Reeves: the common life of the Body

Saturday, January 22, 2022
Meditation:
    Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
    —Romans 12:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Whatever gifts we possess belong to the Body, and are useful only as they are used in the common life of the Church. All this is made very plain in the New Testament Epistles, for in them we are taught that in each local Christian community is a fellowship in which every member is to live in humility and in love to the brethren. Yet no local church is to live to itself. Again and again, local churches are reminded of their close relationship to one another, in life, work, worship, pain, and death. Not that such a relationship is to be regarded either as a matter of convenience or as a question of organization. On the contrary, this intimate relationship is seen as the direct outcome of the saving work of Christ. This unity with one another, and of local churches with each other, is the unity which belongs to the Body of Christ, arising from the unity of God Himself, uttered in the dying and rising again of Jesus, and now expressed in the order and structure of the Church.
    ... Ambrose Reeves (1899-1980), Bishop of Johannesburg [1956], Church and Race in South Africa, David M. Paton, London: SCM Press, 1958, p. 31 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 12:4-5; 1:11-12; 15:5-7; Gal. 6:10; 1 Pet. 2:17; 1 John 1:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Your Spirit, Lord, animates the whole church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Marshall: sons, not slaves

Friday, January 21, 2022
    Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304
Meditation:
    “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
    —Isaiah 1:18-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    By giving humans freedom of will, the Creator has chosen to limit His own power. He risked the daring experiment of giving us the freedom to make good or bad decisions, to live decent or evil lives, because God does not want the forced obedience of slaves. Instead, He covets the voluntary love and obedience of sons who love Him for Himself.
    ... Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), Beyond Our Selves, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, p. 26 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 1:18-20; Gen. 1:27; Ps. 19:13; 1 Cor. 8:2-3; 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:1; 1 John 4:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, create a willing heart in me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rolle: fastened on God

Thursday, January 20, 2022
    Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349
Meditation:
    Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
    —1 Timothy 6:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It behooves thee to love God wisely; and that may thou not do but if thou be wise. Thou art wise when thou art poor, without desire of this world, and despisest thyself for the love of Jesus Christ; and expendeth all thy wit and all thy might in His service. Whoso will love wisely, it behooves him to love lasting things lastingly, and passing things passingly; so that his heart be set and fastened on nothing but in God.
    ... Richard Rolle (1290?-1349), A Little Book of Heavenly Wisdom: selections from some English prose mystics, Eleanor C. Gregory, ed., London: Methuen, 1904, p. 206 (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 6:17-19; John 7:17; Rom. 16:19; 1 Cor. 1:22-25; 3:18; Eph. 5:15-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your promises are good for life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tozer: the wrath of God

Wednesday, January 19, 2022
    Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095
Meditation:
    See, the day of the LORD is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.
    —Isaiah 13:9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The holiness of God, the wrath of God, and the health of the creation are inseparably united. Not only is it right for God to display anger at sin, but I find it impossible to understand how He could do otherwise.
    God’s wrath is His utter intolerance of whatever degrades or destroys.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Man: The Dwelling Place of God, Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian Publications, Inc., 1966, p. 111 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 13:9; Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7; Deut. 6:14-15; Nahum 1:2-6; Eph. 1:4; Heb. 12:14; 1 Pet. 1:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, fill me with intolerance for my sin. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Carmichael: Tune Thou my harp

Tuesday, January 18, 2022
    Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter the Apostle
    Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951
Meditation:
    And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.
    —Revelation 14:2-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
Tune Thou my harp;
There is not, Lord, could never be,
The skill in me.

Tune Thou my harp,
That it may play Thy melody,
Thy harmony.

Tune Thou my harp;
O Spirit, breathe Thy thought through me
As pleaseth Thee.
    ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), Rose from Brier [1933], London: SPCK, 1950, p. 128-129 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 14:2-3; Ps. 57:8-9; Eph. 5:19-20; Col. 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Fill my heart with Your song, Lord.

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Gore: God's will

Monday, January 17, 2022
    Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356
    Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, 1932
Meditation:
    [Jesus] went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
    —Matthew 26:42 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We do not know if it is God’s will that this or that person should recover from sickness, or this or that calamity should be averted. God is wiser than we are. We do not know whether it is God’s will that we should have rain that is so necessary for our crops. There are things like these that lie in a region of uncertainty into which the intelligence of man cannot penetrate. So then as the object of prayer is not to bring the divine will down to the human, but to lift the human up into correspondence with the divine, for all these uncertain things we can pray indeed, but uncertainly—‘If it be possible, let this or that come to pass; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.’
    ... Charles Gore (1853-1932), The Sermon on the Mount [1910], London: John Murray, 1905, p. 141 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 26:42; 6:9-10; John 4:34; 6:38-40
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to submit to Your will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: life without leaving the world

Sunday, January 16, 2022
Meditation:
    Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.
    —1 Peter 4:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is further objected that [Jesus] hath left us no example of that, which by many is esteemed the only religious state of life; viz. perfect retirement from the world, for the more devout serving of God, and freeing us from the temptations of the world, such as is that of monks and hermits; this, perhaps, may seem to some a great oversight and omission: but our Lord in great wisdom thought fit to give us a pattern of a quite different sort of life, which was, not to fly the conversation of men, and to live in a monastery or a wilderness, but to do good among men, to live in the world with great freedom, and with great innocency. He did, indeed, sometimes retire himself for the more free and private exercise of devotion, as we ought to do; but he passed his life chiefly in the conversation of men, that they might have all the benefit that was possible of his instruction and example. We read, that “he was carried into the wilderness to be temp ted;” but not that he lived there to avoid temptation. He hath given us an example of denying the world, without leaving it.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VIII, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CXC, p. 274 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 4:1; Matt. 4:1,12-17; Luke 4:1-2,14-15; 22:27; John 13:15; 2 Cor. 8:9; Eph. 5:1-2; Heb. 12:3; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have shown the way. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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