Newbigin: pure grace

Saturday, September 26, 2020
    Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942
Meditation:
    Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
    —1 Peter 2:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is a covenant, ... and God is faithful to His covenant. But the substance of that covenant is all pure mercy and grace. If men presume to claim for themselves, upon the basis of the covenant, some relationship with God other than that of the sinner needing God’s grace, the covenant has been perverted. And where that has happened, God, in the sovereign freedom of His grace, destroys these pretensions, calls “No people” to be His people, breaks off natural branches and grafts in wild slips, filling them with the life which is His own life imparted to man. There is no law in His Kingdom save the law of pure grace. That is why they come from east and west to sit down with Abraham and Isaac, while the sons of the Kingdom are cast out; for the sons of the Kingdom have no place there unless they are willing to sit down with all whom the Lord of the feast shall call, and to receive His mercy in exactly the same way as the publicans and sinners.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God, London, SCM Press, 1953, New York: Friendship Press, 1954, p. 90-91 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 2:10; Jer. 31:31-34; Matt. 9:11-13; Rom. 11:22-24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am not worthy of Your mercy, except through the merits of Jesus. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: closure

Friday, September 25, 2020
    Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
    Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392
Meditation:
    Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
    —Luke 9:62 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Clear shining from God must be at the bottom of deep labouring with God. What is the reason that so many in our days set their hands to the plough, and looked back again?—begin to serve Providence in great things, but cannot finish?—give over in the heat of the day? They never had any such revelation of the mind of God upon their spirits, such a discovery of His excellencies, as might serve for a bottom of such undertakings.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), Works of John Owen, v. VIII, London: Johnson & Hunter, 1851, Serm. II, p. 90 (see the book)
    See also Luke 9:62; Amos 3:7; Hab. 3:1-9; John 12:35; Rev. 16:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the stamina to fulfill Your calling. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Smart: Rejoice in the Lamb

Thursday, September 24, 2020
Meditation:
The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
    the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
    and a little child will lead them.
    —Isaiah 11:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
Rejoice in God, O ye tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb.
Nations, and languages, and every creature, in which is the breath of Life.
Let man and beast appear before him, and magnify his name together.
Let Noah and his company approach the throne of Grace, and do homage to the Ark of their Salvation.
Let Abraham present a Ram, and worship the God of his Redemption.
Let Jacob with his speckled Drove adore the good Shepherd of Israel.
...
Let Daniel come forth with a Lion, and praise God with all his might, through faith in Christ Jesus.
...
Let David bless with the bear—
    The beginning of victory to the Lord—
    to the Lord the perfection of excellence—
    Hallelujah from the heart of God, and from the hand of the artist inimitable, and from the echo of the heavenly harp in sweetness magnifical and mighty.
    ... Christopher Smart (1722-1771), Jubilate Agno [1759], R. Hart-Davis, 1954, p. 30 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 11:6; Gen. 6:8-22; 7; 8; 22:13; Lev. 26:6; Ps. 9:1-2; 63:11; Dan. 6:3-23; Rev. 5:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your whole world waits to praise and serve You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Campbell: love and wrath

Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Meditation:
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever.
    —Psalm 103:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is no straining of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man’s moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God’s unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil which will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love.
    ... R. J. Campbell (1867-1956), The Call of Christ, London: Skeffington & Son, n.d. (before 1932), p. 27 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 103:8-9; Num. 14:11; Ps. 7:11; 76:7; Matt. 25:31; 1 Cor. 3:11-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have shown us Your ferocious love. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Donne: love and death meet in Christ.

Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Meditation:
    We love him, because he first loved us.
    —1 John 4:19 (KJV)
Quotation:
    Love is as strong as death; but nothing else is as strong as either; and both, love and death, met in Christ. How strong and powerful upon you, then, should that instruction be, that comes to you from both these, the love and death of Jesus Christ!
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. III, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Sermon LIX, p. 18 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:19; Ps. 32:8; Song of Solomon 2:5; John 3:16,17; 1 John 4:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love and death instruct me to new life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: the church for the world

Monday, September 21, 2020
    Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
    —Matthew 5:42 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. As a fresh start, she should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy. The clergy should live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Letters and Papers from Prison, London: Macmillan, 1962, p. 239 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:40-42; 19:21; 25:34-40; 2 Cor. 4:5; 8:1-15; 9:6-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead Your people to serve Your will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: what Jesus actually said

Sunday, September 20, 2020
    Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.”
    —Matthew 12:6-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    So long as a man confines his ideas of Christ to a rather misty hero figure of long ago who died a tragic death, and so long as his ideas of Christianity are bounded by what he calls the Sermon on the Mount (which he has almost certainly not read in its entirety since he became grown-up), then the living truth never has a chance to touch him. This is plainly what has happened to many otherwise intelligent people. Over the years I have had hundreds of conversations with people, many of them of higher intellectual calibre than my own, who quite obviously had no idea of what Christianity is really about. I was in no case trying to catch them out: I was simply and gently trying to find out what they knew about the New Testament. My conclusion was that they knew virtually nothing. This I find pathetic and somewhat horrifying. It means that the most important Event in human history is politely and quietly bypassed. For it is not as though the evidence ha d been examined and found unconvincing: it had simply never been examined.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Ring of Truth, London: Hodder & Stoughton; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967, p. 16 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 12:6-7; Ps. 119:46; Hos. 6:6; Matt. 10:18-20; Luke 21:14-15; Acts 17:30; Col. 4:6; 2 Tim. 2:25-26; 1 Pet. 3:15-16;
Quiet time reflection:
    Am I too focused on trivial or superficial things, rather than the substance of Your Word? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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