Erasmus: full-time Christianity

Sunday, July 12, 2026
Meditation:
    We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
    —Romans 6:9-11 (ESV)
Quotation:
    I take it that every Christian delivers himself up wholly to God in his baptism, when he renounces all the pomps and vanities of Satan, and enlists himself as a soldier to fight under Christ’s banner all his life after. And Saint Paul, speaking of those that die with Christ, that they may live no longer to themselves, but to Him that died for them; does not mean this of monks only, but of Christians universally.
    ... Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536), The Colloquies of Erasmus, v. II, London: Reeves & Turner, 1878, p. 286 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:9-11; 14:7-8; 1 Cor. 6:19-20; 2 Cor. 5:15; Phil. 1:21; 1 Thess. 5:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to a life lived for You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: the will to goodness

Saturday, July 11, 2026
    Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550
Meditation:
    And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
    —Romans 8:28 (KJV)
Quotation:
    No creature can be a child of God but because the goodness of God is in it; nor can it have any union or communion with the goodness of the Deity till its life is the Spirit of Love. This is the one only band of union betwixt God and the creature... Here the necessity is absolute; nothing will do instead of this will; all contrivances of holiness, all forms of religious piety, signify nothing, without this will to all goodness. For as the will to all goodness is the whole nature of God, so it must be the whole nature of every service or religion that can be acceptable to him.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Love [1752-4], in Works of Rev. William Law, v. VIII, London: G. Moreton, 1893, p. 5 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:28; Gen. 50:20; Ps. 46:1-2; 2 Cor. 4:15-17; 5:1; 1 Pet. 1:7-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we are held in Your goodness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Grou: true path to peace

Friday, July 10, 2026
Meditation:
    Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
    —James 4:7-8 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The soul which gives itself wholly and without reserve to God is filled with His own Peace; and inasmuch as we are prone to grow like that to which we are closely united, the closer we draw to our God, so much the stronger and more steadfast and more tranquil shall we become.
    ... Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803), The Hidden Life of the Soul, London: Rivingtons, 1870, p. 2 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 4:7-8; Ps. 73:28; 145:18; Isa. 55:6-7; Hosea 6:1-2; Matt. 11:29; Rom. 14:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me what I may be in You. Grant this also to ____ and to ____, that they may have renewed peace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: the adventure in Christ's appeal

Thursday, July 9, 2026
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
    —Luke 14:28-33 (ESV)
Quotation:
    And think of the appeal Christ made to men and women! He had many, but His favourite was to their chivalry and valour. Often He underlines the difficulties of discipleship, warns us what it will cost, that it means risk and loss and sacrifice, and pulling hard against fierce currents; and then He turns and looks at us, with that honouring trust of His in us that sets the blood tingling, and makes the cheeks flush with pride. That, He says quietly, is why I am so sure that you will come: you are too big to keep out of it! And, indeed, in His own day, it was only daring and adventurous spirits who would risk declaring for Him, as it is only daring and adventurous spirits still who have the pluck to try to follow so original and unpopular a Master in the real living-out of life.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924, p. 168 (see the book)
    See also Luke 14:26-33; Matt. 8:20; 10:22; 20:22-23; John 16:23; Acts 21:13; Rom. 8:18,36-37; Heb. 11:13; 2 Pet. 1:13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the courage to follow You unconditionally. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: the Spirit of Love in you

Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Meditation:
    For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
    —2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)
Quotation:
    Now this is the ground and original of the Spirit of Love in the creature, it is and must be a will to all goodness; and you have not the Spirit of Love in you till you have this will to all goodness at all times and on all occasions. You may indeed do many works of love and delight in them, especially at such times as they are not inconvenient to your state or temper or occurrences in life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Love [1752-4], in Works of Rev. William Law, v. VIII, London: G. Moreton, 1893, p. 4 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 1:7; Rom. 5:5; 8:15; Gal. 5:22-23; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 4:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, enlarge my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Owen: transfiguring love

Tuesday, July 7, 2026
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
    —John 13:34 (NIV)
Quotation:
    All love, in general, hath an assimilating efficacy; it casts the mind into the mould of the thing beloved... Every approach unto God by ardent love and delight is transfiguring.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), V.1 in A Discourse Concerning Holy Spirit, bk. I-V [1674], in Works of John Owen, v. III, London: Johnson & Hunter, 1852, p. 585 (see the book)
    See also John 13:34; Ps. 30:4; 37:1-6; 40:8; Zech. 9:17; 1 Cor. 13:4-8; 1 John 3:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I love others as You have loved me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dodd: Paul on baptism

Monday, July 6, 2026
    Feast of John Huss, Reformer, Martyr, 1415
    Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, &
    John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535
Meditation:
    What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
    —Romans 6:1-3 (ESV)
Quotation:
    [Paul] makes use of the symbolism of baptism, which in the East was performed by the complete immersion of the believer in water. “We were buried with Christ through our baptism (and so entered) into a state of death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the splendour of the Father, we too might walk in the newness which belongs to (real) life.” To the rite as such Paul did not attach overwhelming importance. “Christ,” he says, “did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel.” ... Paul recognized in the idea a most suggestive figure for the change wrought by faith in Christ. He found it necessary to guard against the crude sacramentalism which found in the mere physical process, as such, the actual impartation of new life, quite apart from anything taking place in the realm of inward experience. The Israelites in the wilderness ... received baptism in the Red Sea and in the cloud which ove rshadowed them; and yet they were disobedient, “the majority of them God did not choose,” and they perished miserably. The inference is plain. No sacramental act achieves anything unless it is an outward symbol of what really happens inwardly in experience. The test of that is the reality of the new life as exhibited in its ethical consequences. “How can we who are dead to sin live any longer in sin?” If baptism is a real dying and rising again, then it is indeed a profound revolution in the personal life, a revolution which is simply bound to show itself in a new moral character.
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 118-119 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:1-11; 1 Cor. 1:1-11,13-17; 10:1-5; Col. 2:10-13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we acknowledge Your power and grace in sacraments, as You directed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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