Bonhoeffer: called into community

Saturday, January 19, 2019
    Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095
Meditation:
    Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
    During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
    But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
    —Matthew 14:22-27 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when He called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone, you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called... Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called—the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together [1954], tr. Daniel W. Bloesch & James H. Burtness, Fortress Press, 2004, p. 82 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 14:22-27; John 18:20; Acts 1:13-14; 2:1; Rom. 9:24-25; Heb. 3:13; 10:24-25
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make us strong in solitude and gracious while with the Body. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Carmichael: blindness to suffering

Friday, January 18, 2019
    Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951
Meditation:
    Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
    —Ephesians 5:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
    ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), If [1938], London: SPCK, 1961, p. 47 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 5:1-2; Ps. 119:125; John 13:34; Gal. 6:2; Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:14; 1 Pet. 4:8; 1 John 4:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Open my eyes, Lord, to those in need around me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gore: three dangers

Thursday, January 17, 2019
    Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356
    Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, 1932
Meditation:
    Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
    —James 4:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I suppose these are the three main dangers to which ecclesiastical developments are liable: (1) The danger of undue accommodation to natural religion or to the indolence and superstitious tendencies of human nature, from which result undue and unguarded accretions upon Christian doctrine and perversions of it. (2) There is the danger of one-sidedness by accommodation to the particular tendencies of a particular age. (3) There is the danger of an arrested development, because ecclesiastical authority acting hastily or unguardedly solidifies the one-sidedness or undue accommodation of a particular moment of the Church into a premature and unjustifiable dogma. There is, I venture to think, for all these dangers one remedy, and one remedy only, and that the most old-fashioned; and yet it is with this that is bound up all that is most true, all that is most free, all that is most spiritual in the Church. The remedy to which I refer is ... the continual recurrence to the original pattern, the continual appeal to antiquity and Scripture. Such an appeal limits the dogmatic authority and in a sense the whole authority of the Church. But it is by the maintenance of this appeal, and only so, that you can safeguard what is, after all, the most important thing, that is, the real power of the Church to be true to its own best spirit, to reassert the original teaching in all its freedom and largeness of application, without being trammelled and contracted by the errors and narrownesses of particular periods.
    ... Charles Gore (1853-1932), in a lecture delivered December 6, 1900 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 4:8; 1 Tim. 4:16; 2 Tim. 4:3-5; Tit. 1:9; 2:1; Heb. 13:9; 2 John 1:9; Jude 1:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, strengthen Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allen: the consequences of using money

Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Meditation:
    Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” They went out and preached that people should repent.
    —Mark 6:7-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Another age may learn to look upon our use of activities much as we look upon the use of the sword by an earlier age. Because in them money takes so prominent a place, ours may one day be known as the age of financial Christianity, just as we look upon that earlier age as the age of military Christianity. As we regard the sword so a later age may regard money. It may learn the wisdom of the Apostle and decline to use such an ambiguous weapon. If the sword was an ambiguous weapon which might easily confuse the issue, money and activities which depend upon money, are not less ambiguous and may as easily confuse the issue. The time is not yet full. We have yet to learn the consequences of our use of money.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Mission Activities [1927], included in The Ministry of the Spirit, David M. Paton, ed., London: World Dominion Press, 1960, p. 109 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 10:5-16; Mark 6:7-12; Luke 10:1-11; 22:35; 1 Cor. 4:10-13; 1 Thess. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me a missionary where I am now. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Baillie: the unavoidable confrontation

Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
    —Luke 12:38-40 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The final reality, and the ultimate fact of our total situation to which we need to be adjusted, is God. That indeed would be my definition of God: God is He with whom we have ultimately to do, the final reality to which we have to face up, and with whom we have in the last resort to reckon.
    ... John Baillie (1886-1960), Christian Devotion, Scribner, 1962, p. 67 (see the book)
    See also Luke 12:38-40; Matt. 24:42-44; 25:13; Mark 13:33-36; Luke 21:34-36; Rom. 13:11; 2 Pet. 3:11-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the One who is there. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: the source of unity

Monday, January 14, 2019
    Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915
Meditation:
    I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.
    —John 17:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I should be very sorry that any man living should outgo me in desires that all who fear God throughout the world, especially in these nations, were of one way as well as of one heart. I know I desire it sincerely; but I do verily believe that when God shall accomplish it, it will be the effect of love, and not the cause of love. It will proceed from love, before it brings forth love.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), Works of John Owen, v. IX, New York: R. Carter, 1851, Sermon XXI. “Gospel Charity,”, vol. IX, p. 269 (see the book)
    See also John 17:11; Ps. 119:63; John 13:34; 15:12,17; 1 Cor. 12:26-27; Gal. 6:10; Eph. 5:1-2; Phil. 2:1-2; Col. 3:12-14; 1 Thess. 3:12; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 4:7-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, bring that day of unity in Your name. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brother Lawrence: deeds or motives?

Sunday, January 13, 2019
    Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367
    Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603
Meditation:
    Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
    I answered, “Sir, you know.”
    And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
    —Revelation 7:13-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [He said] that our sanctification did not depend upon our changing our works, but upon our doing that for God’s sake which commonly we do for our own. That it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards.
    ... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691), The Practice of the Presence of God, New York, Revell, 1895, Fourth Conversation, p. 16 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 7:13-14; Rom. 14:6; Col. 3:17,23-24; 1 Pet. 4:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Make me see, Lord, for Whom I do my work. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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