M'Cheyne: the vastness

Sunday, February 2, 2025
    THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE
Meditation:
    I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
    —Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Paul says: “The love of Christ passeth knowledge.” It is like the blue sky into which you may see clearly, but the real vastness of which you cannot measure.
    ... Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843), The Works of the Late Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne, New York: R. Carter, 1847, p. 435 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 3:16-19; Isa. 38:17; Rom. 8:35-39; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 John 4:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love exceeds all my needs. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Peterson: our daily troubles

Saturday, February 1, 2025
    Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525
Meditation:
He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.
    —Psalm 121:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We practice patent-medicine religion: we know that God created the universe and has accomplished our eternal salvation. But we can’t believe that he condescends to watch the soap opera of our daily trials and tribulations; so we purchase our own remedies for that. To ask him to deal with what troubles us each day is like asking a famous surgeon to put iodine on a scratch. But Psalm 121 says that the same faith that works in the big things works in the little things.
    ... Eugene H. Peterson (1932-2018), A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, InterVarsity Press, 2000, p. 40 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 121; Deut. 28:6; Ps. 91:9-10; Pr. 2:7-8; 3:23; Isa. 49:10; Matt. 6:13; Rom. 8:28; 2 Tim. 4:18; 1 Pet. 1:3-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I commit all my cares to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Day: the new man

Friday, January 31, 2025
    Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888
Meditation:
    In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
    —Hebrews 12:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We have to begin to see what Christianity really is, that “our God is a living fire; though He slay me yet will I trust Him.” We have to think in terms of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount and have this readiness to suffer. “We have not yet resisted unto blood.” We have not yet loved our neighbor with the kind of love that is a precept to the extent of laying down our life for him. And our life very often means our money, money that we have sweated for; it means our bread, our daily living, our rent, our clothes. We haven’t shown ourselves ready to lay down our life. This is a new precept, it is a new way, it is the new people we are supposed to become.
    ... Dorothy Day (1897-1980), Meditations—Dorothy Day, Paulist Press, 1970, p. 88 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 12:4; Deut. 4:24; Job 13:15; Matt. 5:3-11; Heb. 12:29
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me a sacrificial heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newbigin: does culture rule?

Thursday, January 30, 2025
    Commemoration of Lesslie Newbigin, Bishop, Missionary, Teacher, 1998
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
    —John 15:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Jesus is understood in the light of the assumptions which control our culture. When reason is invoked as a parallel or supplementary authority to “Scripture” and “tradition,” what is happening is that Jesus is being co-opted into the reigning plausibility structure. But the business of the missionary, and the business of the Christian Church in any situation, is to challenge the plausibility structure in the light of God’s revelation of the real meaning of history.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1989, p. 96 (see the book)
    See also John 15:18-19; 1:10; 16:33; Acts 2:36; 17:30; Rom. 3:25-26; 2 Cor. 7:10; Tit. 2:11-12; 1 Pet. 1:14-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that we may be used in challenging the world’s view of Jesus. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Amiel: ascent to the divine

Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Meditation:
    When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
    —1 Corinthians 15:54 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To curse grief is easier than to bless it, but to do so is to fall back into the point of view of the earthly, the carnal, the natural man. By what has Christianity subdued the world if not by the apotheosis of grief, by its marvellous transmutation of suffering into triumph, of the crown of thorns into the crown of glory, and of a gibbet into a symbol of salvation? What does the apotheosis of the Cross mean, if not the death of death, the defeat of sin, the beatification of martyrdom, the raising to the skies of voluntary sacrifice, the defiance of pain?
    ... Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881), The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, tr. Mrs. Humphry Ward, New York: Macmillan, 1885, p. 262 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 15:54-57; Ps. 30:11; Isa. 25:7-8; Matt. 5:4; Luke 20:36; John 11:35; 16:33; Rom. 8:35-37; 1 John 5:4; Rev. 21:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have transformed all the grief in my life to joy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Aquinas: the two natures demonstrated

Tuesday, January 28, 2025
    Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274
Meditation:
    Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
    —Isaiah 7:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ wished so to show the reality of His body, as to manifest His Godhead at the same time. For this reason He mingled wondrous with lowly things. Wherefore, to show that His body was real, He was born of a woman. But in order to manifest His Godhead, He was born of a virgin, for “such a Birth befits a God,” as Ambrose says in the Christmas hymn.
    ... Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274), Summa Theologica [1274], Benziger Bros. edition, 1947, p. III, q. xxviii, a. 2 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 7:14; Matt. 4:2; Luke 1:26-35; 24:39-43; John 1:14; Rom. 8:3-4; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 4:2-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You share our humanity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Weinel: the path of humility

Monday, January 27, 2025
Meditation:
    And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.
    —Isaiah 35:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is yet another, a more excellent way: it is to go forward with heart glad and thankful for progress in all that is good, and to look upon increased conviction of sin as a part of such progress. This path true and humble men of heart can alone tread, and neither Philistine, self-satisfied respectability, nor Nietzsche’s “superman” can walk thereon, but only such as gratefully acknowledge that the wiser and the better they become, they receive all from their heavenly Father.
    ... Heinrich Weinel (1874-1936), St. Paul, the Man and His Work, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906, p. 93 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 35:8; Jer. 3:22; Rom. 8:34; 1 Tim. 1:15; 2:5-6; Heb. 7:25; 1 John 1:9; 2:1; Rev. 7:15-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I may walk forgiven with You, despite my sins and flaws. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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