Tozer: Trinity a mystery?

Saturday, August 21, 2021
Meditation:
    Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?”
    He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.”
    —Judges 13:17-18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We cover our deep ignorance with words, but we are ashamed to wonder, we are afraid to whisper “mystery.”
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Knowledge of the Holy, Harper & Row, 1975, p. 26 (see the book)
    See also Judg. 13:17-18; Ex. 3:14; Jer. 10:23; 1 Cor. 2:7-10; 13:12; Eph. 3:8-11; Col. 1:25-27; Jas. 1:5-6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are beyond our ability to understand, yet You have granted that we may know You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bernard: accountable for what we have

Friday, August 20, 2021
    Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153
    Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890
Meditation:
    For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.
    —2 Corinthians 8:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    And now be careful to be found a wise and faithful servant, and communicate the heavenly bread to your fellow servants without envy or idleness. Do not take up the vain excuse of your rawness of inexperience which you may imagine or assume. For sterile modesty is never pleasing, nor that humility laudable which passes the bounds of reason. Attend to your work; drive out bashfulness by a sense of duty, and act as a master... But I am not sufficient for these things, you say. As if your offering were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not. Be prepared to answer for the single talent committed to your charge, and take no thought for the rest... For he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Give all, as assuredly you shall pay to the uttermost farthing; but of a truth out of what you have, not what you have not.
    ... Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), The Life and Times of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, A.D. 1091-1153, James Cotter Morison, London: Macmillan, 1889, p. 203 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 8:12; Ps. 51:16-17; Matt. 25:14-26; Acts 20:35
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, from what You have given me, I give to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bounds: contact with God

Thursday, August 19, 2021
Meditation:
    Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
    —Romans 12:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Prayer is the contact of a living soul with God. In prayer, God stoops to kiss man, to bless man, and to aid in everything that God can devise or man can need. Prayer fills man’s emptiness with God’s fullness. It fills man’s poverty with God’s riches. It puts away man’s weakness with God’s strength. it banishes man’s littleness with God’s greatness. Prayer is God’s plan to supply man’s great and continual need with God’s great and continual abundance.
    ... E. M. Bounds (1835-1913), The Reality of Prayer, Racine: Treasres Media, Inc. 2007, p. 7 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 12:12; Ps. 42:8; John 10:10; 1 Thess. 5:17; Heb. 4:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I flourish from Your abundance. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rauschenbusch: speculative theology

Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
    —Matthew 10:39 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Theologians have felt no hesitation in founding a system of speculative thought on the teachings of Jesus; and yet Jesus was never an inhabitant of the realm of speculative thought.
    ... Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), Christianity and the Social Crisis, New York: Macmillan Co., 1907, p. 91 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 10:37-39; Mark 10:29-31; Luke 12:49-53
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is immediate. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bronnert: seeing stones

Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Meditation:
    As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
    —1 Peter 2:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The benefits to the leader [of a pilgrimage to Israel] are in all sorts of directions in addition to the ones to all pilgrims: seeing the Scriptures in a fresh light, becoming aware of the Eastern Church, and the need to relate to and pray for the living stones as well as admiring the dead ones.
    ... David Bronnert, in a letter
    See also 1 Pet. 2:4-5; Isa. 8:14; 28:16; 1 Cor. 10:1-4; Eph. 2:19-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the master builder. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Singh: an ocean of Love

Monday, August 16, 2021
Meditation:
    But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
    —Ephesians 2:4-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Without Christ I was like a fish out of water, or like a bird in the water. With Christ I am in the ocean of Love, and while in the world, am in heaven.
    ... Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929), With and Without Christ, Harper & Brothers, 1929, p. 112 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 2:4-7; Luke 17:20-21; John 4:23; Rom. 14:17-18; Col. 1:27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I can never live apart from You again. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bloesch: prayer in the name of Christ

Sunday, August 15, 2021
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”
    —John 15:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To pray in the name of Christ means to pray in the awareness that our prayers have no worthiness or efficacy apart from his atoning sacrifice and redemptive mediation. It means to appeal to the blood of Christ as the source of power for the life of prayer. It means to acknowledge our complete helplessness apart from his mediation and intercession. To pray in his name means that we recognize that our prayers cannot penetrate the tribunal of God unless they are presented to the Father by the Son, our one Savior and Redeemer.
    ... Donald G. Bloesch (1928-2010), The Struggle of Prayer, Harper & Row, 1980, p. 36-37 (see the book)
    See also John 15:7; 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-26; Rom. 8:26
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone have the power to answer my prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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