Dale: why Christ came

Sunday, September 6, 2026
    Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851
    Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965
Meditation:
    For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
    —John 3:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ came, not so much to preach the Gospel, as that there might be a Gospel to preach.
    ... Robert W. Dale (1829-1895), parapharsed from The Atonement, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1875, p. 46 (see the book)
    See also John 3:17; 1:17; 14:6; Rom. 3:21-22; 5:20-21; 2 Cor. 1:20; Heb. 9:22; Rev. 5:9-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your presence within is the Gospel. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tauler: the price of true peace

Saturday, September 5, 2026
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
    —Matthew 6:24 (ESV)
Quotation:
    If we ever are to attain to true Divine Peace, and be completely united to God, all that is not absolutely necessary, either bodily or spiritually, must be cast off; everything that could interpose itself to an unlawful extent between us and Him, and lead us astray: for He alone will be Lord in our hearts, and none other; for Divine Love can admit of no rival.
    ... Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361), The Inner Way, Sermon XV (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:24; Ps. 119:113; 1 Sam. 7:3; Luke 16:13; Rom. 6:17-18; Gal. 1:10; Jas. 1:6-8; 4:4; 1 John 2:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    I confess, Lord, that I am double-minded. Raise in me that complete allegiance that serves the Kingdom alone. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: Scripture and Spirit

Friday, September 4, 2026
    Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650
Meditation:
    But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
    —1 Corinthians 2:9-11 (ESV)
Quotation:
    As God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find any acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken by the mouth of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts, to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what has been divinely commanded.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559], tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, I.vii.4, p. 79 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 2:9-11; John 5:39-40; 8:13-19; 15:26; Rom. 8:16; Heb. 10:15-17; Jude 1:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, send Your Spirit that I may be persuaded of the truth of Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gregory: Christ, our forerunner

Thursday, September 3, 2026
    Feast of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher, 604
Meditation:
    For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
    —1 Peter 2:21 (ESV)
Quotation:
    All that which our blessed Saviour wrought in his mortal body, he did it for our example and instruction, to the end that, following his steps, according to our poor ability, we might without offense pass over this present life.
    ... St. Gregory the Great (540?-604), The Dialogues of Saint Gregory, P. L. Warner, 1911; Arx Publishing, LLC, 2010, p. 33 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 2:21; John 13:15; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 11:1; Eph. 5:1-2; 1 John 2:6; 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me to follow You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Berdyaev: reality or appearance?

Wednesday, September 2, 2026
    Commemoration of Martyrs of Papua New Guinea, 1942
Meditation:
    And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
    —Matthew 9:10-13 (ESV)
Quotation:
    There is no longer any room in the world for a merely external form of Christianity, based upon custom... The world is entering upon a period of catastrophe and crisis when we are being forced to take sides, and in which a higher and more intense kind of spiritual life will be demanded from Christians.
    ... Nicholas Berdyaev (1874-1948), Freedom and the Spirit, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1935, 1944, p. 268 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 9:10-13; 5:46-47; 24:6-7; John 9:31; 1 Tim. 1:13-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me choose only that which is authentically Yours and leave customs and forms behind. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rupp: the City of God

Tuesday, September 1, 2026
    Commemoration of Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710
Meditation:
    One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
    —Revelation 21:9-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Here in Pilgrim’s Progress there is the ultimate human nostalgia for that City of God, which is the restless heart’s true home. And even the cynical, the unbelieving and half-believing reader who goes with Christian to the end of the road must be a little shaken, may tremble to see something like a gate and also some of the glory of the place, and, glimpsing something of the company within the golden gates, may wish himself among them.
    ... Gordon Rupp (1910-1986), “John Bunyan”, in Six makers of English Religion, 1500-1700 [1957], Ayer Publishing, 1974, p. 101 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 21:9-27; Gal. 4:26-27; Eph. 2:19-20; 3:6; Phil. 3:20-21; Heb. 12:22-24; Rev. 21:2
Quiet time reflection:
    I praise You, Lord, for the glorious future You have planned. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Stanley: Bunyan's "dark night"

Monday, August 31, 2026
    Feast of Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 651
    Commemoration of Cuthburga, Founding Abbess of Wimborne, c.725
    Commemoration of John Bunyan, Spiritual Writer, 1688
Meditation:
    ... the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.
    —Matthew 4:16 (ESV)
Quotation:
    [John Bunyan] had to live through that obscure night—“wide, vast, and lonely”—which fell upon St. John of the Cross before; like him, he knew that grace would enter “the dark caverns where the senses live.” In the meantime, Bunyan tossed to and fro, as it were between heaven and hell. It has been said that he paints too dark a picture of his moral condition when a young man, that he exaggerates his wickedness at this period, and afterwards wrestles with phantoms of his vivid imagination. But spiritual sins, though not so obvious as those that are sensual, may be just as real; and Bunyan’s intensity of feeling and expression arose from the intensity of his spiritual nature.
    ... Arthur Stanley (c. 1873-1961), The Bedside Bunyan: an anthology of the writings of John Bunyan, John Bunyan, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1947, p. 126 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 4:16; Ps. 107:10-14; Isa. 9:1-2; 42:6-7; 60:1-3; Mic. 7:8; Matt. 9:12-13; Luke 1:76-79; 2:30-32
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am not serious enough about my sin. Help me not to treat it lightly. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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