Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Tillotson: wealth an opportunity for doing good

Thursday, February 13, 2025
Meditation:
    If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
    —1 John 3:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Wealth and riches; that is, an estate above what sufficeth our real occasions and necessities, is in no other sense a blessing than as it is an opportunity put into our hands, by the providence of God, of doing more good.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VI, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CXLII, p. 551 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 3:17; Luke 12:15; Gal. 6:9-10; Jas. 2:6-7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me more aware of the needs around me.
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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Barclay: evil

Wednesday, February 12, 2025
    Commemoration of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (Nicolas Herman), spiritual writer, 1691
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!”
    —John 8:44-45 (NIV)
Quotation:
    However difficult the idea of a power of evil may be theologically or philosophically, it is an idea which experience understands only too well. Those who cannot believe in and accept the good news of Christ are those who have so given themselves over to the evil of the world that they can no longer hear God’s invitation. It is not that God has shut them out or abandoned them; they by their own conduct have shut themselves off from him.
    ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Letters to the Corinthians, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2nd ed., 1956, p. 219 (see the book)
    See also John 8:44-45; Isa. 30:9-12; John 3:19; 10:25-27; 12:42-43; Rom. 2:7-8; Heb. 3:12-13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, without Your grace, I resist the Gospel.
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Monday, February 10, 2025

Yancey: changing the deal

Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Meditation:
    The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.
    —James 1:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In a world ruled by law, grace stands as a sign of contradiction. We want fairness; the gospel gives us an innocent man nailed to a cross who cries out, “Father, forgive them.” We want respectability; the gospel elevates tax collectors, prodigals, and Samaritans. We want success; the gospel revises the terms, moving the poor and downtrodden to the head of the line and the wealthy and famous to the rear.
    ... Philip Yancey (b. 1949), Soul Survivor, New York: Doubleday, 2001, p. 139 (see the book)
    See also Jas.1:9-10; Matt. 9:10-13; 11:19; 19:30; Mark 2:15-17; 9:35; 10:31; Luke 5:30-32; 13:30; 23:34
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I be released from clinging to things.
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Sunday, February 09, 2025

Mangalwadi: the challenge

Monday, February 10, 2025
    Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543
Meditation:
    For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
    —Romans 8:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To bear witness to the Kingship of Christ is to pick a fight with the prince of death, who wishes to keep this world in bondage to decay.
    ... Vishal Mangalwadi (b. 1949), in Nailing India to the Cross, Albinus Minz, M. Kiran & Company, 2000, p. 198 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:20-21; John 12:31; Eph. 2:1-2; 6:12; Col. 2:15; 2 Pet. 1:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have overcome the prince of this world.
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Saturday, February 08, 2025

Kreeft: love, the ultimate meaning

Sunday, February 9, 2025
Meditation:
    This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
    —1 John 4:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    Our own deepest instincts are to see love as the highest wisdom and ultimate meaning of life. The theology of divine love, which anchors this instinct in the nature of ultimate reality itself, tells us that our deepest values “go all the way up”. It also extends this instinctive wisdom, that sees love as the ultimate meaning of things, into the entire creation. The arms of the Savior on the cross reach up to the Absolute and down to the depths of the human heart and across the whole universe from atoms to archangels. When Jesus threw open his arms on the Cross, he said, in effect: “See? That’s how much I love you.”
    ... Peter Kreeft (b. 1937), The God Who Loves You, Ignatius Press, 2004, p. 105 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 4:9-10; Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:6-7,24; John 3:16-17; 12:27; Rom. 3:25-26; Eph. 5:1-2; 1 John 2:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love is without limit.
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Friday, February 07, 2025

Kreeft: the dungeon of the enlightenment

Saturday, February 8, 2025
Meditation:
    To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
    —Deuteronomy 10:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [The theology of divine love] frees us from the dusty, dirty, smelly little dungeon of a universe that “Enlightenment” thought gave us: a universe in which love and beauty and praise and value are mere subjective fictions invented by the human mind, a universe in which the only things that are objectively real are blind bits of energy randomly bumping into each other. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Peter Kreeft (b. 1937), The God Who Loves You, Ignatius Press, 2004, p. 105 (see the book)
    See also Deut. 10:14; Ex. 19:5-6; 1 Chr. 29:11; Job 38:4-7; Ps. 19:1; 24:1; 1 Cor. 10:26
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit fills the earth.
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Thursday, February 06, 2025

Tozer: God's speech

Friday, February 7, 2025
Meditation:
    For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
    —2 Peter 1:21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us to put into our familiar human words.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948], Christian Publications, 1982, p. 72 (see the book)
    See also 2 Pet. 1:21; Matt. 3:17; 10:19-20; 17:5; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:11-12; John 1:1-2; 2 Tim. 3:16-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your people thirst for Your word.
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