Eckhart: light in the darkness

Saturday, December 21, 2019
Meditation:
    Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light.” When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.
    —John 12:35-36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Light shines in the darkness, there we are aware of it. What good is light or learning unless people can enjoy it? In darkness, in suffering, they shall see the light.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Works of Meister Eckhart, London: J. M. Watkins, 1924, p. 17 (see the book)
    See also John 12:35-36; Isa. 9:2; Matt. 4:16; Luke 2:30-32; John 1:4-5; 8:12; 9:4-5; Eph. 5:8; 1 Pet. 2:9; 1 John 1:5-7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I trust You as the only source of light for my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Murray: the Christian and his sins

Friday, December 20, 2019
Meditation:
    What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
    —Romans 6:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is a total difference between surviving sin and reigning sin, the regenerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us: it is another for us to live in sin... It is of paramount concern for the Christian and for the interests of his sanctification that he should know that sin does not have the dominion over him, that the forces of redeeming, regenerative, and sanctifying grace have been brought to bear upon him in that which is central in his moral and spiritual being, that he is the habitation of God through the Spirit, and that Christ has been formed in him the hope of glory.
    ... John Murray (1898-1975), Redemption, Accomplished and Applied, Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1955, p. 145-146 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:15,1-2; Eph. 2:22; Col. 1:27; 2:14; Tit. 2:11-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have driven sin from its seat of authority. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: the Spirit teaches

Thursday, December 19, 2019
Meditation:
    At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
    —John 8:2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is more hid in Christ than we shall ever learn, here or there either; but they that begin first to inquire will soonest be gladdened with revelation; and with them He will be best pleased, for the slowness of His disciples troubled Him of old. To say that we must wait for the other world, to know the mind of Him who came to this world to give Himself to us, seems to me the foolishness of a worldly and lazy spirit. The Son of God is the Teacher of men, giving to them of His Spirit—that Spirit which manifests the deep things of God, being to a man the mind of Christ. The great heresy of the Church of the present day is unbelief in this Spirit.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Higher Faith”, in Unspoken Sermons [First Series], London: A. Strahan, 1867, p. 54 (see the book)
    See also Neh. 8:8; Luke 19:47; John 6:45; 8:2; 16:12-13; 1 Cor. 2:10; Heb. 3:12; Rev. 2:7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You daily instruct me by Your Spirit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newbigin: the pilgrim people

Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Meditation:
    These [saints] were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
    —Hebrews 11:39-40 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Church is the pilgrim people of God. It is on the move—hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, and hastening to the end of time to meet its Lord, who will gather all into one. Therefore, the nature of the Church is never to be fully defined in static terms, but only in terms of that to which it is going. It cannot be understood rightly except in a perspective which is at once missionary and eschatological, and only in that perspective can the deadlock of our present ecumenical debate be resolved.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God, London, SCM Press, 1953, New York: Friendship Press, 1954, p. 18 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 12:1-3; Ps. 39:12; Luke 14:26-27; Heb. 11:13,39-40
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have focused Your church on her destination, not her present condition. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sayers: like us

Tuesday, December 17, 2019
    Commemoration of Dorothy Sayers, Teacher and Spiritual Writer, 1957
    Commemoration of Eglantyne Jebb, Social Reformer, Founder of ‘Save the Children’, 1928
Meditation:
    In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.
    —Hebrews 2:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—He had the honesty and courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it was well worthwhile.
    ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, Eerdmans, 1969, p. 14 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 2:10-11; Matt. 27:46; Mark 3:31-35; Heb. 2:17-18; 12:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have suffered as one of us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Merriam: Grave, where is thy victory?

Monday, December 16, 2019
Meditation:
    When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

    “Where, O death, is your victory?
         Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
    —1 Cor. 15:54-57 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No one who is fit to live need fear to die. Poor, timorous, faithless souls that we are! How we shall smile at our vain alarms, when the worst has happened! To us here, death is the most terrible word we know. But when we have tasted its reality, it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves. It will be what health is to the sick man. It will be what home is to the exile. It will be what the loved one given back is to the bereaved. As we draw near to it, a great solemn gladness should fill our hearts. It is God’s great morning lighting up the sky.
    ... George Spring Merriam (1843-1914), A Living Faith [1876], Boston: Lockwood, Brooks, and Company, 1876, p. 282 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 15:54-57; Rom. 2:7; 8:11; 14:8; Acts 20:24; 21:13; Phil. 2:17; 1 Thess. 5:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your morning comes.

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Phillips: grace to the wicked

Sunday, December 15, 2019
    Advent III
Meditation:
    But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
    —Luke 6:35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Jesus once declared that God is “kind toward the unthankful and evil” (St. Luke 6:35), and I remember preaching a sermon on this text to a horrified and even astonished congregation who simply refused to believe (so I gathered afterwards) in this astounding liberality of God. That God should be in a state of constant fury with the wicked seemed to them only right and proper, but that God should be kind towards those who were defying or disobeying His laws seemed to them a monstrous injustice. Yet I was but quoting the Son of God Himself, and I only comment here that the terrifying risks that God takes are part of His Nature. We do not need to explain or modify His unremitting love towards mankind.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Making Men Whole, London: Highway Press, 1952, p. 27-28 (see the book)
    See also Luke 6:35; Ps. 145:9; Mic. 6:8; Luke 6:36; John 3:16; Eph. 4:32; 1 Pet. 4:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we so little acknowledge Your grace towards us all. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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