MacDonald: execution of sin

Sunday, January 5, 2025
Meditation:
    But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”
    —Hebrews 1:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    For evil in the abstract, nothing can be done. It is eternally evil. But I may be saved from it by learning to loathe it, to hate it, to shrink from it with an eternal avoidance. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “Justice”, in Unspoken Sermons, Third Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1889, p. 124 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 1:8-9; Ps. 45:7; 97:10; 101:3; 119:104; Pr. 8:13; Amos 5:15; Rom. 12:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I do not hate my sin enough. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: apostasy

Saturday, January 4, 2025
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
    —Luke 6:46 (NIV)
Quotation:
    For what great difference is there, whether men renounce Christianity; or, professing to believe it, do in their works deny it? ... We ought to reflect with shame upon the purer ages of the church, and sadly to consider, how few among us would in those days have been accounted Christians; and upon this consideration to be provoked to an emulation of those better times, and to a reformation of those faults and miscarriages, which, in the best days of Christianity, were reckoned inconsistent with the Christian profession; and to remember, that though the discipline of the church be not now the same it was then, yet the judgment and severity of God is; and that those who live in any vicious course of life, though they continue in the communion of the church, yet they shall be shut out of the kingdom of God.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VI, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CXX, p. 88,90 (see the book)
    See also Luke 6:46; Matt. 21:28-32; 23:31-32; Mark 7:6-8; Gal. 6:7; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:29
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, relieve my insincerity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Price: the end of the divide

Friday, January 3, 2025
    Commemoration of Gladys Aylward, Missionary in China, 1970
Meditation:
    The voice spoke to [Peter] a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
    —Acts 10:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I believe no Christian has a right to take part in anything into which he or she cannot walk wholeheartedly with Jesus Christ. We can just toss out the two words “secular” and “sacred” from our vocabulary from now on and rejoice as we gladly call it all His!
    ... Eugenia Price (1916-1996), Discoveries: Made from Living My New Life, Zondervan, 1979, p. 105 (see the book)
    See also Acts 10:15; Num. 14:21; Hab. 2:14; Matt. 6:9-10; John 13:3; Rom. 1:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I walk with You in all things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Basil: on the solitary life

Thursday, January 2, 2025
    Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389
    Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, Staretz, 1833
Meditation:
    Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
    —Philippians 2:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Whose feet then will you wash? For whom will you perform the duties of care? In comparison with whom shall you be lower or even the last, if you live by yourself?
    ... St. Basil the Great (330?-379), The Rule of St Basil in Latin and English: A Revised Critical Edition, Anna Silvas, tr., Liturgical Press, 2013, Q. 3, p. 81 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 2:3; Matt. 20:16; John 13:3-5,12-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I be ever more conscious of the believing community You have placed me in. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Johnson: on the new year

Wednesday, January 1, 2025
    Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus
Meditation:
    May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
    —1 Thessalonians 5:23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Almighty God, who hast brought me to the beginning of another year, and by prolonging my life, invitest to repentance, forgive me that I have mispent the time past; enable me, from this instant, to amend my life according to thy holy word; grant me thy Holy Spirit, that I may so pass through things temporal, as not finally to lose the things eternal. O God, hear my prayer for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.
    ... Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), Prayers and Meditations, London: Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, 1806, January 1, 1757, p. 22 (see the book)
    See also 1 Thess. 5:23; Mark 10:15; John 17:17; Heb. 2:11; 2 Pet. 1:2-4; 1 John 1:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me faithfulness in the year to come. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wycliffe: the hungry people

Tuesday, December 31, 2024
    Commemoration of John Wycliffe, Reformer, 1384
Meditation:
    [The LORD:] “‘How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?”
    —Jeremiah 8:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Holy Ghost descended upon the heathen, as he did upon the apostles in Jerusalem; and Christ were so merciful to send the Holy Ghost to the heathen men, and he made them partakers of his blessed word; why should it then be taken from us [by Church rules forbidding English Bibles] in this land that be Christian men? Consider you whether it is not all one to deny Christ’s words for heresy, and Christ for an heretic? for if my word be a lie, then I am a liar that speaketh the word; therefore if my words be heresy, then am I a heretic that speaketh the word; therefore it is all one to condemn the word of God in any language for heresy, and God for an heretic that spake the word; for he and his word is all one, and they may not be separated... How may any antichrist for dread of God take it away from us that be Christian men, and thus suffer the people to die for hunger in heresy and blasphemy of man’s law that corrupteth and slayeth the soul?
    ... John Wycliffe (1320?-1384), Wyckett, in Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe, Robert Vaughan, ed., London: Blackburn and Pardon, 1845, p. 275-276 (see the book)
    See also Jer. 8:8; Ps. 19:9; Matt. 15:1-6; Luke 8:21; 11:28; John 5:39-40; Acts 2:4; 10:45; Rom. 3:1-2; 10:17; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Heb. 4:12; 2 Pet. 1:19-21; 1 John 2:27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is for Your whole people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: singing at midnight

Monday, December 30, 2024
Meditation:
    About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
    —Acts 16:25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The man of strength and power is to forgive and pray for his enemies, and the innocent sufferer who is chained in prison must, with Paul and Silas, at midnight sing praises to God. For God is to be glorified, holiness is to be practised, and the spirit of Religion is to be the common spirit of every Christian in every state and condition of life.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728], London: Methuen, 1899, p. 156-157 (see the book)
    See also Acts 16:25; Ps. 86:12; Matt. 5:44-45; Luke 6:27-28
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, implant the spirit of forgiveness in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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