Lewis: the two states

Saturday, March 24, 2018
    Feast of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, Martyr, 1980
    Commemoration of Paul Couturier, Priest, Ecumenist, 1953
Meditation:
    We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
    —Hebrews 2:1-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And, taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heavenly creature or into a hellish creature; either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity, New York: MacMillan, 1952, reprint, HarperCollins, 2001, p. 92 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 2:1-3; Matt. 23:33; Rom. 2:3; 1 Thess. 5:1-3; Heb. 4:11; 10:28-29; 12:23-25; 1 Pet. 4:17-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to Your will, that I may know it. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thiselton: grounded in what?

Friday, March 23, 2018
Meditation:
    It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
    —Hebrews 6:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Most evangelicals believe that if a passage of the Bible seems unclear in its meaning, it should be interpreted in the light of Scripture “as a whole.” But what does “Scripture as a whole” mean? In practice, if not theory, it means the working systematic theology of the interpreter, or of his own theological tradition. An evangelical... would not hold to that tradition unless he believed that it did represent the wholeness of the biblical witness. Nevertheless, if this state of affairs has been correctly described, he is now in a serious difficulty. For if the Bible must always accord with a theology that has already been accepted, how can the truth of a biblical passage ever confront him afresh with an unfavorable judgment?
    ... Tony Thiselton (b. 1937), “Understanding God’s Word Today”, in The Lord Christ [1980], John Stott, ed., vol. 1 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 97 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 6:4-6; Matt. 22:29; Mark 12:10-11; John 5:39-40,46; 7:52; 2 Pet. 3:15-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep my feet on Your path. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allshorn: contrite

Thursday, March 22, 2018
Meditation:
    [Jesus to the Laodiceans:] I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
    —Revelation 3:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We have to repent of our blindness, our lukewarmness, and our disobedience, and turn back to the central truth of Christ as Lord and Saviour; an ethical system will not save us here, nor a timid sentimentalism, nor an excited emotional return, nor a dilettante mysticism.
    We have to find that deep contrition which is the condition of His abiding.
    Repentance is not a mere feeling of sorrow or contrition for an act of wrongdoing. The regret I feel when I act impatiently or speak crossly is not repentance... Repentance is contrition for what we are in our fundamental beings, that we are wrong in our deepest roots because our internal government is by Self and not by God.
    And it is an activity of the whole person. Unless I will to be different, the mind will not follow.
    True repentance brings an urge to be different, because of the sense of the incessant movement of what I am, forming, forming, forming what I shall be in the years to come.
    ... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn, London: SCM Press, 1957, p. 104 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 3:15-16; Ps. 34:18; 51:17; Luke 5:31-32; 2 Cor. 7:10; Phil. 3:20; 2 Tim. 2:25-26; 2 Pet. 1:10-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, burn repentance into my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Reed: Spirit divine

Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Meditation:
    After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
    —Acts 4:31 (NIV)
Quotation:
Spirit divine, attend our prayers.
    And make this house thy home;
Descend with all thy gracious powers;
    O come, great spirit, come!

Come as the light; to us reveal
    Our emptiness and woe;
And lead us in the paths of life
    Where all the righteous go.

Come as the wind: sweep clean away
    What dead within us lies,
And search and freshen all our souls
    With living energies.

Come as the fire: and purge our hearts
    Like sacrificial flame;
Let our whole soul as offering be
    To our Redeemer’s name.

Spirit divine, attend our prayers,
    Make a lost world thy home;
Descend with all thy gracious powers:
    O come, great Spirit, come!
    ... Andrew Reed (1787-1862), in 1829, included in Memoirs of the Life and Philanthropic Labours of Andrew Reed, D. D., comp. Andrew Reed, Charles Reed, London: Strahan & Co., 1863, p. 332 (see the book)
    See also Acts 4:31; 2 Chr. 5:14; Ezek. 39:29; Joel 2:28; Rom. 8:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your breath has shaken and cleansed my home.

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Barth: our belief vs. His holiness

Tuesday, March 20, 2018
    Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687
Meditation:
    The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness...
    —Romans 1:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [From our side] our relation to God is unrighteous. Secretly we are ourselves the masters in this relationship. We are not concerned with God, but with our own requirements, to which God must adjust Himself. Our arrogance demands that, in addition to everything else, some super-world should also be known and accessible to us. Our conduct calls for some deeper sanction, some approbation and remuneration from another world. Our well-regulated, pleasurable life longs for some hours of devotion, some prolongation into infinity. And so, when we set God upon the throne of the world, we mean by God ourselves. In “believing” on Him, we justify, enjoy, and adore ourselves.
    ... Karl Barth (1886-1968), The Epistle to the Romans, translated from the 6th edition by Edwyn C. Hoskyns, London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1933, 6th ed., Oxford University Press US, 1968, p. 44 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 1:18; Matt. 4:8-10; John 3:3-6,19-21; Acts 24:24-25; Rom. 8:5-8; 1 Tim. 4:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to see how I use You instead of being used by You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Whitehead: life only in the Spirit

Monday, March 19, 2018
    Feast of Joseph of Nazareth
Meditation:
    Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
    —Isaiah 49:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The power of God is the worship He inspires. That religion is strong which in its ritual and its modes of thought evokes an apprehension of the commanding vision. The worship of God is not a rule of safety: it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.
    ... Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), Science and the Modern World, Macmillan Company, 1925, p. 276 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 49:13; Job 17:9; Ps. 103:2-5; 138:3; Isa. 40:30-31; 2 Cor. 4:16; 12:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    You are the Lord of all joy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Cundy: spiritual unity

Sunday, March 18, 2018
Meditation:
    As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
    —Ephesians 4:1-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [The] denominational divisions which accentuate the problem are ... perpetrating an image of a divided Christ to the community in which we live. Such an image is at variance with the unity of the body into which we were all baptized. The same arguments that Paul used to deal with the factions and personality cults of the Corinthian church are applicable [here and now]. We can not hide behind some concept of “spiritual unity” which has little or no embodiment in structure or institution; for, not only does it drive an unnatural and unbiblical wedge between the physical and the spiritual, it is also nonsense to the world to which we are called to be in mission, and thereby denies the very basis of the unity for which Christ prayed.
    ... Ian P. M. Cundy (1945-2009), “The Church as Community”, in The People of God, Ian Cundy, ed., vol. 2 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 30 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 4:1-6; John 17:20-23; Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:12-13,20; Eph. 5:30; Col. 3:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, unite Your people according to Your will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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