Maurice: not systematic

Saturday, September 7, 2019
    Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957
Meditation:
    For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
    —Hebrews 4:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When once a man begins to build a system, the very gifts and qualities which might serve in the investigation of truth, become the greatest hindrances to it. He must make the different parts of the scheme fit into each other; his dexterity is shown, not in detecting facts, but in cutting them square... I hope you will never forget that the Bible is the history of God’s acts to men, not of men’s thoughts about God. It begins from Him. He is acting and speaking in it throughout.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), Ecclesiastical History, London: Macmillan, 1854, p. 222, 2 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 4:12; Job 26:14; Ps. 40:5; 139:17-18; 145:4-7; Eccl. 12:12; Rom. 11:33; Eph. 1:18-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Your word, Lord, lives in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thomas a Kempis: love is the key

Friday, September 6, 2019
    Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851
    Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965
Meditation:
    Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
    —John 14:23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If thou hadst once entered into the mind of Jesus, and hadst tasted, yea, even a little of his tender love, then wouldst thou care nought for thine own convenience or inconvenience, but wouldst rather rejoice at trouble brought upon thee, because the love of Jesus maketh a man to despise himself. He that loveth Jesus and is inwardly true and free from inordinate affections, is able to turn himself readily unto God, and to rise above himself in spirit.
    ... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418], Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1877, II.i.6, p. 85 (see the book)
    See also John 14:21-23; Isa. 40:13-14; John 17:23; 1 Cor. 2:16; 1 John 2:15; 3:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You lift me up towards Yourself. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: worship, the beginning of action

Thursday, September 5, 2019
Meditation:
    ... and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
    —Revelation 1:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    The redeemed in Heaven crying continually, “Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,” give, say the scriptures, an adoration which, in depth and fullness, no angel of them all can ever equal.
    Yet even then, we have not reached the centre. For when we worship, we are in God’s presence, and it is what He says and does to us that is the all-important thing, not what we say and do toward Him. Since He is here and speaking to us, face to face, it is for us, in a hush of spirit, to listen for, and to, His voice, reproving, counselling, encouraging, revealing His most blessed will for us; and, with diligence, to set about immediate obedience. This and this, upon which He has laid His hand, must go; and this and this to which He calls, must be at once begun. And here and now I start to it. That is the heart of worship, its very cor e and essence.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 24-25 (see the book)
    See also John 14:6,15-21; Pr. 3:27-28; John 4:23; Jas. 2:15-17; 1 John 3:16-18; Rev. 1:5-6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am listening. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: what is worship?

Wednesday, September 4, 2019
    Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
    —John 14:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre of it? Is it the offering we bring to God of praise and adoration, of thanksgiving and sacrifice, our praise, our sacrifice to Him? That has its place, not legitimate only, but imperative. And yet to put that in the foreground is to make the service fundamentally man-centered and subjective, which, face to face with God, is surely almost unthinkably unseemly. Or is the ideal we should hold before us that other extreme, so ardently pressed on us these days, that, face to face with the Lord God Almighty, High and Holy, it is for us to forget ourselves and, leaving behind our petty little human joys and needs and sins, rising above thanksgiving and petition and confession, to lose ourselves in an awed adoration of God’s naked and essential being, blessing and praising Him, not even for what he has done for us, and been for us, but for what, in Hims elf, He is.
    To me, that seems not an advance, but a pathetic throw-back to the primitive of Brahmanism. We shall not learn to know God better, nor how to worship Him more worthily, by careful rubbing out from memory every item of the wonder of Christ’s revelation of Him. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 24 (see the book)
    See also John 14:7; Ps. 85:8; 96:8-9; Isa. 29:13; Gal. 5:24; Heb. 13:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Jesus, You have revealed God to me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gregory: sin in the workplace

Tuesday, September 3, 2019
    Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604
Meditation:
    Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
    —Romans 1:32 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are many trades in which a man can hardly work—or simply cannot work—without sinning.
    ... St. Gregory the Great (540?-604), in Devotions Commemorative, tr. F. Oakeley, London: J. Burns, 1842, p. lxxv (see the book)
    See also Rom. 1:28-32; Ps. 51:7-10; Pr. 28:13; Luke 3:8; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Eph. 4:28; 1 Thess. 4:11-12; Jude 1:22-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, purify my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: working up faith?

Monday, September 2, 2019
    Commemoration of Martyrs of Papua New Guinea, 1942
Meditation:
    For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
    —Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We must not encourage in ourselves or others any tendency to work up a subjective state which, if we succeeded, we should describe as “faith,” with the idea that this will somehow ensure the granting of our prayer. We have probably all done this as children. But the state of mind which desperate desire working on a strong imagination can manufacture is not faith in the Christian sense. It is a feat of psychological gymnastics.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 60 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 2:8-9; Matt. 6:7-8; 8:8-10; 18:3-4; 19:13-14; Mark 10:13-14; Acts 3:16; Rom. 8:26; 10:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the only source for true faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Buechner: becoming human

Sunday, September 1, 2019
    Commemoration of Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710
Meditation:
    And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
    —1 John 3:23,24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.
    ... Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), The Sacred Journey, San Fransisco: Harper & Row, 1982, p. 46 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 3:23-24; Matt. 10:19-20; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:11-12; John 14:12; 16:33; Acts 1:8; Rom. 8:13-16; Gal. 4:8; Col. 3:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me a heart like Yours. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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