Muggeridge: the ultimate disaster

Saturday, May 15, 2021
    Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945
Meditation:
    We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
    —2 Corinthians 5:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves to be at home here on earth.
    ... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), Jesus Rediscovered, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969, p. 31 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 5:1-10; Luke 2:29; John 14:2-3; 1 Cor. 15:46-48; 2 Cor. 4:7; Phil. 1:21-24; 2 Pet. 1:3-5,13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I trust You with my future. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Denney: faith and history

Friday, May 14, 2021
    Feast of Matthias the Apostle
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”
    —John 15:26-27 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When a man was chosen to take the place of Judas, and to be associated with the eleven as a witness of the Resurrection, he was chosen from the men ‘who have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that He was received up from us’. The criticism which would have us believe that from the Resurrection onward the Jesus of history was practically displaced by an ideal Christ of faith is beside the mark. The Christ of faith was the Jesus of history, and no one was regarded as qualified to bear witness to the Christ unless he had had the fullest opportunity of knowing Jesus.
    ... James Denney (1856-1917), Jesus and the Gospel: Christianity justified in the mind of Christ, New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908, p. 14 (see the book)
    See also John 15:26-27; Ps. 69:25; Acts 1:8,20-22; 4:33; Heb. 2:1-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your witness have spoken to the ages. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Temple: the Ascension

Thursday, May 13, 2021
    Ascension
Meditation:
    Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
    —John 20:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In the days of His earthly ministry, only those could speak to him who came where He was. If He was in Galilee, men could not find Him in Jerusalem; if He was in Jerusalem, men could not find Him in Galilee. But His Ascension means that He is perfectly united with God; we are with Him wherever we are present to God; and that is everywhere and always. Because He is “in Heaven” He is everywhere on earth: because He is ascended, He is here now. Our devotion is not to hold us by the empty tomb; it must lift up our hearts to heaven so that we too “in heart and mind thither ascend and with Him continually dwell;” * it must also send us forth into the world to do His will; and these are not two things, but one.
    * from the collect for Ascension, Book of Common Prayer, 1662, 1928
    ... William Temple (1881-1944), Readings in St. John’s Gospel, London: Macmillan, 1939, 1952, p. 382 (see the book)
    See also John 20:17; Matt. 28:20; Luke 24:1-6; Acts 1:9-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your are continually present with Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: the presence of God

Wednesday, May 12, 2021
    Commemoration of Aiden Wilson Tozer, Spiritual Writer, 1963
Meditation:
    The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
    Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
    —1 Samuel 3:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence. That type of Christianity which happens now to be the vogue knows this Presence only in theory. It fails to stress the Christian’s privilege of present realization. According to its teachings we are in the presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience that Presence actually. We are satisfied to rest in our judicial possessions and, for the most part, we bother ourselves very little about the absence of personal experience.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948], Christian Publications, 1982, p. 35 (see the book)
    See also 1 Sam. 3:10; Ex. 3:4-6; Matt. 28:20; Acts 2:1-4; 17:27-28; Eph. 1:22-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I know Your presence in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Babcock: Thy will be done

Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Meditation:
    Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.
    —2 Corinthians 7:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Thy will be done means more than thy will be borne. No matter what sorrow invades our life, we are still to do God’s will. We shall see afterwards that the sorrow rightly accepted fitted us to do some new duty, or to do our old duty more effectively. “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth,” is the right cry in the hour of bewildering grief.
    ... Maltbie D. Babcock (1858-1901), Thoughts for Every-day Living, New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1901, p. 122 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 7:10-11; Ps. 40:8; 1 Sam. 3:10; Matt. 6:9-10; 12:50; Mark 3:35; Luke 22:42-44; John 4:34; Rom. 12:2; 1 Thess. 5:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me to look to You in the moment of grief. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Donne: no other way

Monday, May 10, 2021
Meditation:
    [Peter:] “... We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as [the Gentiles] are.”
    —Acts 15:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To me, to whom God hath revealed his Son, in a Gospel, by a Church, there can be no way of salvation, but by applying that Son of God, by that Gospel, in that Church. Nor is there any other foundation for any, nor other name by which any can be saved, but the name of Jesus. But how this foundation is presented, and how this name of Jesus is notified unto them, amongst whom there is no Gospel preached, no Church established, I am not curious in inquiring. I know that God can be as merciful as those tender Fathers present him to be; and I would be as charitable as they are. And therefore, humbly embracing that manifestation of his Son, which he hath afforded me, I leave God, to his unsearchable waies of working upon others, without further inquisition.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. I, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Sermon XXIV, p. 489 (see the book)
    See also Acts 15:11; 4:10-12; 13:48; Rom. 2:13-16; 10:12-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your justice is mercy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: count the cost

Sunday, May 9, 2021
Meditation:
    This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
    —1 John 5:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps, without any design and endeavour on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though “the commandments of God be not grievous,” yet it is fit to let men know, that they are not thus easy.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. I, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon VI, p. 482-483 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 5:1-4; Mic. 6:8; Matt. 11:28-29; Luke 14:26-30; 2 John 1:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, relieve my fatigue, so that I may not fail You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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