Pascal: seeking Him

Monday, April 20, 2026
Meditation:
    [Jesus] told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,
    ”‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
        and ever hearing but never understanding;
    otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”
    —Mark 4:11-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God wanted to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek Him. But men make themselves so unworthy of it that it is only just that God should refuse to some, because of the hardness of heart, what He gives to others from a compassion that they do not deserve. If He had wanted to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened, He could have done so by revealing Himself to them so obviously that they could not have doubted the truth of His Being—just as He will appear at the last day with such a clap of thunder and such an upheaval of nature that the dead will revive and the blindest will see.
    It is not in this way, however, that He willed to appear at His gentle coming: because so many men had made themselves unworthy of His mercy, He willed to leave them deprived of the good which they did not desire. And so it would not have been fair for Him to have appeared in an obviously divine manner, absolutely capable of convincing all men. But also it would not have been fair for Him to appear in a manner so hidden that even those who were sincerely seeking Him should not be able to recognize Him... So He has tempered His knowledge, by giving marks of Himself which were visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who seek Him not.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) [1660], P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, #430, p. 143-144 (see the book)
    See also Mark 4:11-12; Ex. 33:19; Isa. 6:9-10; Matt. 7:7; 11:25; 13:11-12; Luke 8:10; 10:21; Rom. 9:15-16; Jas. 1:16-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I pray that the blindness be lifted from ____ and ____, that they may see Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Maurice: the beam in my own eye

Sunday, April 19, 2026
    Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
    —Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christians in general are far too eager to urge special exceptions when they hear these charges [of corruption in the church] preferred; far too ready to make out a case for themselves while they admit their application to others; far too ready to think that the cause of God is interested in the suppression of facts. The prophets should have taught us a different lesson. They should have led us to feel that it was a solemn duty, not to conceal, but to bring forward all the evidence which proves, not that one country is better than another, or one portion of the church better than another, but that there is a principle of decay, a tendency to apostasy in all, and that no comfort can come from merely balancing symptoms of good here against symptoms of evil there, no comfort from considering whether we are a little less contentious, a little less idolatrous than our neighbours.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, Cambridge: Macmillan, 1853; Boston: Crosby, Nichols, 1853, p. 461-462 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 7:3-5; Isa. 65:2-5; Matt. 3:7-10; Luke 6:41-42; 18:11; Jas. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, cleanse the whole church for Your name’s sake. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Shoemaker: God at work in all things

Saturday, April 18, 2026
Meditation:
    For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.
    —1 Timothy 6:10-11 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Anybody with any maturity knows that an experienced Christian is more eager to have God use him than he is to use God for his own ends; but this does not mean that God is absent from the processes of business and livelihood, nor unconcerned about them, nor unable to reveal Himself through them. When we begin to look upon work, business, money, as potential sacraments through which God can work, we shall make better use of them.
    ... Samuel M. Shoemaker (1893-1963), The Experiment of Faith, New York: Harper, 1957, p. 29 (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 6:10-11; Ps. 2:11; Rom. 12:11; Eph. 4:28; 1 Thess. 4:11-12; 2 Thess. 3:7-12; Tit. 3:14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, sanctify the things in my life, so that they may serve You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kraemer: steps to renewal

Friday, April 17, 2026
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
    —Matthew 10:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If one thing is clear as soon as the Church becomes serious about its missionary and ministerial calling for the world, it is that two difficult roads in particular have to be trodden: first, the road towards overcoming the scantiness of its knowledge of the world of today, and its ignoring of what really goes on in the world under its surface; secondly, the road towards reforming its spirit, atmosphere, and inherited structure, in so far as they give no room for new vitality.
    ... What can and must be said and resaid, with all gratitude for what in many places is already happening, is that a fearless scrutiny and revision of structure is one of the most urgent aspects of a renewal of the Church.
    ... Hendrik Kraemer (1888-1965), A Theology of the Laity, London: Lutterworth Press, 1958, p. 177 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 10:16; Isa. 42:9; Luke 10:3; 1 Cor. 14:20; Eph. 5:15-17; Phil. 2:14-16; 1 Thess. 5:22; Rev. 21:5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may You be glorified in all the activities of Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Neill: the only remedy

Thursday, April 16, 2026
Meditation:
    And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
    —Luke 5:29-32 (ESV)
Quotation:
    This Christian claim [of universal validity] is naturally offensive to the adherents of every other religious system. It is almost as offensive to modern man, brought up in the atmosphere of relativism, in which tolerance is regarded almost as the highest of the virtues. But we must not suppose that this claim to universal validity is something that can quietly be removed from the Gospel without changing it into something entirely different from what it is... Jesus’ life, his methods, and his message do not make sense, unless they are interpreted in the light of his own conviction that he was in fact the final and decisive word of God to men... For the human sickness there is one specific remedy, and this is it. There is no other.
    ... Stephen Neill (1900-1984), Christian Faith and Other Faiths, London: Oxford U.P., 1970, p. 16-17 (see the book)
    See also Luke 5:29-32; John 10:7-9; 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 2:23; Rev. 20:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I embrace Your exclusivity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Moule: the Church's one foundation

Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Meditation:
    For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
    —1 Corinthians 15:22-23 (ESV)
Quotation:
    From the very first, the conviction that Jesus had been raised from death has been that by which [the Christians’] very existence has stood or fallen. There was no other motive to account for them, to explain them... At no point within the New Testament is there any evidence that the Christians stood for an original philosophy of life or an original ethic. Their sole function is to bear witness to what they claim as an event—the raising of Jesus from among the dead... The one really distinctive thing for which the Christians stood was their declaration that Jesus had been raised from the dead according to God’s design, and the consequent estimate of him as in a unique sense Son of God and representative man, and the resulting conception of the way to reconciliation.
    ... C. F. D. Moule (1908-2007), The Phenomenon of the New Testament, v. I, London: SCM, 1967, p. 11,14,18 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 15:17-23; Mark 14:27-28; 16:5-6; Rom. 3:25-26; 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:3-8; 1 Pet. 2:24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me a witness in the world to Christ’s resurrection. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: authorities

Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Meditation:
    [Jesus concluding a parable:] “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
    “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
    —Luke 16:30-31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous... never occurs. Now I do not want here to discuss whether the miraculous is possible: I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon, “If miraculous, unhistorical,” is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics in the world counts for nothing. On this they speak simply as men—men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Fern-seed and Elephants, Walter Hooper, Fontana, 1975, p. 113 (see the book)
    See also Luke 16:30-31; Amos 4:6-11; Matt. 13:58; Luke 13:3; Rom. 1:20; Rev. 16:9-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I need Your power and grace in my life, and Your miracles in my struggles. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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