Houston: setting our compass

Saturday, March 12, 2022
Meditation:
    For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.
    —1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We need to set our compass with three markers: (1) the Word of God; (2) a true analysis of the facts of our experience; and (3) the sensing of the mind of the Spirit by... this council.
    ... Thomas Houston, former president, World Vision International, in a private communication from World Vision
    See also 1 Thess. 1:4-5; Luke 10:21; Acts 15:28
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead Your people through the problems of Christian community. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Browning: Earth breaks up, time drops away

Friday, March 11, 2022
Meditation:
    When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
    —Revelation 1:17-18 (NIV)
Quotation:
Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,—
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, All in all,
King of kings, Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words,
“I died, and live for evermore!”
    ... Robert Browning (1812-1889), The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Browning, Macmillan, 1912, p. 420 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 1:17-18; Isa. 65:17; 66:22; Heb. 7:23-24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the eternal one! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Stevenson: for self-blame

Thursday, March 10, 2022
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
    —Luke 6:41-42 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Lord, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind us to the mote that is in our brother’s. Let us feel our offences with our hands, make them great and bright before us like the sun, make us eat them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of him in whose words of prayer we now conclude.
    ... Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), from “Prayers Written for Family Use at Vailima”, in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, v. IV, London: T. & A. Constable for Longmans Green & Co., 1896, p. 387 (see the book)
    See also Luke 6:41-42; Ps. 127:1; Mark 9:35; Luke 9:48; 14:8-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You lift up the least and humble the greatest. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Davidman: praying whose will be done?

Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Meditation:
“Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob,”
    declares the Lord God, the God of hosts,
“that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions,
    I will punish the altars of Bethel,
and the horns of the altar shall be cut off
    and fall to the ground.
I will strike the winter house along with the summer house,
    and the houses of ivory shall perish,
and the great houses shall come to an end,”
declares the Lord.
    —Amos 3:13-15 (ESV)
Quotation:
    We sometimes come to God, not because we love Him best, but because we love our possessions best; we ask Christ to “save Western civilization,” without asking ourselves whether it is entirely a civilization that Christ could want to save. We pray, too often, not to do God’s will, but to enlist God’s assistance in maintaining our “continually increasing consumption.” And yet, though Christ promised that God would feed us, he never promised that God would stuff us to bursting.
    ... Joy Davidman (1915-1960), Smoke on the Mountain, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955, reprint, Westminster John Knox Press, 1985, p. 126 (see the book)
    See also Amos 3:13-15; Luke 12:16-21; Jas. 4:14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I not take Your bounty for granted. Lead me to understand my stewardship more thoroughly. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Studdert Kennedy: in Christ's name

Tuesday, March 8, 2022
    Commemoration of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.”
    —John 14:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Prayer in Christ’s name means prayer in Christ’s spirit. The greatest of all prayers does not contain the Name, but is drenched with the spirit. What is Christ’s spirit? In a word, “heroism.” God and my duty first—a long way first. God’s will above and beyond all other things. My pals and other people second. Myself and my own desires last, and a long way last, almost nowhere. That is Christ... There is no such thing as selfish prayer. There is no such thing as prayer which does not put God first. That is the essence of it. That is the spirit. The name without the spirit is as futile as the mumbo-jumbo of a conjuror.
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Hardest Part, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919, p. 102-103 (see the book)
    See also John 14:13-14,26; 15:16; 16:23-24; Eph. 6:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit gives me the prayers I pray. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Campbell: finding self in finding God

Monday, March 7, 2022
    Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203
Meditation:
Blessed is the man
    who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
    or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.
    —Psalm 1:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The man who knows nothing of communion with God is a stranger to himself, and we find ourselves only as we find Him whom our hearts desire.
    ... R. J. Campbell (1867-1956), City Temple Sermons, New York: F. H. Revell company, 1903, p. 38 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 1:1-2; Ex. 33:11; Jer. 31:34; Lam. 3:25-26; Matt. 5:6; Rom. 7:22-23; Phil. 3:12-14; Heb. 11:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the only path to true self-knowledge. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Calvin: the idol factory

Sunday, March 6, 2022
Meditation:
    Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
    —Colossians 3:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When [Moses] relates that Rachel stole her father’s idols, he speaks as of a common corruption. Whence we may infer, that the mind of man is, if I may be allowed the expression, a perpetual manufactory of idols. After the deluge, there was, as it were, a regeneration of the world; but not many years elapsed before men fabricated gods according to their own fancy.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559], tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, I.xi.8, p. 104 (see the book)
    See also Col. 3:5; Gen. 31:34-35; Acts 17:29-30; 1 Cor. 12:2-3; Phil. 3:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, cast out the idols in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth