheist in his heart. The man who speaks of God and will not recognize the presence of God burning in his mind as Moses recognized him in the burning bush—that man is an atheist, though he speak with the tongues of men or angels, and appear in his pew every Sunday, and make large contributions to the church.
    ... Joy Davidman (1915-1960), Smoke on the Mountain, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955, reprint, Westminster John Knox Press, 1985, p. 23 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 1:19-20; Ex. 3:2-4; Ps. 14:1; 19:1-6; Isa. 40:26; Jer. 10:10-11; John 1:9; Acts 14:16-17; 1 John 2:22-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, so was I until You showed me Yourself. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Augustine: procrastination

Sunday, November 20, 2016
    Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870
    Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876
Meditation:
    And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.”
    —Luke 12:22-23 (ESV)
Quotation:
    God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.
    ... St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Sermon 73A, on the man who sowed good seed in his field, Sermons, v. III, Brooklyn, New York: New City Press, 1991, p. 296 (see the book)
    See also Luke 12:16-23; Isa. 21:12; Matt. 13:24-30; 24:42-43; John 9:4; 12:35; Eph. 5:15-16; Col. 4:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Show me, Lord, Your time for my repentance. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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