Wilson: our good acts?

Saturday, September 9, 2017
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
    “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
    “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
    —Luke 18:10-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The devil never tempts us with more success than when he tempts us with a sight of our own good actions.
    ... Thomas Wilson (1663-1755), Maxims of Piety and of Christianity, London: Macmillan, 1898, p. 115 (see the book)
    See also Luke 18:10-14; 1 Sam. 15:13-23; Isa. 1:13-17; 65:8; Matt. 6:1,5,16; 15:7-9; 19:16-22; Luke 20:47; Eph. 2:8-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, do whatever You require to get rid of my pride. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kierkegaard: holding on to sin

Friday, September 8, 2017
    Commemoration of Søren Kierkegaard, Teacher and Philosopher, 1855
Meditation:
    But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”
    —Isaiah 57:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Frightful this is in a sense, but it is true, and every one who has merely some little knowledge of the human heart can verify it: there is nothing to which a man holds so desperately fast as to his sin.
    ... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Christian Discourses, tr. Walter Lowrie, New York: Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 385 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 57:20-21; 9:18; Amos 5:12; John 3:19-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Help me, Lord, to let go of my sin. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Schiller: three words

Thursday, September 7, 2017
    Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957
Meditation:
    And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
    —1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
There are three lessons I would write,
    Three words, as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light,
    Upon the hearts of men.

Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
    And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put off the shadow from thy brow—
    No night but hath its morn.

Have Faith. Where’er thy bark is driven—
    The calm’s disport, the tempest’s mirth—
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
    The inhabitants of earth.

Have Love. Not love alone for one,
    But man, as man, thy brother call;
And scatter, like a circling sun,
    Thy charities on all.

Thus grave these lessons on thy soul—
    Faith, Hope, and Love—and thou shalt find
Strength when life’s surges rudest roll,
    Light when thou else wert blind.
    ... Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), included in Masterpieces of Religious Verse, James Dalton Morrison, ed., New York: Harper & Bros., 1948, p. 366 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 13:13; John 1:4-5; Rom. 8:24-25; Gal. 5:6; Col. 1:27; 1 Thess. 5:8; Heb. 11:1; 1 Pet. 1:21; 1 John 2:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me a heart like Jesus.

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Donne: stay for an answer

Wednesday, September 6, 2017
    Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851
    Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
    —John 14:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    He that asks me what heaven is, means not to hear me, but to silence me; He knows I cannot tell him; when I meet him there, I shall be able to tell him, and then he will be as able to tell me; yet then we shall be but able to tell one another, this, this that we enjoy is heaven, but the tongues of angels, the tongues of glorified saints, shall not be able to express what that heaven is; for, even in heaven our faculties shall be finite.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. I, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Sermon XXI, p. 422 (see the book)
    See also John 14:1-2; 1:18; 1 Cor. 13:12; 2 Cor. 3:18; 5:7; Phil. 3:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You keep Your promises. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Manley: unity in the Spirit

Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Meditation:
    I [Paul] am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.
    —1 Corinthians 1:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The task is not, in essence, the securing of uniformity, or cooperation, or Church reunion, or any of the external forms, through which nevertheless the unity may be manifested. Within the wide bounds of the Christian Church there is abundant scope for the multiplicity of races, languages, and social conditions; room also for separate organizations with different traditions of faith and order, and much diversity of operation.
    But there is no room for strife or hostility, for pride or self-assertion, for exclusiveness or unkind judgments, nor for that kind of independence which leads men to ignore their fellowship with the great company of believers, the communion of saints. These things are contrary to the revealed will of God, and should be made at once to cease. As these disappear, the outward manifestation of unity will come in such ways as the Spirit of God shall guide.
    ... G. T. Manley, Christian Unity, London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1945, p. 86-87 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 1:14-15; Matt. 24:14; 28:19; Acts 2:5; 10:34-35; 1 Cor. 1:11-13; 3:3-5; Phil. 1:15,17; 2:3; 1 Tim. 6:3-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make sure I follow no party but You alone. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allen: the need for Jesus

Monday, September 4, 2017
    Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650
Meditation:
    “If we [Peter and John] are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
    —Acts 4:9-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [The apostles] were moved, not so much by an intellectual apprehension, as by a spiritual illumination. They met men, and the need of those men whom they met cried aloud to them. Their own desire for the revelation of the glory of Jesus in the salvation of men went out towards those whom they met, and was immediately answered by the recognition of the need of those whom they met for Jesus Christ.
    ... 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. 46 (see the book)
    See also Acts 4:9-12; John 3:36; 14:6; Acts 10:42-43; Rom. 11:13-14; 1 Cor. 9:19,22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me sensitive to people’s need for Christ. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wetzel: Be ready for suffering

Sunday, September 3, 2017
    Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’”
    —John 15:22-25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Like many of the leaders and teachers [in the church], perhaps I failed to prepare people for the way of suffering. I had not suffered much myself and did not help people to be ready for it.
    But the fact is: when you follow Jesus, what happened to Him happens to you.
    ... Todd H. Wetzel (b. 1946), Steadfast Faith, Dallas, Texas: Latimer Press, 1997, p. 76 (see the book)
    See also John 15:22-25; Ps. 35:19; 69:4; 109:3; Acts 5:41; Rom. 5:3-5; 1 Pet. 4:12-14,16; 2 Tim. 1:11-12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You never abandon one who follows You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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