Saturday, March 28, 2020

Ramsay: the Divine Nature

Saturday, March 28, 2020
Meditation:
    I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
    —Revelation 22:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The central idea of the Christian religion, the idea which cannot be doubted or minimized without sacrificing the essential truth of Christianity, is that God, who had always through His messengers and prophets communicated His word to man, at last, as the climax of His grace, sent His only Son into the world. The Divine Nature, which is omnipresent and eternal, free from the human limitations of space and time, materialized itself in human form upon the earth, voluntarily subjecting itself to those limitations and yet continuing to be Divine... In so far as it was human, this expression of the Divine Nature in the world must have a beginning, a history for a term of years, and an end, i.e., a birth, life, and death. Yet, on the other hand, as being Divine, it was preexistent and deathless. The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was God. Birth and death have no bearing on the eternal Divine Nature. Thus the Divine Nature makes itself in appearance to us double, and this double nature is called by the terms Father and Son, which must of course be regarded as symbolical names attempting to make the Divine mystery intelligible to the human mind with its necessarily limited powers of understanding. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Sir William M. Ramsay (1851-1939), Pictures of the Apostolic Church, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910, p. 1-2 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 22:13; Luke 24:46-51; John 1:1,14; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 15:3-9; 1 John 4:2-10; 2 John 7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Jesus, I confess that You are God in the flesh.
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Friday, March 27, 2020

Niebuhr: taking sinfulness seriously

Friday, March 27, 2020
Meditation:
    How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
    —Hebrews 9:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Christian faith believes that the Atonement reveals God’s mercy as an ultimate resource by which God alone overcomes the judgment which sin deserves. If this final truth of the Christian religion has no meaning to modern men, including modern Christians, that is because even the tragic character of contemporary history has not yet persuaded them to take the fact of human sinfulness seriously.
    ... Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), Christianity and Power Politics, New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1940, reprint, Archon Books, 1969, p. 21 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 20:28; Luke 6:36; John 3:16; Rom. 3:22-26; 5:11; Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:7-27; 1 John 4:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show us our sin.
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Thursday, March 26, 2020

Taylor: Fix my thought

Thursday, March 26, 2020
    Feast of Harriet Monsell of Clewer, Religious, 1883
Meditation:
    “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.
    “Yes,” they replied.
    He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”
    —Matthew 13:51-52 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Fix my thoughts, my hopes, and my desires, upon heaven and heavenly things; teach me to despise the world, to repent me deeply for my sins; give me holy purposes of amendment, and [spiritual] strength and assistances to perform faithfully whatsoever I shall intend piously. Enrich my understanding with an eternal treasure of Divine Truths, that I may know thy will: and thou, who workest in us to will and to do of Thy good pleasure, teach me to obey all Thy commandments, to believe all Thy revelations, and make me partaker of all Thy gracious promises.
    ... Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Holy Living [1650], in The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., v. III, London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1847, p. 34 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 13:51-52; Ps. 25:1-5; 119:11-12,25-40,64-68; Matt. 13:34-35
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your presence and purpose strengthen me.
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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Gossip: hard to pray as Jesus did

Wednesday, March 25, 2020
    Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary
Meditation:
    One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
    —Luke 11:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Be pleased to hear all these good people, who can pray [the Lord’s Prayer] to Thee so fast. And, in Thy mercy, may some of Thy grace to them overflow to me, whom Thou hast made too slow of mind to speak such august words as these so rapidly with any understanding.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), In the Secret Place of the Most High, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947, p. 57 (see the book)
    See also Luke 11:1-4; Matt. 6:9-13; Rom. 8:26
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to pray in the Spirit.
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Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Tillotson: a new commandment

Tuesday, March 24, 2020
    Feast of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, Martyr, 1980
    Commemoration of Paul Couturier, Priest, Ecumenist, 1953
Meditation:
    If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
    —1 John 4:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Are we not all members of the same Body and partakers of the same Spirit and heirs of the same blessed hope of eternal life?
    ... Why do we not, as becomes brethren, dwell together in unity? but are so apt to quarrel and break out into heats, to crumble into sects and parties, to divide and separate from one another upon every trifling occasion.
    Give me leave... in the name of our dear Lord ... to recommend to you this new commandment of his, that ye love one another. Which is almost a new commandment still, and hardly the worse for wearing; so seldom is it put on, and so little hath it been practised among Christians.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. II, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon XX, p. 247-248 (see the book)
    See also John 13:34-35; Rom. 6:8,9; 15:5-7; 1 John 4:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we long for You to bring about the love among the fellowship that You commanded.
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Monday, March 23, 2020

MacDonald: obedience leads understanding

Monday, March 23, 2020
Meditation:
    [Jesus] replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
    —Luke 11:28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The uncertainty... lies always in the intellectual region, never in the practical. What Paul cares about is plain enough to the true heart, however far from plain to the man whose desire to understand goes ahead of his obedience.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Mirrors of the Lord”, in Unspoken Sermons, Third Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1889, p. 43 (see the book)
    See also Luke 11:28; 2 Cor. 3:18; Ps. 119:100; Pr. 3:5; Matt. 9:13; Jas. 1:22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to obey what I already know.
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Sunday, March 22, 2020

Micklem: belief and freedom

Sunday, March 22, 2020
Meditation:
    ... always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.
    —2 Timothy 3:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The scientist who lives laborious days in the disinterested pursuit of truth, the artist who will starve in a garret if only he may express the beauty he has seen, the martyr who will obey God in the scorn of consequence, are all religious men or, at least, are men who illustrate that principle which lies behind religion. Truth, Beauty, Goodness—these are sacred, the object of man’s true love and reverence. He to whom nothing is sacred, all questions are open, and the distinction between right and wrong is blurred, is an enslaved, not an emancipated, spirit.
    ... Nathaniel Micklem (1888-1976), The Theology of Politics, London: Oxford University Press, 1941, p. 58 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 3:7; Gal. 4:3; 5:1; Eph. 2;1-2; Col. 2:8,20; Heb. 2:14-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are freedom.
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