Eckhart: everything is in God's sphere

Saturday, March 2, 2019
    Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672
Meditation:
Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you;
    he will never let the righteous fall.
    —Psalm 55:22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let God operate in thee; hand the work over to Him and do not disquiet thyself as to whether or no He is working with nature or above nature, for His are both nature and grace.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Works of Meister Eckhart, London: J. M. Watkins, 1924, p. 41 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 55:22; Matt. 6:25-34; Luke 12:27; 21:34-35; Phil. 4:6
Quiet time reflection:
    All the work of my hands depends upon Your sovereign grace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: the weakness of words

Friday, March 1, 2019
    Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601
Meditation:
    He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
    —2 Corinthians 3:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God has not cared that we should anywhere have assurance of His very words; and that not merely, perhaps, because of the tendency in His children to word-worship, false logic, and corruption of the truth, but because He would not have them oppressed by words, seeing that words, being human, and therefore but partially capable, could not absolutely contain or express what the Lord meant, and that even He must depend for being understood upon the spirit of His disciple. Seeing that it could not give life, the letter should not be throned with power to kill.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Knowing of the Son”, in Unspoken Sermons, Third Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1889, p. 26-27 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 3:6-9; Deut. 27:26; Rom. 3:20; 7:6; Gal. 3:10-12,21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me to be obedient to the Spirit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Harris: counter-culture or Christ

Thursday, February 28, 2019
Meditation:
    There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.
    —Romans 2:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Counter-culture’s glad tidings of revolution by consciousness are neither new nor revolutionary. Christianity has been trying to achieve a revolution by consciousness for two thousand years. Who would deny that Christian consciousness could have changed the world? Yet it was the world that changed Christian consciousness. If everybody adopted a peaceful, loving, generous, noncompetitive lifestyle, we could have something better than counter-culture—we could have the Kingdom of God.
    ... Marvin Harris (1927-2001), Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches, New York: Random House, 1974, p. 253 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 2:9-11; Pr. 1:20-28; Eze. 18:4; Matt. 16:26; Rom. 9:29; Gal. 5:22; 2 Thess. 1:6-7; 1 Pet. 1:7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach us Your way of peace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Herbert: It's true we cannot reach

Wednesday, February 27, 2019
    Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633
Meditation:
    At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
    —Mark 1:12-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
It’s true we cannot reach Christ’s forti’th day
Yet to go part of that religious way
    Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior’s purity;
Yet we are bid, ‘Be holy ev’n as He’:
    In both let’s do our best.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone
Is much more sure to meet with Him than one
    That traveleth by-ways;
Perhaps my God, though He be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more,
    May strengthen my decays.

Yet, Lord, instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin, and taking such repast
    As may our faults control;
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
    And among those, his soul.
    ... George Herbert (1593-1633), The Poetical Works of George Herbert, New York: D. Appleton, 1857, p. 109-110 (see the book)
    See also Mark 1:12-13; Isa. 35:8; 1 Pet. 1:15,16; Heb. 9:8-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may my sin be starved out of me.

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Tozer: the necessity of renunciation

Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Meditation:
    Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
    “Here I am,” he replied.
    Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
    —Genesis 22:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham’s testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948], Christian Publications, 1982, p. 30 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 22:1-14; Matt. 5:3; 10:37-38; 16:24; 19:21,29; Mark 8:34; 10:21; Luke 9:23-24; 14:26-27; 18:29
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me ready to follow You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: our own perfection?

Monday, February 25, 2019
Meditation:
    Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
    —Romans 10:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    We are looking for our own virtue, our own piety, our own goodness, and so live on and in our own poverty and weakness, today pleased and comforted with the seeming firmness and strength of our own pious tempers, and fancying ourselves to be somewhat. Tomorrow, fallen into our own mire, we are dejected, but not humbled; we grieve, but it is only the grief of pride at the seeing our perfection not to be such as we had vainly imagined. And thus it will be, till the whole turn of our minds is so changed that we as fully see and know our inability to have any goodness of our own, as to have a life of our own.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer [1749], London: E. Justins for Ogles, Duncan, and Cochran, 1816, p. 147-148 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 10:3; Luke 16:15; Gal. 2:16; 6:3; Phil. 3:8-9; Rev. 3:17-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone are the creator and sustainer of all goodness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: expect nothing from ourselves

Sunday, February 24, 2019
Meditation:
Give us aid against the enemy,
    for the help of man is worthless.
With God we will gain the victory,
    and he will trample down our enemies.
    —Psalm 108:12-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Each of these foregoing states has its time, its variety of workings, its trials, temptations, and purifications, which can only be known by experience in the passage through them. The one only and infallible way to go safely through all the difficulties, trials, temptations, dryness, or opposition, of our own evil tempers, is this: it is to expect nothing from ourselves, to trust to nothing in ourselves, but in everything to expect, and depend upon God for relief. Keep fast hold of this thread, and then let your way be what it will, darkness, temptation, or the rebellion of nature, you will be led through it all, to an union with God: for nothing hurts us in any state, but an expectation of something in it, and from it, which we should only expect from God. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer [1749], London: E. Justins for Ogles, Duncan, and Cochran, 1816, p. 147 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 108:12-13; 146:3-5; Isa. 2:22; 57:12; 64:6; Luke 18:9-14; Gal. 3:11
Quiet time reflection:
    On my own, I can achieve nothing good, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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