Bonhoeffer: costly grace

Saturday, September 9, 2023
Meditation:
    When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
    —Luke 18:22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The Cost of Discipleship, Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also Luke 18:22; Matt. 10:37-38; 19:21; Mark 8:34; 10:21; Luke 9:23; 14:26-30; John 1:16-17; 1 Cor. 6:19-20; 7:23; Eph. 2:8-9; Heb. 12:28-29
Quiet time reflection:
    Compared to Your grace, Lord, my cost is nothing. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kierkegaard: grateful for God

Friday, September 8, 2023
    Commemoration of Søren Kierkegaard, Teacher and Philosopher, 1855
Meditation:
    Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
    —Ephesians 5:19-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To stand on one leg and prove God’s existence is a very different thing from going on one’s knees and thanking Him.
    ... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Journals, ed. Alexander Dru, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 91 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 5:19-20; Ps. 35:18; Acts 18:28; 19:8; Rom. 1:18-20; 1 Cor. 1:17-23; 2:6-10; Phil. 4:6; Col. 3:17; 1 Thess. 5:18; 2 Thess. 1:3; 1 Tim. 6:20-21; 2 Pet. 1:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I thank You for saving me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chadwick: faith in the world

Thursday, September 7, 2023
    Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957
Meditation:
    What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
    “I will live with them
        and walk among them,
    and I will be their God,
        and they will be my people.”
Therefore,
    “Come out from them
        and be separate,
        says the Lord.
    Touch no unclean thing,
        and I will receive you.”
    —2 Corinthians 6:16-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Church always fails at the point of self-confidence. When the Church is run on the same lines as a circus, there may be crowds, but there is no Shekinah... The energy of the flesh can run bazaars, organise amusements, and raise millions; but it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes a Temple of the Living God. The root-trouble of the present distress is that the Church has more faith in the world and the flesh than in the Holy Ghost, and things will get no better till we get back to His realised presence and power.
    ... Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932), The Way to Pentecost, Hodder and Stoughton, 1932, p. 16 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 6:16-17; Luke 4:14; John 4:24; Acts 1:8; Rom. 15:13; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19-20; Eph. 2:19-22; 3:16; 1 Pet. 2:4-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your church is the holy habitation of Your Spirit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Ham: building up the members in love

Wednesday, September 6, 2023
    Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851
    Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965
Meditation:
    We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.
    —Romans 15:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Christian Church does not want and does not need members because of a job it has to do. The Christian Church has a secret at her heart and she wants to share it. Whenever one, by repentance and forgiveness, enters this community of grace, he discovers life’s end, and he too will be constrained to let this life flow out in appropriate channels. Thrilling and costly projects will come into existence, but not as ends in themselves, and the group will not become a means to [such ends]. The group will never forget that one of its primary functions is to upbuild the members in love.
    ... William T. Ham, “Candles of the Lord”, in Spiritual Renewal through Personal Groups, John L. Casteel, ed., NY: Association Press, 1957, p. 182 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 15:1-2; Acts 20:32; 1 Cor. 8:1-2; 2 Cor. 5:1; Phil. 2:4; Col. 1:24; 1 Thess. 5:11; 1 Pet. 2:4-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, enable me to build up those You have placed me near. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jewett: faith in the authority of God

Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Meditation:
And the words of the LORD are flawless,
    like silver refined in a furnace of clay,
    purified seven times.
    —Psalm 12:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The axioms of reason are non-demonstrable assumptions. Why should faith not be granted the same privilege? “... The denial of [the truths of] faith is, no less a faith than faith itself..., for it rests on an assumption of a personal kind, which is apart from all scientific necessity.”
    As the truth of reason carries its own evidence, so also with faith. To the mind to whom the axioms of reason are not self-evident, they cannot be proven. So also in the case of faith... For the mind that knows no faith [the evidence of faith] is ridiculous. But for the man whose eyes have been [enlightened by the Spirit], faith has its proper evidence, though it is a different kind of evidence from that of reason... The only sufficient ground of faith is the authority of God Himself as he addresses me in His Word.
    ... Paul K. Jewett (1919-1991), Emil Brunner’s Concept of Revelation, London: J. Clarke, 1954, p. 112 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 12:6; Deut. 6:6-7; 29:29; 30:11-14; Ps. 18:30; 85:8; 102:18; 119:105; Matt. 22:43; 1 Cor. 2:12-13; 15:3-5; Heb. 4:12; 2 Pet. 1:16,21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: that we might believe

Monday, September 4, 2023
    Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650
Meditation:
    But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
    —John 20:31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but he died for all God’s elect, that they should believe, and believing have eternal life. Faith itself is among the principal effects and fruits of the death of Christ; as shall be declared. It is nowhere said in Scripture, nor can it reasonably be affirmed, that if we believe, Christ died for us, as though our believing should make that to be which otherwise was not,—the act create the object; but Christ died for us that we might believe.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), The Death of Death in the Death of Christ [1647], in Works of John Owen, v. X, New York: R. Carter, 1852, II.5, p. 235 (see the book)
    See also John 20:31; Matt. 26:53-54; 27:54; Luke 1:3-4; John 10:17-18,37-38; 11:42; Rom. 10:8-9; Eph. 5:1-2; 1 Thess. 4:14; Heb. 7:27; 9:26; 1 John 5:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have granted me faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: the anti-God state of mind

Sunday, September 3, 2023
    Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604
Meditation:
    Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.
    —Proverbs 16:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Christian Behavior, London: Geoffrey Bles, Macmillan, 1943, p. 42 (see the book)
    See also Prov. 16:18; Luke 11:39-52; 1 Cor. 3:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, give me the strength of faith to ask for humility. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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