Short: disillusionment in prayer

Saturday, May 16, 2020
    Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877
Meditation:
    And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
    —Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The childish idea that prayer is a handle by which we can take hold of God and obtain whatever we desire, leads to easy disillusionment with both what we had thought to be God and what we had thought to be prayer.
    ... Robert L. Short (1932-2009), The Parables of Peanuts [1968], New York: HarperCollins, 2002, p. 305 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 11:6; John 9:31; Rom. 8:26; 10:12-13; 1 Cor. 14:20; Jas. 1:5-7; 1 John 5:14-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Fill me with Your will, Lord, so that I may please You in prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Williams: the force of argument

Friday, May 15, 2020
    Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945
Meditation:
    [Paul:] When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.
    —Galatians 2:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The history of Christendom itself would have been far happier could we all have remembered that rule of intelligence—not to believe a thing more strongly at the end of a bitter argument than at the beginning, not to believe it with the energy of the opposition rather than one’s own.
    ... Charles Williams (1886-1945), The Descent of the Dove: a history of the Holy Spirit in the church, Meridian Books, 1956, p. 193 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 2:11; Luke 11:53-54; Phil. 1:27-28; 2 Tim. 2:22-24; Heb. 12:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, please do not allow anger to break Your fellowship. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Cowper: the weakest saint

Thursday, May 14, 2020
    Feast of Matthias the Apostle
Meditation:
    Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
    —Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.
    ... William Cowper (1731-1800), The Works of William Cowper: his life, letters, and poems, New York: R. Carter & Brothers, 1851, p. 676 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 4:16; Matt. 16:15-18; Luke 11:5-10; 18:1-7; 2 Cor. 12:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You strengthen Your people through prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Carver: 500 lean years

Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
    —Matthew 24:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The belief in baptismal regeneration of infants, which had... become almost universal [in the middle ages], and the reliance on mysterious sacramental efficacy for sanctification and heavenly admission, strongly militated against regeneration and spiritual reality within the Church. The complete professionalization of a priestly ministry largely eliminated laymen from direct evangelism and robbed them of the missionary spirit, since they were not to be trusted to teach and could not validly administer the saving symbols. The reliance on organization and ceremonial grace, along with the growing concept of the representative relation of the Pope on earth to the Christ in heaven, involved a practical ignoring of the Holy Spirit as the divinely ordained Counterpart of the Christ and the informing soul of the Church... The vast territorial extent of Christianity and the very general ignorance of world geography made it possible for Christians to lose sight of the non-Christian world and to feel, even if somewhat vaguely, that the Christian task was complete, so far as its world occupation was concerned. The Mohammedan growth had encircled the Christian territories. The relations between Christendom and the Mohammedan world fostered anything else than a spirit of helpfulness and a disposition to give the blessings of the one to the other. Christian information about the heathen world was largely cut off by... Mohammedanism; and in order to reach the heathen, missionaries would have to make their way through Mohammedan territory.
    ... William Owen Carver (1868-1954), The Course of Christian Missions, New York, Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1932, p. 77-78 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 24:14; Luke 24:46-47; Rom. 15:18-21; 16:25-27; Col. 1:5-6; Rev. 14:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, bless those who take the good news to the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: counterfeits for the Spirit

Tuesday, May 12, 2020
    Commemoration of Aiden Wilson Tozer, Spiritual Writer, 1963
Meditation:
    ... my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
    —1 Corinthians 2:4-5 (ESV)
Quotation:
    A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.
    The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948], Christian Publications, 1982, p. 65 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 2:4-5; Matt. 10:19-20; 1 Cor. 1:17-22; Col. 2:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, save us from the enemy’s attacks. Make Your authentic Spirit known to us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tauler: if you could do it yourself...

Monday, May 11, 2020
Meditation:
    And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
    —Hebrews 13:12-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Generous love makes [a good man] hold others innocent in his heart; even when he sees infirmity or fault in his neighbour, he reflects that very likely all is not as it seems on the outside, but the act may have been done with a good intention; or else he thinks that God may have permitted it to take place for an admonition and lesson to himself; or again, as an opportunity for him to exercise self-control, and to learn to die unto himself by the patient endurance of and forbearance towards the faults of his neighbours, even as God has often borne many wrongs from him and had patience with his sins. And this would often tend more to his neighbour’s improvement than all the efforts he could make for it in the way of reproofs or chastisements, even if they were done in love, (though indeed we often imagine that our reproofs are given in love, when it is in truth far otherwise). For I tell thee, if thou couldst conquer thyself by long-suffering and gentleness and the pureness of thy heart, thou wouldst have vanquished all thine enemies.
    ... Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361), The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg, Charles Kingsley, pref. & Susanna Winkworth, tr., New York: Wiley & Halsted, 1858, “Sermon for St. Peter’s Day”, p. 463 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 13:12-14; 2 Tim. 4:2; Tit. 3:1-2; Jas. 3:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Teach me, Lord, to be holy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Schaeffer: the place for the chasm

Sunday, May 10, 2020
Meditation:
     These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
    —Titus 2:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Those on both sides who continue to hold to the historic view concerning the Bible should say “I’m sorry” where it is needed. Both sides should let history be history and not reopen the old sores, except to learn not to repeat the same mistakes in an even more complicated and subtle age. The broader group should realize that a line must be drawn with love, yet drawn. The other side should realize that harshness is not to be confused with standing for holiness and that, in an age like our own, surrounded by a relativistic culture and by a relativistic church, which bends the Bible to the changing whims of this age, the chasm should be kept in the right place, with all our strongly believed-in distinctives on this side of the chasm, rather than making the distinctives the chasm.
    ... Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), foreword to Foundation of Biblical Authority, ed. James Montgomery Boice, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978, p. 18-19 (see the book)
    See also Tit. 2:15; Eph. 4:1-3,15; 2 Tim. 4:2; Tit. 3:10-11; 2 John 10-11; Rev. 3:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Unveil our eyes, Lord, that we may see and know the unity that You have provided for us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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