Fenelon: listening to God

Saturday, January 21, 2023
    Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
    —Matthew 12:36-37 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, of keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us. We know well enough how to keep outward silence, and to hush our spoken words, but we know little of interior silence. It consists in hushing our idle, restless, wandering imagination, in quieting the promptings of our worldly minds, and in suppressing the crowd of unprofitable thoughts which excite and disturb the soul.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Selections from Fénelon, ed. Mary Wilder Tileston, Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879, p. 107 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 12:36-37; 1 Kings 19:11-13; Ps. 85:8; Jer. 23:29; Luke 11:28; Rom. 8:6-7; 10:17; 1 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 4:12; Jas. 1:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, still my inner voices that I may hear Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Rolle: the Infinite

Friday, January 20, 2023
    Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349
Meditation:
No one is like you, O LORD;
    you are great,
    and your name is mighty in power.
    —Jeremiah 10:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God truly is of infinite greatness, better than we can think; of unreckoned sweetness; inconceivable of all natures wrought; and can never be comprehended by us as He is in Himself in eternity.
    ... Richard Rolle (1290?-1349), from The Mending of Life, in Fire of Love [1343], tr. Richard Misyn, VI. (see the book)
    See also Jer. 10:6; Deut. 32:3; Job 37:5; Ps. 145:3; 150:2; Eccl. 3:11; Isa. 40:28; Rom. 11:33; Eph. 1:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my spirit is in awe of You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Beecher: no love, no worship

Thursday, January 19, 2023
    Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095
Meditation:
    [A teacher replying to Jesus:] “To love [God] with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
    —Mark 12:33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I never know how to worship until I know how to love.
    ... Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), Royal Truths, Edinburgh: Alexander Strahan and Co., 1862, p. 19 (see the book)
    See also Mark 12:33; Deut. 6:5; 10:12-13; 30:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, drive the cold from my heart, that I may love and worship you. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Carmichael: speaking the truth in love

Wednesday, January 18, 2023
    Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter the Apostle
    Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951
Meditation:
    Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
    —Ephesians 4:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If I am afraid to speak the truth, lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, “You do not understand,” or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other’s highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
    If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying Peace, peace, where there is no peace; if I forget the poignant words, “Let love be without dissimulation” [Rom. 12:9] and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
    ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), If [1938], London: SPCK, 1961, p. 24-25 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 4:14-16; Ps. 55:21; Rom. 12:9-18; 1 Tim. 1:5; Jas. 2:15-16; 1 Pet. 1:22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, before the Cross, I am broken. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Gore: the test for prayer

Tuesday, January 17, 2023
    Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356
    Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, 1932
Meditation:
    “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’“
    —Matthew 6:9-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Whatever particular object we may want to pray for, we have never prayed for it aright till we have prayed for it in the words and spirit of the Lord’s Prayer. That, I repeat, is not one prayer among many. It covers all legitimate Christian praying, and indeed the saying of it affords the best test whether our wants of the moment can become a prayer offered ‘in the name of Christ.’
    ... Charles Gore (1853-1932), The Sermon on the Mount [1910], London: John Murray, 1905, p. 132 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:9-13; 21:22; Mark 11:24; John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-26; 1 John 3:21-22; 5:14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I receive Your instruction in prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Rees: walking in the Spirit

Monday, January 16, 2023
Meditation:
    For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
    —Romans 8:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    The sovereign antidote against strife and confusion, the supreme principle of unity and service in the Church, was also the greatest gift of the Spirit, and the perfect and abiding proof of its presence, namely, love. This introduces a third criterion of the Spirit, and on the wider stage of the moral life. It is loyalty to the moral ideal of Christ. “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk” (Gal. 5:25). Where the Spirit dwells, it produces a new, a higher, a unique type of moral life. For Paul, the Christian life was not the normal and natural product of human activity (Rom. 8:18), but a gracious divine gift, received by the descent of the Spirit into the human heart, for “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance” (Gal. 5:22-23). And there is yet one higher manifestation of the Spirit, the participation in the divine sonship of Jesus Christ. “And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). Where sonship is, there the Spirit is. On the other hand, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). Where the Spirit leads, there sonship is... The possession of the Spirit and participation in Christ’s sonship are but two aspects of the same experience. Here, the phenomenon, if it may be so called, bears its own credentials. Sonship is a self-evident work of the Spirit. But the evidence is available only for its owner. In order that the Spirit of adoption may attest itself to others, it must issue in the life according to the Spirit, by walking in the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
    ... Thomas Rees (1869-1926), The Holy Spirit in Thought and Experience, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1915, p. 89 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:13-19; John 13:34; Rom. 7:14; Gal. 4:6; 5:22-25; Phil. 1:9-11; 2:14-16; Col. 1:10-12; 1 John 4:21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit of adoption has changed everything for us. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth

Rees: unity, order, and edification

Sunday, January 15, 2023
Meditation:
    For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
    —1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    Another criterion was loyalty to the community of Christ both as gathered congregation and as organised church. The pride of spiritual gifts had led the Corinthians to jealousy and strife. They had divided into factions owning the leadership, one of Paul, another of Apollos, another of Cephas, and another of Christ. But such factions, the apostle tells them, were not characteristics of the “spiritual,” but of the carnal. To divide the Church was to destroy the temple of God, where the Holy Spirit dwelt among them (I Cor. 3:1, 3, 16). And the very gifts about which they quarrelled should have been a power to unite them, for they all proceeded from one and the same Spirit, from one and the same Lord, from one and the same God, who worketh all in all (I Cor. 12:4 ff). The Spirit was indeed the principle of unity in the Church, “for in one Spirit were we all baptized into on e body” (I Cor. 12:13). Therefore to divide the Church was to drive away the Spirit... The tests of spiritual phenomena in the life of the community, and the proofs that they were of the Holy Spirit, were unity, order, and edification. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Thomas Rees (1869-1926), The Holy Spirit in Thought and Experience, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1915, p. 88-89 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 12:4-13; 3:1-6,16; Eph. 2:18,22; 4:3-6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the whole, undivided church is Yours through Your Spirit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    inst    Jonah    ; Ruth