Saturday, December 07, 2024

Underhill: the tide of worship

Sunday, December 8, 2024
    Advent II
Meditation:
    I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling...
    —1 Timothy 2:8 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Many a congregation when it assembles in church must look to the angels like a muddy puddly shore at low tide; littered with every kind of rubbish and odds and ends—a distressing sort of spectacle. And then the tide of worship comes in, and it’s all gone: the dead sea-urchins and jelly-fish, the paper and the empty tins and the nameless bits of rubbish. The cleansing sea flows over the whole lot. So we are released from a narrow, selfish outlook on the universe by a common act of worship. Our little human affairs are reduced to their proper proportion when seen over against the spaceless Majesty and Beauty of God.
    ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), Collected Papers of Evelyn Underhill, Longmans, Green and Co., 1946, p. 89 (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 2:8; Ps. 51:17; 147:11; Isa. 26:8-9; 58:6-8; John 4:23-24; 1 Pet. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, if You wash me, I shall be clean indeed.
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Friday, December 06, 2024

Ambrose: acquiring another virtue

Saturday, December 7, 2024
    Feast of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397
Meditation:
My eyes stay open through the watches of the night,
    that I may meditate on your promises.
    —Psalm 119:148 (NIV)
Quotation:
    How pleasant it is to begin the day with hymns and canticles, with the Beatitudes which you read in the Gospel! How propitious that the words of Christ should bless you, and while you repeat the Lord’s benedictions, you should become eager for the acquirement of one or another virtue, so that even in your own self you may recognize the power of the Divine benediction.
    ... St. Ambrose of Milan (Aurelius Ambrosius) (339-397), The Life and Times of St. Ambrose, v. II, Frederick Homes Dudden, The Clarendon Press, 1935, p. 443 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 119:148; 1:2; 133:1; Matt. 5:3-12,48; 1 Cor. 14:1; Gal. 5:22-23; 1 Pet. 1:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your words feed my desire for You.
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Thursday, December 05, 2024

Yancey: marking time

Friday, December 6, 2024
    Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326
Meditation:
    For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
    —1 Corinthians 4:20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.
    ... Philip Yancey (b. 1949), Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud, p. 36 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:13-16; Rom. 15:13; 1 Cor. 4:20; 11:1; Eph. 4:1; Phil. 2:14-16; Col. 1:13-14,27; 1 Thess. 2:11-12; 1 Tim. 4:12; Tit. 1:2; 2:7-8; Heb. 4:6; 1 Pet. 2:21; Rev. 5:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help us to demonstrate the Kingdom to those around us.
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Wednesday, December 04, 2024

Maclaren: the sound of the alarm

Thursday, December 5, 2024
Meditation:
[Mary:]
“His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.”
    —Luke 1:50 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Fear, the apprehension of personal evil, has the same function in the moral world as pain has in the physical. It is a symptom of disease, and is intended to bid us look for the remedy and the Physician. What is an alarm bell for, but to rouse the sleepers, and to hurry them to the refuge? And so this wholesome, manly dread of the certain issue of discord with God is meant to do for us what the angels did for Lot—to lay a mercifully violent hand on the shoulder of the sleeper, and shake him into aroused wakefulness, and hasten him out of Sodom, before the fire bursts through the ground, and is met by the fire from above. The intention of fear is to lead to that which shall annihilate it by taking away its cause.
    ... Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910), Triumphant Certainties: and Other Sermons, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1905, p. 300 (see the book)
    See also Luke 1:50; Gen. 19:12-13; Deut. 6:13; Ps. 103:17-18; 111:10; 119:120; Pr. 1:7; Hag. 1:12; 1 John 4:12,18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, our fear makes us return to You.
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Tuesday, December 03, 2024

Grou: Christ's virtues

Wednesday, December 4, 2024
    Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637
Meditation:
    Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
    “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
    Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
    —John 6:32-35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is not in the gifts He received but in the virtues He practiced that Christ is our model. That which is asked of you, so that you may resemble Him, is to make the same use as He did of the gifts of God, according to the measure in which you have received them.
    ... Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803), quoted in The Light of Christ, Evelyn Underhill, New York: Longmans, Green, 1949, p. 101 (see the book)
    See also John 6:32-35; Matt. 11:29; John 13:15; Rom. 15:5-6; Eph. 5:1-2; Phil. 3:10-11; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6; 3:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may the Spirit’s fruits find a place in my life.
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Monday, December 02, 2024

Anderson: the virgin birth

Tuesday, December 3, 2024
    Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552
Meditation:
    And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
    —Luke 1:26-28 (KJV)
Quotation:
    I have put no emphasis on the virgin birth in the course of this chapter. This is not because I do not believe in it, for I do; but because, as I understand it, the account of Christ’s miraculous birth was given in the Gospels for the sake of those who had already come to believe in him and who wished to know the facts, but was never used as a means of evoking faith in those who were not yet convinced on other grounds as to who he was. After all, a virgin birth would be possible without any implications of deity.
    ... J. N. D. Anderson (1908-1994), Christianity: the Witness of History, Tyndale Press, 1969, p. 59 (see the book)
    See also Luke 1:26-35; Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:22-23; Luke 1:1-4; 2 Cor. 11:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open my heart to the riches of Your truth.
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Sunday, December 01, 2024

Gossip: facing the facts

Monday, December 2, 2024
Meditation:
    About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
    —Matthew 27:46 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No book in the whole world has faced the fact of sorrow, and the mystery of pain so honestly, and with such steady eyes as the New Testament. It is not for nothing that the Christian symbol is—a Cross; and a most wonderful fact that it was a voice from the agony of crucifixion that has made masses of men entirely sure that God is Love.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 98 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 22:1; Isa. 53:3-8; Matt. 27:46; John 15:13; Rom. 8:18,22; 2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Pet. 1:6; 2:21,24; 4:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your suffering gives witness to the truth.
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