Owen: profit in worship

Saturday, March 14, 2020
Meditation:
    And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
    —1 John 5:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No one uses instituted ways or forms of worship profitably, but such as find communion with God in them, or are seriously humbled because they do not.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), Works of John Owen, v. IX, New York: R. Carter, 1851, Sermons X-XIII, p. 170 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 6:16; Col. 1:27; 2 Pet. 3:10-12; 1 John 3:24; 4:13; 5:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, bless my time in worship with Your presence. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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St. John: from the ashes

Friday, March 13, 2020
Meditation:
    By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
    —1 Corinthians 3:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
... stooping very low, He engraves with care
His Name, indelible, upon our dust,
And, from the ashes of our self-despair,
Kindles a flame of hope and humble trust.
He seeks no second site on which to build,
But on the old foundation, stone by stone,
Cementing sad experience with grace,
Fashions a stronger temple of His own.
    ... Patricia St. John (1919-1993), from “The Alchemist”, in Patricia St. John Tells Her Own Story, Kingsley Press, 2004, p. 17 (see the book)
    See also John 2:19; 1 Cor. 3:10-11,17; 2 Cor. 5:1; 6:16; Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Pet. 2:4-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have founded Your temple in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lindskoog: the persistent vision

Thursday, March 12, 2020
Meditation:
    So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
    —Genesis 3:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is much that is bad and meaningless in the universe, and the universe contains men who know that much is bad and meaningless. The Christian answer to the problem is that this is a good world gone wrong, but with a memory of what it should have been.
    ... Kathryn Lindskoog (1934-2003), C. S. Lewis, Mere Christian, Glendale, Cal.: G/L Publications, 1973, reprint, Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1981, p. 46-47 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 1:31; 3:17-19,22; 1 Kings 3:9; Matt. 7:16-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, through Your grace, may we mirror Your perfection. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: offended by sin?

Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Meditation:
    For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
    —1 Peter 3:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    You have never less reason to be pleas’d with yourself, than when you find yourself most angry and offended at the behaviour of others. All sin is certainly to be hated and abhorred, wherever it is; but then we must set ourselves against sin, as we do against sickness and diseases, by showing ourselves tender and compassionate to the sick and diseased.
    All other hatred of sin, which does not fill the heart with the softest, tenderest affections towards persons miserable in it, is the servant of sin, at the same time that it seems to be hating it.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728], London: Methuen, 1899, p. 402 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 3:18; Ps. 119:163; Isa. 53:6; Rom. 5:8; 12:9; Jude 1:22-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me compassion for those in sin. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allen: voluntary clergy

Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Meditation:
    For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.
    —2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Clerics often say that if voluntary clergy were admitted, the laity would cease to support stipendiary clergy, and that they would say, “We can get clergy for nothing, why should we pay for them?” That argument suggests that the laity do not want stipendiary clergy and must be compelled to have them against their will. Whatever truth there may be in it, and it is a very serious indictment of the present stipendiary clergy as a body, one thing is certain: we cannot make people want what they do not want by compelling them to pay for it.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), The Case for Voluntary Clergy, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1930, included in The Ministry of the Spirit, David M. Paton, ed., London: World Dominion Press, 1960, p. 149 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 4:10-13; 9:14-18; 2 Cor. 11:9-11; 2 Thess. 3:7-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have made your Gospel completely free. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Demant: original sin

Monday, March 9, 2020
Meditation:
    For if you possess these qualities [faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, godliness, brotherly kindness, love] in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
    —2 Peter 1:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Original sin ... is that which makes us paint in white and black the relative good we do and the evil we combat; it is that which sends us corporately from one false absolute to its dialectical opposite; it is that which moves us to fight for our prejudices as if we were fighting for God, or else to contract out of decision in the world unless we can envisage the choice as having unconditional divine warrant; it is that which bids us attribute others’ evil to the malice of their free will and our own to the pressure of circumstances.
    ... V. A. Demant (1893-1983), The Religious Prospect, London: F. Muller, 1941, p. 226-227 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 59:1-4; 64:7; John 7:16-17; Rom. 8:6-7; 2 Pet. 1:5-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Reach out, Lord, to your people who are caught in the moral ambiguity of this world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Studdert Kennedy: reason grows in faith

Sunday, March 8, 2020
    Commemoration of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929
Meditation:
    Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.
    —Amos 5:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The faculty of faith is not meant to kill the faculty of criticism and the instinct of curiosity, but rather to keep them keen and alive, and prevent them dying of despair. Faith is the mark of those who seek and keep on seeking, who ask and keep on asking, who knock and keep on knocking, until the door is opened. The passive, weak-kneed taking of everything on trust which is often presented as faith is a travesty of its truth. True faith is the most active, positive, and powerful of all virtues. It means that a man, having come into spiritual communion with that great personal Spirit Who lives and works behind the universe, can trust Him, and, trusting Him, can use all his powers of body, mind, and spirit to cooperate with Him in the great purpose of perfection; it means that the man of faith will be the man of science in its deepest, truest sense, and will never cease from asking questions, never cease from seeking for the reason that lies behind all mysteries.
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Hardest Part, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919, p. 83-84 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:6; 6:33; Hab. 2:4; Luke 11:9-10; Rom. 1:16-17; 2 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 11:1-34; John 4:1-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your grace enables me to know You better. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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