Kates: the terminus of faith

Saturday, February 24, 2018
Meditation:
    He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
    —Acts 16:30-32 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Faith is not so much belief about God as it is total, personal trust in God, rising to a personal fellowship with God that is stronger than anxiety and guilt, loneliness and all manner of disaster. The Christian’s faith in Christ is trust in a Living Person, once crucified, dead, and buried, and now living forevermore. Call it, if you will, an assumption that ends as an assurance, or an experiment that ends as an experience, Christian faith is in fact a commitment that ends as a communion.
    ... Frederick Ward Kates (1910-1987), A Moment Between Two Eternities, New York: Harper & Row, 1965, p. 96 (see the book)
    See also Acts 16:30-32; John 6:29; 12:44; 14:1; Acts 2:38-39; Rom. 10:13-14; 1 Pet. 1:8-9; 1 John 5:10-13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant Your presence to Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: the inexorable expulsion of sin

Friday, February 23, 2018
    Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155
Meditation:
    If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
    —1 John 4:20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If God said, “I forgive you,” to a man who hated his brother, and if (as is impossible) that voice of forgiveness should reach the man, what would it mean to him? How would the man interpret it? Would it not mean to him, “You may go on hating. I do not mind it. You have had great provocation, and are justified in your hate”? No doubt God takes what wrong there is, and what provocation there is, into the account; but the more provocation, the more excuse that can be urged for the hate, the more reason, if possible, that the hater should be delivered from the hell of his hate, that God’s child should be made the loving child that He meant him to be. The man would think, not that God loved the sinner, but that He forgave the sin, which God never does. Every sin meets its due fate—inexorable expulsion from the paradise of God’s Humanity.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “It Shall Not Be Forgiven”, in Unspoken Sermons [First Series], London: A. Strahan, 1867, p. 85 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:20; Matt. 6:12,14-15; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 17:3-4; 1 John 2:9-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to let loose of my sin. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Johnson: truth in deepfreeze

Thursday, February 22, 2018
Meditation:
    You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.
    —Titus 2:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Those of a strong doctrinal background... assumed that Christ tied the knot when the catechism was memorized and parroted correctly. The result: a generation so obsessed with saying it right, they hardly dare say it at all.
    ... Paul G. Johnson (b. 1931), Buried Alive, Richmond: John Knox Press, 1968, p. 102 (see the book)
    See also Tit. 2:1-5; Matt. 6:5-6; Luke 12:11-12; 21:15; Acts 4:29-31; 6:9-10; Jas. 1:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me to love Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Murray: limiting God

Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Meditation:
    That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
    He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
    He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
    They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
    —Mark 4:35-41 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do.
    ... Andrew Murray (1828-1917), The Ministry of Intercession: a plea for more prayer, New York: Revell, 1898, p. 210 (see the book)
    See also Mark 4:35-41; Matt. 8:23-27; 14:28-33; 15:31; 19:26; Mark 1:27; 7:37; Luke 1:37; 4:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your answers to prayer are always greater than I ever expected. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Scofield: the church's divergence

Tuesday, February 20, 2018
    Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906
Meditation:
    Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
    —Matthew 8:19-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The church has failed to follow her appointed pathway of separation, holiness, heavenliness and testimony to an absent but coming Christ; she has turned aside from that purpose to the work of civilizing the world, building magnificent temples, and acquiring earthly power and wealth, and, in this way, has ceased to follow in the footsteps of Him who had not where to lay His head.
    ... C. I. Scofield (1843-1921), Addresses on Prophecy, New York : Gaebelein, 1910, Gospel Hour, 1967, p. 52 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 8:19-20; 5:48; 23:13-33; Acts 1:8; 2 Cor. 6:14-15; 7:1; Heb. 12:14; 2 Pet. 1:16; Rev. 2:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead Your church in the way that it should go. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rust: the unifying principle

Monday, February 19, 2018
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!”
    —Luke 12:24-28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We cannot find in the Old Testament the fondly drawn distinction of our latter days between the natural and the supernatural, for the whole of the natural order is so directly linked with God that its conservation must be regarded as a kind of continuous creation, quite as dependent on God’s creative Word as when first the heavens and the earth were made.
    ... E. C. Rust (1910-1991), Nature and Man in Biblical Thought, London: Lutterworth Press, 1953, p. 69 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 1:29-30; Ps. 23; Luke 12:24-28
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we depend upon Your grace every moment. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Whale: the great divide

Sunday, February 18, 2018
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”
    —Matthew 25:31-33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    But in rejecting the [Bible’s illustrations of eternal punishment] as grotesque and even immoral, many people make the mistake of rejecting the truth it illustrated (which is rather like rejecting a book as untrue because the pictures in it are bad). It is illogical to tell men that they must do the will of God and accept his gospel of grace, if you also tell them that the obligation has no eternal significance, and that nothing ultimately depends on it. The curious modern heresy that everything is bound to come right in the end is so frivolous that I will not insult you by refuting it. “I remember,” said Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on one occasion, “that my Maker has said that he will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left.” That is a solemn truth which only the empty-headed and empty-hearted will neglect. It strikes at the very roots of life and dest iny.
    ... John S. Whale (1896-1997), Christian Doctrine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966, p. 186-187 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 25:31-33; 23:33; 25:46; John 10:28; Heb. 2:2-3; 2 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 20:14-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your judgment is righteous. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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