The Christian Quotation of the Day: 2022-05-15

MacDonald: the burden of today

Saturday, May 21, 2022
    Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
    —Matthew 6:34 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs you to leave the future to Him and mind the present.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, v. I [1867], London: Strahan & Co., 1873, p. 203 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:26-34; 11:28-30; Luke 12:25-26; Gal. 6:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to cast my anxieties on You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newbigin: atomization

Friday, May 20, 2022
Meditation:
    Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
    —Colossians 4:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Western European civilization has witnessed a sort of atomizing process, in which the individual is more and more set free from his natural setting in family and neighborhood, and becomes a sort of replaceable unit in the social machine, His nearest neighbors may not even know his name. He is free to move from place to place, from job to job, from acquaintance to acquaintance, and—if he has attained a high degree of emancipation—from wife to wife. He is in every context a more and more anonymous and replaceable part, the perfect incarnation of the rationalist conception of man. Wherever western civilization has spread in the past one hundred years, it has carried this atomizing process with it. Its characteristic product in Calcutta, Shanghai, or Johannesburg, is the modern city into which myriads of human beings, loosened from their old ties in village or tribe or caste, like grains of sand fretted by water from an ancient block of sandstone, are ceaselessly churned around in the whirlpool of the city—anonymous, identical, replaceable units.
    In such a situation, it is natural that men should long for some sort of real community, for men cannot be human without it. It is especially natural that Christians should reach out after that part of Christian doctrine which speaks of the true, God-given community, the Church of Jesus Christ. We have witnessed the appalling results of trying to go back to some sort of primitive collectivity based on the total control of the individual, down to the depths of his spirit, by an all-powerful group. Yet we know that we cannot condemn this solution to the problem of man’s loneliness if we have no other to offer. It is natural that men should ask with a greater eagerness than ever before, such questions as these: “Is there in truth a family of God on earth to which I can belong, a place where all men can be truly at home? If so, where is it to be found, what are its marks, and how is it related to, and distinguished from, the known communities of family, nation, and culture? What are its boundaries, its structure, its terms of membership? And how comes it that those who claim to be the spokesmen of that one holy fellowship are themselves at war with one another as to the fundamentals of its nature, and unable to agree to live together in unity and concord?” The breakdown of Christendom has forced such questions as these to the front. I think that there is no more urgent theological task than to try to give them plain and credible answers.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God, London, SCM Press, 1953, New York: Friendship Press, 1954, p. 13 (see the book)
    See also Col. 4:6; Ps. 127:1; Rom. 14:19; Phil. 1:27; 1 Pet. 3:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, relieve the Gospel of our divisions. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Adams: Consecration of the House

Thursday, May 19, 2022
    Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988
Meditation:
    But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
    —Hebrews 3:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
Consecrated brethren, we who keep our confidence,
We who learn from Jesus the obedience of our Lord,
We are house and household for the coming Prince of Glory,
Holding fast our hope in full reliance on His Word.
    ... Robert MacColl Adams (1913-1985) (see the book)
    See also Heb. 3:1-6; Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 2:4-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your faithfulness is my example. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Montague: the worst news of all

Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Meditation:
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
    or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
    or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
    that the hand of the LORD has done this?”
    —Job 12:7-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If God is not, then the existence of all that is beautiful and in any sense good, is but the accidental and ineffective by-product of blindly swirling atoms, or of the equally unpurposeful, though more conceptually complicated, mechanisms of present-day physics. A man may well believe that this dreadful thing is true. But only the fool will say in his heart that he is glad that it is true. For to wish there should be no God is to wish that the things which we love and strive to realize and make permanent, should be only temporary and doomed to frustration and destruction. If life and its fulfilments are good, why should one rejoice at the news that God is dead and that there is nothing in the whole world except our frail and perishable selves that is concerned with anything that matters?
    ... William Pepperell Montague (1873-1953), Belief Unbound, Yale University Press, 1931, p. 66-67 (see the book)
    See also Job 12:7-9; Ps. 14:1; Matt. 11:16-19; Luke 16:31; Rom. 1:18-20; Eph. 2:11-13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may ____ and ____ come to see the truth about You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Yaconelli: the coming dullness

Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Meditation:
    At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.
    —Acts 16:33-34 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The most critical issue facing Christians is not abortion, pornography, the disintegration of the family, moral absolutes, MTV, drugs, racism, sexuality, or school prayer. The critical issue today is dullness. We have lost our astonishment. The good News is no longer good news, it is okay news. Christianity is no longer life changing, it is life enhancing. Jesus doesn’t change people into wild-eyed radicals anymore. He changes them into “nice people”.
    ... Mike Yaconelli (1942-2003), Dangerous Wonder: the Adventure of Childlike Faith, Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1998, p. 23 (see the book)
    See also Acts 16:31-34; Ps. 119:111; Isa. 35:1-2; Matt. 13:44; Acts 8:5-8, 38-39; 13:52; Phil. 4:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have changed me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: the only complete realist

Monday, May 16, 2022
    Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877
Meditation:
    Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.
    —Hebrews 4:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity, New York: MacMillan, 1952, reprint, HarperCollins, 2001, p. 142 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 4:14-15; John 8:46; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 7:26; 1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, strengthen the weakness of Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Housman: O Christ, our joy, to whom is given

Sunday, May 15, 2022
    Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”
    —Luke 21:27 (NIV)
Quotation:
O Christ, our joy, to Whom is giv’n
A throne o’er all the thrones of Heav’n,
In Thee, Whose hand all things obey,
The world’s vain pleasures pass away.

So, suppliants here, we seek to win
Thy pardon for Thy people’s sin,
That, by Thine all-prevailing grace,
Uplifted, we may seek Thy face.

And when, all Heav’n beneath Thee bowed,
Thou com’st to judgment throned in cloud,
Then from our guilt wash out the stain
And give us our lost crowns again.

Be Thou our joy and strong defense,
Who art our future recompense:
So shall the light that springs from Thee
Be ours through all eternity.

O risen Christ, ascended Lord,
All praise to Thee let earth accord,
Who art, while endless ages run,
With Father and with Spirit One.
    ... Laurence Housman (1865-1959), translated from 13th c. Latin verses (see the book)
    See also Luke 21:27; Ps. 2:6-9; 32:1-2; Matt. 19:28; John 1:4; Phil. 2:9-11; Rev. 7:14
Quiet time reflection:
    Thank You, Lord, for Your prophecies.