Brooks: looking at Jesus

Saturday, May 13, 2017
Meditation:
    And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath [Jesus] entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.
    —Mark 1:21-22 (ESV)
Quotation:
    I read the words and ponder them, but most of all I look at Jesus and try to understand His life, when I want to know the fullest truth regarding God. And when thus I look at Him, what do I learn? First of all, the true divinity of Christ Himself. I cannot doubt what is His own conception of His own personality. Through everything He does, through everything He says, there shines the quiet, intense radiance of conscious Godhood. Again, I say, it is not a word or two which He utters, though He does say things which make known His self-consciousness, but it is a certain sense of originalness, of being, as it were, behind the processes of things, and one with the real source of things,— this is what has impressed mankind in Jesus, and been the real power of their often puzzled but never abandoned faith in His Divinity. He has appeared to men, in some way, as He appears to us today, to be not merely the channel but the fountain of Love and Wisdom and Power, of Pity and Inspiration and Hope... The wonderful thing about this sense of Divinity as it appears in Jesus is its naturalness, the absence of surprise or of any feeling of violence. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Life and letters of Phillips Brooks, v. III, Alexander V. G. Allen, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1901, p. 104-105 (see the book)
    See also Mark 1:21-22; Isa. 9:6; John 1:14; Gal. 4:5-6; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 12:2; 1 John 4:2; Rev. 5:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let me see You in my heart’s eyes. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: God or men?

Friday, May 12, 2017
    Commemoration of Aiden Wilson Tozer, Spiritual Writer, 1963
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.”
    —John 15:18-21 (ESV)
Quotation:
    To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) (see the book)
    See also John 15:18-21; Matt. 5:11; 10:22; 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 6:22; John 3:20; Jas. 4:4; 1 John 3:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me know how I must follow You rather than men. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pascal: Jesus, the model

Thursday, May 11, 2017
Meditation:
    We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by hi s knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
    —Isaiah 53:6-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Jesus Christ suffered and died to sanctify death and suffering; ... he has been all that was great, and all that was abject, in order to sanctify in himself all things except sin, and to be the model of every condition.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), in a letter Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, p. 338 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:6-11; John 13:15; 1 Cor. 11:1; 1 Tim. 1:15-16; 1 Pet. 2:21;
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have made our own suffering and death mean something. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Betz: Jesus, ever present

Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Meditation:
    [Peter:] “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”
    —Acts 2:22-24 (ESV)
Quotation:
    It was only in the light of Easter that the disciples understood Jesus’ work and intention; they now realized that the Messiah had to undergo rejection and suffering, that he was to conquer not Rome but death and evil. We have no reason to mistrust the New Testament assurance. The Easter message and the historical Jesus are joined by a bridge resting on many piers. Jesus proclaimed the good news of the presence of God who, like a forgiving father, seeks his lost children and grants even sinners the company of the Redeemer; the disciples preached the Gospel of Christ, who appeared as Saviour and died on the cross for sinners. In the Holy Spirit Jesus drove out unclean spirits and conquered Satan; from Easter onwards he was extolled as the Lord of all spirits, who gives the Holy Spirit to believers and in him is everpresent with them.
    ... Otto Betz (1917-2005), What Do We Know About Jesus?, translation of Was wissen wir von Jesus?, 1965, London, S.C.M. Press, 1968, p. 114 (see the book)
    See also Acts 2:22-24; Isa. 53:3-5; Matt. 9:11-12; 18:14,20; 28:19-20; Luke 19:10; John 15:26-27; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 15:3-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Death could not hold You, and because of that, it will not hold me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sayers: evil

Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Meditation:
    The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
    —Genesis 6:5-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Evil is the soul’s choice of the not-God. The corollary is that damnation, or hell, is the permanent choice of the not-God. God does not (in the monstrous old-fashioned phrase) “send” anybody to hell; hell is that state of the soul in which its choice becomes obdurate and fixed; the punishment (so to call it) of that soul is to remain eternally in that State which it has chosen.
    ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), The Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement, London: Golanz, 1963, p. 230 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 6:5-8; Deut. 30:19; Ps. 1:6; 37:20; Pr. 16:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have sent Your salvation to Your dying people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Juliana of Norwich: Jesus, the highest and the lowest

Monday, May 8, 2017
    Feast of Juliana of Norwich, Mystic, Teacher, c.1417
    Commemoration of Dallas Willard, Teacher, Spiritual Writer, 2013
Meditation:
    Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
    —Matthew 20:25-28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    And what might this noble Lord do of more worship and joy to me than to show me (that am so simple) this marvelous homeliness [i.e., naturalness and simplicity]? ... Thus it fareth with our Lord Jesus and with us. For truly it is the most joy that may be that He that is highest and mightiest, noblest and worthiest, is lowest and meekest, homeliest and most courteous: and truly this marvelous joy shall be shewn us all when we see Him.
    ... Juliana of Norwich (1342?-1417), Revelations of Divine Love, Grace Harriet Warrack, ed., Methuen, 1901, ch. VII (see the book)
    See also Matt. 20:25-28; Isa. 53:2-3,7; Rom. 15:3; Phil. 2:5-10; Heb. 2:9-18; 12:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, give me a servant’s heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sheppard: the finished work

Sunday, May 7, 2017
Meditation:
    When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
    —John 19:30 (ESV)
Quotation:
    “It is finished.” It is hard for us to know the intonation with which these words of the dying Christ were spoken. If they came as the sufferer’s sigh of relief, they must also have been the worker’s glad cry of achievement. Everything had been done that could be. Man had been offered a sight of God as He really was. For those of us who believe that in seeing Jesus we see God, the Cross is not a coarse framework of blood-stained wood, but the most precious emblem of man’s dearest hopes. ... It is the great pledge which we sorely need, that love is stronger than hate, grace than sin, life than death.
    ... H. R. L. Sheppard (1880-1937), Two Days Before, New York: Macmillan Co., 1924, p. 65 (see the book)
    See also John 19:30; Isa. 53:10-12; John 4:34; 17:4; Rom. 10:4; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 10:5-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your work is always perfected. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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