Tillotson: plain understanding

Saturday, January 28, 2017
    Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274
Meditation:
    And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
    —Luke 24:27 (ESV)
Quotation:
    We have all the reason in the world to believe, that the goodness and justice of God is such, as to make nothing necessary to be believed by any man, which, by the help of due instruction, may not be made sufficiently plain to a common understanding.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. V, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon LXXXVII, p. 38 (see the book)
    See also Luke 24:27; Ps. 25:8-9,12; Isa. 35:8; Jer. 31:33-34; Mic. 4:2; Luke 8:15; 24:44-45; John 7:17; 8:31-32,47; Rom. 1:19-20; Phil. 3:13-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your truth is plain to see. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: having God is having all

Friday, January 27, 2017
Meditation:
    —yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
    —1 Corinthians 8:6 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what He wants. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything—we have all the rest.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 8:6; Matt. 6:33; Rom. 8:1,38-39; 1 John 1:3; 2 John 1:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, convince my pagan mind that in having Christ, I have all. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chesterton: God is young

Thursday, January 26, 2017
    Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul
    Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
    —Matthew 10:29-31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again;” and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again,” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
    ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), Orthodoxy, London, New York: John Lane Company, 1909, p. 108-109 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 10:29-31; Gen. 1:31; Matt. 6:26; 12:11-12; Luke 12:7,24
Quiet time reflection:
    We are blessed, Lord, through Your infinite care. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: care for the future

Wednesday, January 25, 2017
    Feast of the Conversion of Paul
Meditation:
    Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
    —Matthew 6:34 (ESV)
Quotation:
    If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that the longest human life leaves a man, in any branch of learning, a beginner, I shall seem to you to be saying something quite academic and theoretical. You would be surprised if you knew how soon one begins to feel the shortness of the tether: of how many things, even in middle life, we have to say, “No time for that,” “Too late now” and “Not for me.” But Nature herself forbids you [young people] to share that experience. A more Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God’s hands. We may as well, for God will certainly retain it whether we leave it to Him or not.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “Learning in War-Time”, in The Weight of Glory, and other addresses, Macmillan Co., 1949, p. 52 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:34; Lam. 3:22-23; Matt. 6:11,25; John 14:27; 16:33
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You reign supreme, and all that is mine is in Your hands. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Francois de Sales: the Divine will

Tuesday, January 24, 2017
    Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622
Meditation:
    And looking about at those who sat around him, [Jesus] said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
    —Mark 3:34-35 (ESV)
Quotation:
    If I want only pure water, what does it matter whether it be brought in a vase of gold or of glass? What is it to me whether the will of God be presented to me in tribulation or consolation, since I desire and seek only the Divine will?
    ... François de Sales (1567-1622), Maxims and Counsels of St. Francis de Sales, New York: Benziger, 1883, p. 168 (see the book)
    See also Mark 3:34-35; Matt. 6:33; 7:21; John 7:17; Jas. 1:25; 1 John 2:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I may seek Your will in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brooks: orthodoxy

Monday, January 23, 2017
    Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “So for the sake of your tradition you [scribes and Pharisees] have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
    —Matthew 15:6b-9 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Orthodoxy is, in the Church, very much what prejudice is in the single mind. It is the premature conceit of certainty. It is the treatment of the imperfect as if it were the perfect.
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Life and letters of Phillips Brooks, v. III, Alexander V. G. Allen, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1901, p. 74 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 15:1-9; Isa. 60:19-20; 1 Cor. 13:8-10; 2 Cor. 5:7; Rev. 21:22-23; 22:4-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have sole authority in all things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dale: happiness from God

Sunday, January 22, 2017
Meditation:
    Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
    —Romans 5:12-15 (ESV)
Quotation:
    It was not the pleasant things in the world that came from the devil, and the dreary things from God! It was “sin brought death into the world and all our woe;” * as the sin vanishes, the woe will vanish too. God Himself is the ever-blessed God. He dwells in the light of joy as well as of purity, and instead of becoming more like Him as we become more miserable, and as all the brightness and glory of life are extinguished, we become more like God as our blessedness becomes more complete. The great Christian graces are radiant with happiness. Faith, hope, charity—there is no sadness in them:—and if penitence makes the heart sad, penitence belongs to the sinner, not to the saint.
* from Paradise Lost, book 1, line 3, by John Milton
    ... Robert W. Dale (1829-1895), Week-day Sermons [1876], London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1888, p. 117-118 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 5:12-15; Gen. 3:6; Jonah 4:11; Rom. 5:19; 8:22; 2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Pet. 1:7-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, drive sin from my life! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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