Trueblood: Who seeks us

Sunday, April 13, 2025
    Palm Sunday
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”
    —Luke 7:47 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We believe love is a moral absolute because it reflects the nature of God. Genuine religion thus differs from philosophy or ethics, however noble and necessary they are. True religion is not man’s search for the good life, important as that might be; neither is it our effort to find God, inevitable as that may be; true religion is our response to Him who seeks us. It is not an argument for God, but a response to God’s love.
    ... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), The Life We Prize, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951, p. 211 (see the book)
    See also Luke 7:47; John 3:16; 15:16; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Tit. 3:4-7; 1 John 4:10,19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love compels me to seek You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: sleeping and waking

Saturday, April 12, 2025
Meditation:
    In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
    —John 16:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Cultivate the habit of falling asleep with the Lord’s Prayer on your lips every evening when you go to bed and again every morning when you get up. And if occasion, place, and time permit, pray before you do anything else.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), Luther’s Works, v. 24, Sermons on the Gospel of John 14-16, Jaroslav Pelikan, ed., Concordia Publishing House, 1974, p. 387 (see the book)
    See also John 16:23-24; Ps. 5:3; 88:13; 119:147; Isa. 26:9; Matt. 6:6,9-12; Mark 1:35
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my heart echoes Your prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pascal: two kinds of reasonable people

Friday, April 11, 2025
    Commemoration of George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878
Meditation:
    Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger.
    —Zephaniah 2:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #194, p. 75 (see the book)
    See also Zeph. 2:3; Amos 5:14; Matt. 5:6; 6:33; 7:7-8; Luke 11:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have made Yourself known to me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: the desire for salvation

Thursday, April 10, 2025
    Feast of William Law, Priest, Mystic, 1761
    Commemoration of William of Ockham, Franciscan Friar, Philosopher, Teacher, 1347
    Commemoration of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Priest, Scientist, Visionary, 1955
Meditation:
Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks:
    so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God:
    when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
    —Psalm 42:1-2 (BCP)
Quotation:
    O plain, and easy, and simple way of salvation, wanting no subtleties of art or science, no borrowed learning, no refinements of reason, but all done by the simple natural motion of every heart, that truly longs after God. For no sooner is the finite desire of the creature in motion towards God, but the infinite desire of God is united with it, co-operates with it. And in this united desire of God, and the creature, is the salvation and life of the soul brought forth.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer [1749], London: E. Justins for Ogles, Duncan, and Cochran, 1816, p. 47 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 42:1-2; 63:1; 84:2; 143:6-7; John 6:37-39; 7:37; Rev. 22:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my heart longs to be united with You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: the reason for prayer

Wednesday, April 9, 2025
    Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945
Meditation:
    Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
    —Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We pray to God because we believe in him through Jesus Christ; that is to say, our prayer can never be an entreaty to God, for we have no need to come before him in that way. We are privileged to know that he knows our needs before we ask him. This is what gives Christian prayer its boundless confidence and its joyous certainty. It matters little what form of prayer we adopt or how many words we use, what matters is the faith which lays hold on God and touches the heart of the Father who knew us long before we came to him.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The Cost of Discipleship, Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 163 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 4:16; Matt. 6:32; Jer. 1:5; 2 Cor. 3:4; Eph. 3:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my confidence is in You alone. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Amiel: the one thing needful

Tuesday, April 8, 2025
    Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877
Meditation:
Taste and see that the LORD is good;
    blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
    —Psalm 34:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is but one thing needful—to possess God. All our senses, all our powers of mind and soul, all our external resources, are so many ways of approaching the Divinity, so many modes of tasting and of adoring God. We must learn to detach ourselves from all that is capable of being lost, to bind ourselves absolutely only to what is absolute and eternal, and to enjoy the rest as a loan, a usufruct... To adore, to understand, to receive, to feel, to give, to act: there is my law, my duty, my happiness, my heaven.
    ... Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881), The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, tr. Mrs. Humphry Ward, New York: Macmillan, 1885, p. 1 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 34:8; Eccl. 5:11-16; Isa. 40:6-8; 55:2; Hab. 2:13; Matt. 6:19-21; 16:26; Mark 8:36-37; John 4:13-14; 6:27; 2 Cor. 4:18; Col. 3:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me discern the eternal. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jellett: asking for a miracle?

Monday, April 7, 2025
Meditation:
    Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
    —Mark 2:8-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The truth is that, to ask God to act at all and to ask Him to perform a miracle, are one and the same thing.
    ... John Hewitt Jellett (1817-1888), The Efficacy of Prayer, London: Macmillan, 1878, p. 41 (see the book)
    See also Mark 2:8-11; Matt. 9:4-6; 10:29; Luke 5:22-24; John 7:21-24; 10:24-26,32; 1 Cor. 1:22-23; 12:28
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, that You have saved me is a miracle. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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