Lucado: the winds of fortune

Sunday, August 25, 2024
Meditation:
    No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
    —1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No struggle will come your way apart from God’s purpose, presence, and permission. What encouragement this brings! You are never the victim of nature or the prey of fate. Chance is eliminated. You are more than a weather vane whipped about by the winds of fortune.
    ... Max Lucado (b. 1955), Come Thirsty: No Heart Too Dry for His Touch, Thomas Nelson Inc, 2004, p. 189 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 10:13; Luke 22:31-32; John 10:28-30; Rom. 8:28-39; 2 Cor. 1:10-11; 12:8-10; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 12:5-6; 2 Pet. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are behind all that happens. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gandy: His be the Victor's name

Saturday, August 24, 2024
    Feast of Bartholomew the Apostle
Meditation:
    No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
    —Romans 8:37 (NIV)
Quotation:
    His be the Victor’s name
    Who fought the fight alone;
    Triumphant saints no honour claim,
    His conquest was their own.

    By weakness and defeat,
    He won the meed and crown;
    Trod all our foes beneath His feet
    By being trodden down.

    He Satan’s power laid low;
    Made sin, He sin o’erthrew;
    Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
    And death by dying slew.

    Bless, bless the Conqueror slain,
    Slain in His victory;
    Who lived, who died, who lives again—
    For thee, His church, for thee!
    ... Samuel Whitelock Gandy (1780-1851) (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:37; Gen. 3:15; 1 Cor. 15:55-57; 2 Cor. 2:14; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 4:4; 5:3-4; Rev. 12:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have prevailed over all our enemies.

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Buechner: in the wilderness

Friday, August 23, 2024
    Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617
Meditation:
    Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”
    —Mark 12:29-30 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The final secret, I think, is this: that the words “You shall love the Lord your God” become in the end less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us—loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief.
    ... Frederick Buechner (1926-2022), A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces, HarperCollins, 2009, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also Mark 12:29-30; Deut. 6:5; Isa. 53:3; Matt. 22:37; Luke 10:27; Rom. 8:38-39
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I grow daily in love for You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thomas: how not to be worldly

Thursday, August 22, 2024
Meditation:
    In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
    —Philippians 1:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Want not to be worldly? Then take Jesus’ view toward life, what’s important, for instance, to give yourself to. If you give yourself to things, you will become hard and cold. We become the thing we worship. We get to be like what we worship. If we love God, what will happen to us? Well, we will get big hearts, for one thing. We will get so we love more people than we did in the beginning. We will find ourselves being open to what God does to us and what He is telling us.
    ... Eugene M. Thomas, in a talk delivered May 15, 1983, on the subject “Not Being Worldly” (see the book)
    See also Phil. 1:4-6; Luke 16:13; Gal. 5:16; Col. 2:6-7; 1 Thess. 3:12; 2 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 4:16-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grow my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: free will

Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Meditation:
    So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
    —Romans 7:21-25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Few have defined what free will is, although it repeatedly occurs in the writings of all. Origen seems to have put forward a definition generally agreed upon among ecclesiastical writers when he said that it is a faculty of the reason to distinguish between good and evil, a faculty of the will to choose one or the other. Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.
    ... 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, II.ii.4, p. 236-237 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 7:14-25; 8:5-8; Gal. 6:8; Jas. 1:13-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me grace to choose the good. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bernard: fear and self-interest

Tuesday, August 20, 2024
    Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153
    Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890
Meditation:
    For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
    —2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire. Sometimes a slave may do God’s work; but because he does not toil voluntarily, he remains in bondage. So a mercenary may serve God, but because he puts a price on his service, he is enchained by his own greediness. For where there is self-interest there is isolation; and such isolation is like the dark corner of a room where dust and rust befoul. Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.
    ... Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), On Loving God, CCEL, ch. 12 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 1:7; Isa. 55:7; Matt. 10:7-10; 18:3; Rom. 8:15; 1 Cor. 9:18; 2 Cor. 11:9; 1 Thess. 2:9; Jas. 1:13-14; 1 John 4:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have driven out my self-concern. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: ashamed of the Gospel

Monday, August 19, 2024
Meditation:
    For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
    —Romans 1:16-17 (KJV)
Quotation:
    We have no cause to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; but the Gospel of Christ may justly be ashamed of us.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VI, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CXVIII, p. 30 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 1:16-17; Ps. 40:9-10; Matt. 11:6; 15:12-14; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; John 6:66; Rom. 9:32; 1 Cor. 1:22-23; 1 Tim. 1:8; 1 Pet. 4:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord Jesus, You are the evidence, the emblem, and the embodiment of God’s righteousness. May I never again give you cause for shame. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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