Alexander: addressing the problem

Saturday, January 5, 2019
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”
    —Matthew 12:33-34 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The New Testament is uniformly consistent in seeing something as being wrong in man himself... These analyses of man are based on man’s responsibility for his evil actions; they are not saying that it is simply his emotions that have gone astray: it is man’s will which is the central problem.
    ... Denis Alexander, Beyond Science, Berkhamsted: Lion Pub., 1972, reprint, A. J. Holman Co., 1973, p. 163-164 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 12:33-34; Luke 6:45; John 3:19; Rom. 1:20-21; Jas. 4:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, apart from You, I am without hope. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Fenelon: the only liberty

Friday, January 4, 2019
Meditation:
    For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
    —Galatians 5:1 (ESV)
Quotation:
    There is no condition wherein man does not depend on many others, wherein he is not more obliged to follow their fancies than his own. All the commerce of life is a perpetual constraint to the laws of good breeding, and the necessity of humoring others; and besides, our own passions are the worst tyrants: if you obey them but by halves, a perpetual strife and contest exists within; and if you entirely give up yourself to them, it is horrid to think to what extremities they will lead. May God preserve us from that fatal slavery, which the mad presumption of man calls liberty! Liberty is to be found only in Him.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Pious Reflections for Every Day in the Month, London: H. D. Symonds, 1800, p. 82-83 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 5:1; Rom. 1:26; 1 Cor. 8:9; Gal. 4:17-18; 5:24; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 4:3-6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Christ, You have set me free indeed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Schaeffer: absurdity and desperation

Thursday, January 3, 2019
    Commemoration of Gladys Aylward, Missionary in China, 1970
Meditation:
    Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
    —Romans 6:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Leaders of the anarchist movement in Amsterdam] call their public demonstrations “Happenings.” These paintings, these poems, and these demonstrations... are the expression of men who are struggling with their appalling lostness. Dare we laugh at such things? Dare we feel superior when we view their tortured expressions in their art? Christians should stop laughing and take such men seriously. Then we shall have the right to speak again to our generation. These men are dying while they live, yet where is our compassion for them? There is nothing more ugly than an orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion.
    ... Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), The God Who is There [1968], in The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy, Good News Publishers, 1990, p. 34 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:16; Isa. 1:18; Matt. 10:18-20; Luke 21:14-15; Col. 4:6; 2 Tim. 2:24-26; 1 Pet. 3:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show Your church how to speak to this generation. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Basil: tranquility

Wednesday, January 2, 2019
    Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389
    Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, Staretz, 1833
Meditation:
“Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
    He bustles about, but only in vain;
    he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
“But now, Lord, what do I look for?
    My hope is in you.”
    —Psalm 39:6-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We must try to keep the mind in tranquility. For just as the eye which constantly shifts its gaze, now turning to the right or to the left, now incessantly peering up or down, cannot see distinctly what lies before it, but the sight must be fixed firmly on the object in view if one would make his vision of it clear; so too man’s mind when distracted by his countless worldly cares cannot focus itself distinctly on the truth.
    ... St. Basil the Great (330?-379), Saint Basil, the Letters, tr. Roy Joseph Deferrari, Martin Rawson, Patrick McGuire, London: William Heinemann, 1950, p. 9 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 39:6-7; Isa. 45:22; Matt. 6:24; 13:22; Mark 4:19; Luke 8:14; John 1:29; 8:56; Phil. 3:20; 1 Tim. 6:9-10; 2 Tim. 2:4; Heb. 12:1-2; 1 John 2:15-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach the eyes of my heart constantly to gaze upon You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Eckhart: the ever-present present

Tuesday, January 1, 2019
    Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus
Meditation:
    [Jesus said,] “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
    “You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
    “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
    —John 8:56-58 (KJV)
Quotation:
    The now wherein God made the first man, and the now wherein the last man disappears, and the now I speak in, are all the same in God where this is but the now.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Works of Meister Eckhart, London: J. M. Watkins, 1924, p. 37 (see the book)
    See also John 8:56-58; Ex. 3:14; Ps. 2:7; John 1:1-2; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:10-12; 13:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Your truth is limitless, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Summers: Wycliffe's dominion founded in grace

Monday, December 31, 2018
    Commemoration of John Wycliffe, Reformer, 1384
Meditation:
    Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
    —Romans 13:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [John] Wycliffe’s doctrine of “dominion founded in grace” was a peculiar feature of his system. He taught that God, as the great feudal superior of the universe, allotted to all earthly authorities their rule in fief as subject to Himself. The priesthood was not an office of dominion, but of service, and its prerogatives ceased when service was not rendered. Dominion was not granted to one person as God’s Vicar on earth, but the King was as much God’s Vicar as the Pope; nay, every Christian held his rights immediately of God.
    ... W. H. Summers, Our Lollard Ancestors, London: National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, 1904, p. 28 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 13:1-7; Ps. 2:7-12; Pr. 8:15-16; Dan. 2:19-23; John 19:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the sole source of authority. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: a different source

Sunday, December 30, 2018
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”
    —Matthew 7:17,18
Quotation:
    The very strength and facility of the pessimists’ case at once poses us a problem. If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that. The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief. The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must have always been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Problem of Pain, New York: Macmillan, 1944, p. 3 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 7:17-18; Gen. 1:31; Matt. 12:33-35; Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19; Jas. 1:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Teach me, Lord, from Your truth and goodness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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