Lindskoog: God's reality

Saturday, November 23, 2019
    Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100
Meditation:
    The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
    —Genesis 2:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are great limits upon the human imagination. We can only rearrange the elements God has provided. No one can create a new primary color, a third sex, a fourth dimension, or a completely original animal. Even by writing a book, planting a garden, or begetting a child, we never create anything in the strict sense; we only take part in God’s creation.
    ... Kathryn Lindskoog (1934-2003), C. S. Lewis, Mere Christian, Glendale, Cal.: G/L Publications, 1973, reprint, Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1981, p. 48 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 2:15; John 1:1-3; Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:5-6; Col. 1:15-17; Rev. 4:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we acknowledge that You are the originator of all that is. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: power's outer limits

Friday, November 22, 2019
    Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230
    Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963
Meditation:
    Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.”
    —Genesis 18:13-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God’s omnipotence means [His] power to do all that is not intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, “God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,” you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words “God can.” It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives—not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Problem of Pain, New York: Macmillan, 1944, p. 16 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 18:13-14; Job 42:2; Ps. 147:5; Jer. 32:17; Matt. 19:26; Luke 1:37; Heb. 1:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, what You have promised, You will do. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Marshall: optimism

Thursday, November 21, 2019
Meditation:
    They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
    —1 John 4:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Without realizing what was happening, most of us gradually came to take for granted the premises underlying this philosophy of optimism. We proceeded to live these propositions, though we would not have stated them as blandly as I set them forth here:
    Man is inherently good.
    Individual man can carve out his own salvation with the help of education and society through progressively better government.
    Reality and values worth searching for lie in the material world that science is steadily teaching us to analyze, catalogue, and measure. While we would not deny the existence of inner values, we relegate them to second place.
    The purpose of life is happiness, [which] we define in terms of enjoyable activity, friends, and the accumulation of material objects.
    The pain and evil of life—such as ignorance, poverty, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust for power—are caused by factors in the external world; therefore, the cure lies in the reforming of human institutions and the bettering of environmental conditions.
    As science and technology remove poverty and lift from us the burden of physical existence, we shall automatically become finer persons, seeing for ourselves the value of living the Golden Rule.
    In time, the rest of the world will appreciate the demonstration that the American way of life is best. They will then seek for themselves the good life of freedom and prosperity. This will be the greatest impetus toward an end of global conflict.
    The way to get along with people is to beware of religious dictums and dogma. The ideal is to be a nice person and to live by the Creed of Tolerance. Thus we offend few people. We live and let live. This is the American Way.
    ... Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), Beyond Our Selves, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, p. 5-6 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:5-6; Luke 6:32; John 17:14-16; Rom. 3:10,23; 1 John 5:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep me from adopting the world’s system. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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D'Oyly & Mant: keeping Scripture in our hearts

Wednesday, November 20, 2019
    Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870
    Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876
Meditation:
    When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
    “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
    But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
    —Luke 2:48-50 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is to be acknowledged that many passages in the Bible are abstruse, and not to be easy to be understood. Yet we are not to omit reading the abstruser texts, which have any appearance of relating to us; but should follow the example of the Blessed Virgin, who understood not several of our Saviour’s sayings, but kept them all in her heart. Were we only to learn humility thus, it would be enough; but we shall come by degrees to apprehend far more than we expected, if we diligently compare spiritual things with spiritual, darker expressions with clearer, that are like or opposite to them; for contraries illustrate one another.
    ... George D’Oyly (1778-1846) & Richard Mant (1776-1848), Holy Bible According to the Authorized Version, Introduction to, London: SPCK, 1839, p. 18 (see the book)
    See also Luke 2:48-51; Matt. 13:11-13; Luke 2:19; 1 Tim. 4:13-15; 2 Pet. 3:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the patience and faith to live with less than all the answers. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Smith: talking or quiet

Tuesday, November 19, 2019
    Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680
    Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231
    Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280
Meditation:
    Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
    —Luke 2:51-52 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [At the Garden of Olives Monastery]
    “Why are you all so quiet all the time?” I say, still whispering at him in this hoarse voice.
    “We are teachers and workers,” he says, “not talkers.”
    “Workers, O.K.,” I say, “but how can a teacher be quiet all the time and teach anybody anything?”
    “Christ was the best,” he says, thinking of something. “He lived thirty-three years. Thirty years he kept quiet; three years he talked. Ten to one for keeping quiet.”
    ... Franc Smith, Harry Vernon at Prep, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959, p. 134 (see the book)
    See also Luke 2:51-52; Isa. 53:7; Matt. 13:34; 27:14; John 2:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I meditate on the goodness of Your life, that my own life might reflect it. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Machen: religion vs. philosophy

Monday, November 18, 2019
Meditation:
    [The LORD:] “This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.”
    —Isaiah 44:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    True religion can make no peace with a false philosophy, any more than with a science that is falsely so-called; a thing cannot possibly be true in religion and false in philosophy or in science. All methods of arriving at truth, if they be valid methods, will arrive at a harmonious result. Certainly the atheistic or agnostic Christianity which sometimes goes under the name of a “practical” religion is no Christianity at all. At the very root of Christianity is the belief in the real existence of a personal God.
    ... J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), Christianity and Liberalism, The Macmillan Company, 1923, p. 58 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 44:6; Gen. 5:24; 17:1; Ex. 3:14; Ps. 90:2; John 8:58; Heb. 13:8; Rev. 1:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have graciously permitted me to know You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Patmore: unencumbered

Sunday, November 17, 2019
    Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200
Meditation:
    What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
    —Philippians 3:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let me love Thee so that the honour, riches, and pleasures of the world may seem unworthy even of hatred—may not even be encumbrances.
    ... Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), The Rod, the Root, and the Flower [1895], London: G. Bell and Sons, 1907, p. 222 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 3:7-8; Matt. 6:19-21; 19:27-29; Acts 20:24; Rom. 8:18; 11:33; Col. 2:2-3; 2 Tim. 4:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, knowledge of You is a treasure beyond price. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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