Niebuhr: the way of reform movements

Saturday, December 16, 2017
Meditation:
    At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
    —Matthew 24:10-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Institutions can never conserve without betraying the movements from which they proceed. The institution is static, whereas its parent movement has been dynamic; it confines men within its limits, while the movement had liberated them from the bondage of institutions; it looks to the past, [although] the movement had pointed forward. Though in content the institution resembles the dynamic epoch whence it proceeded, in spirit it is like the state before the revolution. So the Christian church, after the early period, often seemed more closely related in attitude to the Jewish synagogue and the Roman state than to the age of Christ and his apostles; its creed was often more like a system of philosophy than like the living gospel.
    ... H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962), The Kingdom of God in America, New York: Harper, 1959; Wesleyan University Press, 1988, p. 168 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 24:10-13; 10:22; Mark 13:13; 1 Cor. 1:8; Heb. 10:39; Rev. 2:4-5; 3:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, continue to breathe life into Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: every moment

Friday, December 15, 2017
Meditation:
    “But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.”
    But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”
    —1 Samuel 15:20-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In God, we live every commonplace as well as the most exalted moment of our being. To trust in Him when no need is pressing, when things seem going right of themselves, may be harder than when things seem going wrong.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), What’s Mine’s Mine [1886], London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1889, p. 171 (see the book)
    See also 1 Sam. 15:20-23; Deut. 8:11-14; Ps. 78:11; 103:2; 106:21-22; Matt. 7:13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let me not stray when the path is easy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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John of the Cross: accounting for good works

Thursday, December 14, 2017
    Feast of John of the Cross, Mystic, Poet, Teacher, 1591
Meditation:
    And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
    —2 Corinthians 9:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A Christian should always remember that the value of his good works is not based on their number and excellence, but on the love of God which prompts him to do these things.
    ... St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross, v. I, Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1935, p. 293 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 9:8; Ps. 84:11; Mal. 3:10; John 14:21; 1 John 4:16; Jude 1:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, implant in me a charitable heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Johnson: prayer

Wednesday, December 13, 2017
    Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304
    Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784
Meditation:
    And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.
    —Joel 2:25-26 (KJV)
Quotation:
    Almighty and most merciful Father, by Whose providence my life has been prolonged, and Who has granted me now to begin another year of probation, vouchsafe me such assistance of Thy Holy Spirit, that the continuance of my life may not add to the measure of my guilt, but that I may so repent of the days and years passed in neglect of the duties which Thou hast set before me, in vain thoughts, in sloth, and in folly, that I may apply my heart to true wisdom, by diligence redeem the time lost, and by repentance obtain pardon, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.
    ... Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), Prayers and Meditations, London: Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, 1806, Sept. 18, 1757, p. 24 (see the book)
    See also Joel 2:25-26; Isa. 35:10; Zech. 10:6; Matt. 4:7
Quiet time reflection:
    I rely on Your promises, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Davidman: law vs. righteousness

Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Meditation:
    The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the LORD pasture them like lambs in a meadow? Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone! Even when their drinks are gone, they continue their prostitution; their rulers dearly love shameful ways. A whirlwind will sweep them away, and their sacrifices will bring them shame.
    —Hosea 4:16-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Two thousand years of failure have not taught some reformers that you can’t stop sin by declaring it illegal. Two thousand years have not taught them that you can’t save a man’s soul by force—you can only lose your own in the attempt. Drunkenness and gambling and secularism and lechery—various hopeful churchmen have earnestly tried to outlaw them all; and what is the result? A drunken nation, a gambling nation, a secularist nation, an adulterous nation. And, often, a ruined Church.
    ... Joy Davidman (1915-1960), Smoke on the Mountain, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955, reprint, Westminster John Knox Press, 1985, p. 93 (see the book)
    See also Hos. 4:16-19; Ps. 81:12; Zech. 7:11; Matt. 15:14; Rev. 22:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we rest in Your grace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacGregor: called by its right name

Monday, December 11, 2017
Meditation:
    The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
    —Proverbs 1:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In the twentieth century, the secularists, still living off the spiritual capital of Christianity, often pretended to chide Christians for having invented the term “secularist,” a term which, they said, was devoid of meaning. Their leaders knew very well, however, that secularism, like any other parasite, derives its sustenance from the object on which it feeds, and so they were rather pleased when milquetoast Christians timidly offered, as a definition of secularism, “living as though God did not exist.” What Christians should have called it was, rather, “a contemptibly fraudulent way of living on the cheap, by reaping the maximum fruits of Christian effort, while contributing the minimum effort of your own.” When secularists accused Christians of “living in the past,” the Christians ought to have retaliated by pointing out that secularists were “living off the past.” By the time they got around to doing so, however, the majority of secularists had become morally incapable of seeing the point.
    ... Geddes MacGregor (1909-1998), From a Christian Ghetto, London: Longmans, Green, 1954 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 14:1; Prov. 1:7,29-31; 18:2; John 3:18-21; Rom. 1:28;
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, send Your light! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Merton: paradoxes and salvation

Sunday, December 10, 2017
    Advent II
    Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968
Meditation:
    Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
    —Philippians 3:12-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    This matter of “salvation” is, when seen intuitively, a very simple thing. But when we analyze it, it turns into a complex tangle of paradoxes. We become ourselves by dying to ourselves. We gain only what we give up, and if we give up everything we gain everything. We cannot find ourselves within ourselves, but only in others; yet at the same time, before we can go out to others we must first find ourselves. We must forget ourselves in order to become truly conscious of who we are. The best way to love ourselves is to love others; yet we cannot love others unless we love ourselves, since it is written, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But if we love ourselves in the wrong way, we become incapable of loving anybody else. And indeed when we love ourselves wrongly, we hate ourselves; if we hate ourselves we cannot help hating others. Yet there is a sense in which we must hate others and leave them in order to find God... As for this “finding” of God, we cannot even look for Him unless we have already found Him, and we cannot find Him unless He has first found us. We cannot begin to seek Him without a special gift of His grace; yet if we wait for grace to move us before beginning to seek Him, we will probably never begin.
    ... Thomas Merton (1915-1968), No Man is an Island, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955; reprint, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. xvi-xvii (see the book)
    See also Phil. 3:12-14; Matt. 10:37-39; 16:24-25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 9:23-24; 14:26-27; John 12:25; Acts 20:24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, in You I rest from all disquiet of mind. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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