Wesley: in debt to the rich

Saturday, July 3, 2021
    Feast of Thomas the Apostle
Meditation:
    Then [Jesus] said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
    —Luke 12:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let all our chapels be built plain and decent; but not more expensively than is absolutely unavoidable: otherwise the necessity of raising money will make rich men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent upon them, yea, and governed by them. And then farewell to the Methodist-discipline, if not doctrine too.
    ... John Wesley (1703-1791), instructions to Methodists in the U.S. [1784], in A Constitutional History of American Episcopal Methodism, John James Tigert, Nashville: Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1908, p. 592 (see the book)
    See also Luke 12:15; 1 Tim. 6:10-11,17-19; Jas. 5:1-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant Your people fidelity to Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Taylor: four meditations for sleepless nights

Friday, July 2, 2021
Meditation:
I have considered my ways
    and have turned my steps to your statutes.
I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands.
    —Psalm 119:59 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Meditate on Jacob’s wrestling with the angel all night: be thou also importunate with God for a blessing, and give not over till He hath blessed thee.
    Meditate on the angel passing over the children of Israel, and destroying the Egyptians for disobedience and oppression; pray for the grace of obedience and charity, and for the divine protection.
    Meditate on the angel who destroyed in a night the whole army of the Assyrians for fornication; call to mind the sins of thy youth, the sins of thy bed; and say with David, “My reins chasten me in the night season, and my soul refuseth comfort:” pray for pardon and the grace of chastity.
    Meditate on the agonies of Christ in the garden, his sadness and affliction all that night; and thank and adore Him for His love, that made Him suffer so much for thee; and hate thy sins which made it necessary for the Son of God to suffer so much.
    ... 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. 41 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 119:59-60; Gen. 32:22-30; Ex. 11:4-12:30; Ps. 1:2; 16:7; 19:14; 63:5-6; 77:12; 104:34; 119:11; 143:5; Isa. 37:33-36; Matt. 26:36-50; Mark 14:32-46; Luke 22:39-49; Jude 1:23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the thought of You drives away evil. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: the practical atheist

Thursday, July 1, 2021
    Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873
Meditation:
The fool says in his heart,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
    there is no one who does good.
The LORD looks down from heaven
    on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
All have turned aside,
    they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.
    —Psalm 14:1-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Sin... is always an act of wrong judgment. To commit a sin a man must for the moment believe that things are different from what they really are; he must confound values; he must see the moral universe out of focus; he must accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie; he must ignore the signs on the highway and drive with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had no soul, and was not accountable for his moral choices.
    Sin is never a thing to be proud of. No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin always does. Sin sees only today, or at most tomorrow; never the day after tomorrow, next month or next year. Death and judgment are pushed aside as if they did not exist, and the sinner becomes for the time a practical atheist who by his act denies not only the existence of God but the concept of life after death.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Man: The Dwelling Place of God, Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian Publications, Inc., 1966, p. 47 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 14:1; Rom. 1:19-20; Heb. 12:1; 1 John 3:4-10; 5:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have turned aside to my own ways too many times. Renew my heart once more. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: yearnings as evidence

Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Meditation:
    On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
    —John 7:37-39 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating, and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Weight of Glory, and other addresses, Macmillan Co., 1949, p. 6 (see the book)
    See also John 7:37-39; Ps. 42:1-4; Matt. 5:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, in Your grace, You satisfy our true need. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: a battle

Tuesday, June 29, 2021
    Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles
Meditation:
    We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
    —2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christianity is a battle—not a dream.
    ... Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), speech, April, 1869, recorded in Wendell Phillips: the agitator, William Carlos Martyn, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1890, p. 368 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 10:3-5; Eph. 6:10-17; 1 Tim. 6:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have called Your people to engage the spiritual enemy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Irenaeus: God glorified

Monday, June 28, 2021
    Feast of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Teacher, Martyr, c.200
Meditation:
    For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
    —2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Now this God is glorified by His Word who is His Son continually, and by the Holy Spirit who is the Wisdom of the Father of all: and the power(s) of these, (namely) of the Word and Wisdom, which are called Cherubim and Seraphim, with unceasing voices glorify God; and every created thing that is in the heavens offers glory to God the Father of all.
    ... Irenaeus (c.130-c.200), The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching [2nd c.], par. 10 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 4:6; Matt. 11:25-26; John 1:1; 8:31-32; Rom. 1:20; 1 Cor. 1:30
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your glory is without limit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jones: the converted minority

Sunday, June 27, 2021
Meditation:
    Then [Jesus] left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
    He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
    “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.”
    —Matthew 13:36-41 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Christian church with all its faults is the greatest serving institution on earth. It has many critics, but no rivals in the work of human redemption... No other institution has done anything like it—none whatever. The fact that the church has been able to survive the dead weight of a large proportion of its membership unconverted is a proof of its essential soundness and vitality. A minority of converted people keep its soul alive.
    ... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Conversion, New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, p. 225 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 13:36-43; 5:42; 13:24-30; Luke 6:30; Rom. 12:13; Gal. 2:10; 6:10; 1 Tim. 5:16; Jas. 1:27; 2:15-16; 1 John 3:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have enabled Your church to demonstrate the gospel through good works. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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