Manley: Christian unity

Saturday, June 10, 2017
Meditation:
    For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
    —Romans 8:19-21 (ESV)
Quotation:
    [Christian Unity] is not a secular unity, and must be prompted by no secular motive. The unity we seek is deeper than anything that the world offers. Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, and even Shintoism have proved their ability to bind men together in a common enterprise with great devotion and self-sacrifice; but these are secular ideals, intermixed with self-interest, the love of mastery, and the use of force. Christian Unity can only be “in Christ.” It is based on the New Birth and New Life in Christ, and upon the oneness of all the members in the Christ who is the Head. Therefore, “the quest for the unity of the Church must in fact be identical with the quest for Jesus Christ as the concrete Head and Lord of the Church.” *
    What kind of unity, then, do we ask? It must be God’s kind, that for which Christ prayed, and which, therefore, must be in the line of God’s purpose. Will He not then take the initiative? It is for us to wait upon Him, and to go through the gates which He opens, to cast up the highway, to gather out the stones of stumbling, to lift up the standard, and to prepare the way of the Lord. (Isa. 62:10)
* Karl Barth, The Church and the Churches, p. 18
    ... G. T. Manley, Christian Unity, London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1945, p. 86 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:19-21; Isa. 62:10; John 17:20-21; 1 Cor. 1:30-31; 2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 1:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, unite us in Your Son. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Latourette: moral and practical victory

Friday, June 9, 2017
    Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597
    Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373
Meditation:
    Through [Jesus Christ] and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.
    —Romans 1:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    More than any other religion or, indeed, than any other element in human experience, Christianity has made for the intellectual advance of man in reducing languages to writing, creating literatures, promoting education from primary grades through institutions of university level, and stimulating the human mind and spirit to fresh explorations into the unknown. It has been the largest single factor in combating, on a world-wide scale, such ancient foes of man as war, disease, famine, and the exploitation of one race by another. More than any other religion, it has made for the dignity of human personality. This it has done by a power inherent within it of lifting lives from selfishness, spiritual mediocrity, and moral defeat and disintegration, to unselfish achievement and contagious moral and spiritual power [and] by the high value which it set upon every human soul through the possibilities which it held out of endless growth in fellowship with th e eternal God.
    ... Kenneth Scott Latourette (1884-1968), Advance Through Storm, vol. VII of A history of the expansion of Christianity, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1939-45, p. 480-481 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 1:5; 1 Cor. 1:9; Gal. 5:1; Phil. 3:10-11; 1 John 1:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, fill me with Your mercy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allen: turning to Christ

Thursday, June 8, 2017
    Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711
    Commemoration of Roland Allen, Mission Strategist, 1947
Meditation:
    [Peter:] “Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.”
    —Acts 3:17-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What men turn to is more important than what they turn from, even if that to which they turn is only a higher moral truth; but to turn to Christ is far more important than to turn to higher moral truth: it is to turn the face towards Him in whom is all moral truth; it is to turn to Him in whom is not only the virtue which corresponds to the known vice from which the penitent desires to flee, but all virtue; it is to turn the face to all holiness, all purity, all grace. It was this repentance which the apostles preached after Pentecost.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Pentecost and the World, London: Oxford University Press, 1917, included in The Ministry of the Spirit, David M. Paton, ed., London: World Dominion Press, 1960, p. 31 (see the book)
    See also Acts 3:17-20; Luke 24:46-47; Acts 2:38-40; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20; Rom. 6:3; 1 Cor. 1:13-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that, in turning away from my sin, I may always turn to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: law for the spirit

Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Meditation:
    We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
    —Romans 7:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In Romans 7, St. Paul says, “The law is spiritual.” What does that mean? If the law were physical, then it could be satisfied by works, but since it is spiritual, no one can satisfy it unless everything he does springs from the depths of the heart. But no one can give such a heart except the Spirit of God, who makes the person be like the law, so that he actually conceives a heartfelt longing for the law and henceforward does everything, not through fear or coercion, but from a free heart.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), “Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans”, par. 6 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 7:14; Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5; Ps. 51:6; Matt. 22:37-40; Heb. 4:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to know what You desire from me, and grant a cheerful heart to do it. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Coleridge: Sunshine let it be, or frost

Tuesday, June 6, 2017
    Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945
Meditation:
    He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
    —Mark 4:40 (NIV)
Quotation:
Sunshine let it be, or frost,
    Storm or calm, as Thou shalt choose;
Though Thine every gift were lost,
    Thee Thyself we could not lose.
    ... Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907), Poems, London: Elkin Mathews, 1908, p. 172 (see the book)
    See also Mark 4:40; Matt. 10:39; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; John 6:39; Acts 20;24; Rom. 8:18; Phil. 3:7-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Your faithfulness drives out my fear. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brent: the uses of temptation

Monday, June 5, 2017
    Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754
Meditation:
    Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
    —Hebrews 12:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Only he who flings himself upward when the pull comes to drag him down, can hope to break the force of temptation. Temptation may be an invitation to hell, but much more is it an opportunity to reach heaven. At the moment of temptation, sin and righteousness are both very near the Christian; but, of the two, the latter is the nearer.
    ... Charles H. Brent (1862-1929), With God in the World [1899], London: Longmans Green, 1914, p. 49-50 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 12:3-4; 1 Cor. 10:13; Gal. 6:1; Heb. 2:18; 4:15; Jas. 1:12-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, strengthen me in temptation for the righteousness You call me to. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Muggeridge: the coming of the kingdom

Sunday, June 4, 2017
    Pentecost
Meditation:
    He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
    —John 3:2-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Jesus’ good news, then, was that the Kingdom of God had come, and that he, Jesus, was its herald and expounder to men. More than that, in some special and mysterious way, he was the kingdom.
    ... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), Jesus: the Man who Lives, London: Collins, 1975, p. 61 (see the book)
    See also John 3:2-3; Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7; Mark 1:15; John 18:36-37
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Jesus, You are King. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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