Yaconelli: Jesus instead of rules

Saturday, March 27, 2021
Meditation:
    People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
    —Mark 10:13-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every time the disciples started establishing rules—no children near Jesus; don’t let the crowd touch Jesus; don’t talk to Samaritan women; don’t let people waste expensive perfumes—Jesus told them to knock it off, and his rebuke was usually followed by a lecture that said, “You still don’t get it! We’re not substituting religious rules with our rules. We are substituting religious rules with Me!” Jesus kept saying “Follow Me,” not “follow My rules.” So most of us have spent our Christian lives learning what we can’t do instead of celebrating what we can do in Jesus.
    ... Mike Yaconelli (1942-2003), Dangerous Wonder: the Adventure of Childlike Faith, Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1998, p. 53 (see the book)
    See also Mark 10:13-16; Matt. 15:22-28; 26:6-13; Luke 7:36-47; John 4:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, truly You have freed Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Mabie: without ceasing

Friday, March 26, 2021
    Feast of Harriet Monsell of Clewer, Religious, 1883
Meditation:
    Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
    —Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Our wills are not ours to be crushed and broken; they are ours to be trained and strengthened. Our affections are not ours to be blighted and crucified; they are ours to be deepened and purified. The rich opportunities of life are not held out to us only to be snatched away by an invisible hand patiently waiting for the hour when the cup is sweetest; they are given to us that we may grow, alike through their use or their withdrawal. They are real, they are sweet, and they are worthy of our longing for them; we gain nothing by calling them dross, or the world an illusion, or ourselves the victims of deception, or by exalting renunciation as the highest virtue. When these opportunities are denied us, it is a real, not an imaginary, loss which we sustain; and our part is not that of bare renunciation, of simple surrender; our part is to recognize the loss, to bear the pain, and to find a deeper and richer life in doing the will of God.
    ... Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846-1916), The Life of the Spirit, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1901, p. 131 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 4:8; Gen. 1:31; Amos 5:15; John 7:18; Rom. 8:22-23; 12:9; 1 Pet. 1:22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I rejoice in Your will for me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pascal: the God-shaped gap

Thursday, March 25, 2021
    Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary
Meditation:
    “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.”
    —Amos 8:11-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline; and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present? Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object—that is, God, Himself. He alone is man’s veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such—even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #425, p. 138-139 (see the book)
    See also Amos 8:11-12; Ps. 42; 86:10; John 4:13-14; 6:32-35
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You desire to feed Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: seven days a week

Wednesday, March 24, 2021
    Feast of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, Martyr, 1980
    Commemoration of Paul Couturier, Priest, Ecumenist, 1953
Meditation:
    Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.
    —Colossians 2:20-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you do not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week. There is no such thing known in heaven as Sunday worship unless it is accompanied by Monday worship and Tuesday worship and so on.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, WingSpread Publishers, 2006, p. 9 (see the book)
    See also Col. 2:20-23; Matt. 6:5-6; 15:7-9; 23:27-28; Luke 18:10-14; John 4:21-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have called me to follow You every day, not just the days commanded by man. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Smith: a tongue they understand

Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Meditation:
    Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
    —Acts 2:7-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We are so farre off from condemning any of their labours that traveiled before us in this kinde, either in this land or beyond sea, ... that we acknowledge them to have beene raised up of God, ... and that they deserve to be had of us and of posteritie in everlasting remembrance... Therefore blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that breake the yce and give the onset upon that which helpeth forward to the saving of soules. Now what can be more available thereto, than to deliver Gods booke unto Gods people in a tongue which they understand? ... So if we, building upon their foundation that went before us, and being holpen by their labours, doe endeavour to make that better which they left so good; no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike us; they, we perswade ourselves, if they were alive, would thanke us... For is the Kingdom of God become words or syllables? Why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free?
    ... Miles Smith (1554-1624), in the preface to The Authorised Version of the English Bible [1611], Cambridge: The University Press, 1909, p. 19,28 (see the book)
    See also Acts 2:7-12; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Heb. 4:12; 1 John 5:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we thank You that You have caused Your word to be known among us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Froude: duty

Monday, March 22, 2021
Meditation:
    The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.
    —Nahum 1:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Thomas Carlyle] believed that every man had a special duty to do in this world. If he had been asked what specially he conceived his own duty to be, he would have said that it was to force men to realize once more that the world was actually governed by a just God; that the old familiar story, acknowledged everywhere in words on Sundays and disregarded or openly denied on week-days, was, after all, true. His writings, every one of them, ... were to the same purpose and on the same text—that truth must be spoken and justice must be done; on any other conditions, no real commonwealth, no common welfare, is permitted or possible.
    ... James A. Froude (1818-1894), Life of Carlyle [1884], New York: Scribner, 1904, p. 240 (see the book)
    See also Nah. 1:3; Deut. 32:4; Ps. 19:9; Heb. 6:10; Rev. 15:3; 16:5-7; 19:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me a means by which You awaken the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Littell: the Servant People

Sunday, March 21, 2021
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”
    —Luke 22:27 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Church, rightly conceived, is the whole covenant people called to serve in the world. The clergy are also part of the laity, and their true function is to help equip the laity to be the Servant People. If they turn aside to rule and to secure their own status, they have betrayed the calling of the special ministry.
    ... Franklin H. Littell (1917-2009)
    See also Luke 22:27; 12:35-36; John 13:14-15; 2 Cor. 4:3-5; Eph. 4:11-13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me a servant’s heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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