Prayer, Thanksgiving, Praise

Php 4:6  Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.   
 
Php 4:7  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus

No care but all prayer. No anxiety but much joyful communion with God. Carry your desires to the LORD of your life, the guardian of your soul.

Go to Him with two portions of prayer and one of fragrant praise. 

Do not pray doubtfully but thankfully. Consider that you have your petitions, and therefore thank God for His grace.

He is giving you grace; give Him thanks, Hide nothing. Allow no want to lie rankling in your bosom; "make known your requests."

Run not to man. Go only to your God, the Father of Jesus, who loves you in Him.

This shall bring you God's own peace. You shall not be able to understand the peace which you shall enjoy.

It will enfold you in its infinite embrace. Heart and mind through Christ Jesus shall be steeped in a sea of rest.

Come life or death, poverty, pain, slander, you shall dwell in Jesus above every rolling wind or darkening cloud.

Will you not obey this dear command?

Yes, LORD, I do believe thee; but, I beseech thee, help mine unbelief.

~Charles Spurgeon~

And The LORD Shall Make Thee The Head, And Not The Tail

Deut. 28:13  And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: 

If we obey the Lord, He will compel our adversaries to see that His blessing rests upon us.

Though this be a promise of the law, yet it stands good to the people of God; for Jesus has removed the curse, but He has established the blessing.

It is for saints to lead the way among men by holy influence: they are not to be the tail, to be dragged hither and thither by others.

We must not yield to the spirit of the age, but compel the age to do homage to Christ.

If the Lord be with us, we shalt not crave toleration for religion, but we shall seek to seat it on the throne of society.

Has not the Lord Jesus made His people priests'' Surely they are to teach and must not be learners from the philosophies of unbelievers.

Are we not in Christ made kings to reign upon the earth? 

How, then can we be the servants of custom, the slaves of human opinion?

Have you, dear friend, taken up your true position for Jesus?

Too many are silent because diffident, if not cowardly. 

Should we allow the name of the Lord Jesus to be kept in the background?

Should our religion drag along as a tails Should it not rather lead the way and be the ruling force with ourselves and others.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Four Costs Of Becoming A True Christian:

1. It will cost him his self-righteousness. He must cast away all pride and high thoughts, and conceit of his own goodness.

He must be content to go to heaven as a poor sinner saved only by free grace, and owing all to the merit and righteousness of Christ.

He must be willing to give up all trust in his own morality, respectability, praying, Bible-reading, Church-going, and sacrament-receiving, and trust in nothing but Jesus Christ.

Let us set down this item first and foremost in our account. To be a true Christian it will cost a man his self-righteousness.

2. It will cost a man his sins. He must be willing to give up every habit and practice which is wrong in God’s sight.
 
He must set his face against it, quarrel with it, break off from it, fight with it, crucify it, and labor to keep it under, whatever the world around him may say or think.

He must do this honestly and fairly. There must be no separate truce with any special sin which he loves.

He must count all sins as his deadly enemies, and hate every false way. Whether little or great, whether open or secret, all his sins must be thoroughly renounced.

Let us set down that item second in our account. To be a Christian it will cost a man his sins.

3. It will cost a man his love of ease. He must take pains and trouble, if he means to run a successful race towards heaven.
 
He must daily watch and stand his guard, like a soldier on enemy’s ground.

He must take heed to his behavior every hour of the day, in every company, and in every place, in public as well as in private, among strangers as well as at home.

He must be careful over his time, his tongue, his temper, his thoughts, his imaginations, his motives, his conduct in every relation of life.

He must be diligent about his prayers, his Bible-reading, and his use of Sundays, with all their means of grace.

This also sounds hard. There is nothing we naturally dislike so much as ‘trouble’ about our religion.

We hate trouble. We secretly wish we could have a ‘vicarious’ Christianity, and could be good by proxy, and have everything done for us.

Anything that requires exertion and labor is entirely against the grain of our hearts.

But the soul can have ‘no gains without pains.’ Let us set down that item third in our account. To be a Christian it will cost a man his love of ease.”

4. It will cost a man the favor of the world. He must be content to be thought ill of by man if he pleases God.

He must count it no strange thing to be mocked, ridiculed, slandered, persecuted, and even hated.

He must not be surprised to find his opinions and practices in religion despised and held up to scorn.

He must submit to be thought by many a fool, an enthusiast, and a fanatic – to have his words perverted and his actions misrepresented. In fact, he must not marvel if some call him mad.

I dare say this also sounds hard. We naturally dislike unjust dealing and false charges, and think it very hard to be accused without cause.

We should not be flesh and blood if we did not wish to have the good opinion of our neighbors.

It is always unpleasant to be spoken against, and forsaken, and lied about, and to stand alone.

But there is no help for it. The cup which our Master drank must be drunk by His disciples. They must be ‘despised and rejected of men’ (Isaiah 53:3).

Let us set down that item last in our account. To be a Christian it will cost a man the favor of the world.

Summary: Bold indeed must that man be who would dare to say that we may keep our self-righteousness, our sins, our laziness, and our love of the world, and yet be saved?

I grant it costs much to be a true Christian. But who in his sound senses can doubt that it is worth any cost to have the soul saved?

When the ship is in danger of sinking, the crew think nothing of casting overboard the precious cargo.

When a limb is mortified, a man will submit to any severe operation, and even to amputation, to save life.

Surely a Christian should be willing to give up anything which stands between him and heaven.

A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing! A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.

Let there be no mistake about my meaning. I am not examining what it costs to save a Christian’s soul. I know well that it costs nothing less that the blood of the Son of God to provide atonement, and to redeem man from hell.
 
The price paid for our redemption was nothing less than the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary.

The point I want to consider is another one altogether. It is what a man must be ready to give up.

It is the amount of sacrifice a man must submit to if he intends to serve Christ.

It is in this sense that I raise the question, ‘What does it cost?’ And I believe firmly it is a most important one.

~J. C. Ryle~

Faith Is A Target

Luke 22:31  And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: 

Luke 22:32  But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.  

Our faith is the center of the target at which God doth shoot when He tries us; and if any other grace shall escape untried, certainly faith shall not.

There is no way of piercing faith to its very marrow like the sticking of the arrow of desertion into it; this finds it out whether it be of the immortals or no.

Strip it of its armor of conscious enjoyment, and suffer the terrors of the Lord to set themselves in array against it; and that is faith indeed which can escape unhurt from the midst of the attack.

Faith must be tried, and seeming desertion is the furnace, heated seven times, into which it might be thrust. Blest the man who can endure the ordeal!

~C. H. Spurgeon~
 
Paul said, "I have kept the faith," but he lost his head! They cut that off, but it didn't touch his faith.

He rejoiced in three things--this great Apostle to the Gentiles; he had "fought a good fight," he had "finished his course," he had "kept the faith."

What did all the rest amount to? St. Paul won the race; he gained the prize, and he has not only the admiration of earth today, but the admiration of Heaven.

Why do we not act as if it paid to lose all to win Christ?

Why are we not loyal to truth as he was? 

Ah, we haven't his arithmetic. He counted differently from us; we count the things gain that he counted loss.

We must have his faith, and keep it if we would wear the same crown.

Christ Is Never Far Away

When Peter began to sink, his Saviour was not far away. Immediately He put out His hand and grasped him. 

How far Peter had walked upon the water the narrative of Scripture does not tell us. 

Shall we say fifty yards, or shall we say a hundred yards?--it matters not whether fifty or a hundred. 

If the nearest human hand was fifty yards away, the hand of Christ was not fifty yards away; immediately He put forth His hand and helped him.

My brother, just beginning to sink, will you remember that Christ is at your side?

All human help may seem very far away; remember that He is not very far away. He is near you now; near you where you sit.

You need Him sorely and He is there for you. 

Cry out now, "Lord, save me, or I perish," and He will do it to the uttermost for you.

~George H. Morrison~

Launch Out Into The Deep

Luke 5:4  Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
 
Many difficulties and perplexities in connection with our Christian life might be best settled by a simple and bold decision of our will to go forward with the light we have and leave the speculations and theories that we cannot decide for further settlement.

What we need is to act, and to act with the best light we have, and as we step out into the present duty and full obedience, many things will be made plain which it is no use waiting to decide.

Beloved, cut the Gordian knot, like Alexander, with the sword of decision. 

Launch out into the deep with a bold plunge, and Christ will settle for you all the questions that you are now debating, and more probably show you their insignificance, and let you see that the only way to settle them is to overleap them.

They are Satan's petty snares to waste your time and keep you halting when you should be marching on.

The mercy of God is an ocean divine, A boundless and fathomless flood;
      
Launch out in the deep, cut away the shore line, And be lost in the fulness of God.

~A. B Simpson~

There Is A Cost~A Great Cost

Col 3:9  Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
 
Col 3:10  And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
 
Christ Himself, when He was here, never failed to let people know that when they entered that door, or that straight and narrow way, they were in for trouble.

Now that may sound like a very terrible thing to say, especially to you young Christians who are not far inside the door, but be perfectly clear about it; the Lord Jesus never deceived anybody about this, never at all.

He let people know that to “follow Him,” as He put it at that time, involved them in difficulty and suffering and persecution and trial and a lifelong thing.

There is a cost here, a great cost. 

And we shall discover that while there are the compensations, for there are undoubtedly the compensations in this life and the mighty compensations for eternity, this is a way which is not easy for the natural man by any means.

This work of the Holy Spirit is drastic, exacting, and very trying to the flesh.

Make no mistake about it; it will take all the energy that the Holy Spirit Himself has to accomplish this work. It really will. So the Lord Jesus has not left us in any doubt about this.

But note, and I am glad the Apostle Paul puts it like this, because it is so true to experience, “The new man who is being renewed.” 

Notice, first there was a precise and definite transaction, “Ye put off” and “ye put on,” but now the work that is going on is not a single act of a single moment and a single day, but it is something that is going on in us.

~T. Austin Sparks~

He Will Be An Enemy Unto Thine Enemies

Exo 23:22  But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.    

IT is a most helpful thought that the angel of the covenant in whom is God's name, always precedes us. 

In our march through the wilderness we perceive His form, which is viewless to others, and realize that His strong hand prepares our path. 

Let us be very careful not to grieve or disobey Him, lest we lose His mighty championship. 

Strict obedience to His slightest whisper secures the certainty of His vindication of us from the wrongs we suffer at the hands of our foes. 

A little further on the same voice promises to send a hornet before the chosen host (Exodus 23:28). 

He who is an angel to the saint is a hornet to his foes. A swarm of hornets is the most relentless and irresistible foe that man can face.

Have you enemies? Be sure that they hate you only for the truth's sake, and because darkness must always be in antagonism to light. 

Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled.

But see to it that you cherish no spirit of hatred or retaliation toward them. Think of the misery of their heart, which is full of jealousy, envy, and bitterness. Pity and pray for them.

When we are right with God we shall have many new enemies. All who hate Him will hate us. 

But this is rather to our credit than otherwise.

Those who have defamed the master of the household will be hostile to his servants. 

But when our cause is one with God's, and His foes ours, our foes are His, and He deals with them; He stands between us and their hate.

He will not leave us in their hands; He will give us vindication and deliverance.      

~F. B. Meyers~

In Jesus There Was Never Any Hesitancy

There is one element in the character of Jesus which is well worthy of our consideration.

It is the element which, in default of a better word, one might describe as His decisiveness. 

In other men, even the greatest, you catch continually the note of hesitancy. 

Even in the most dogmatic person you have the occasional sense of possible mistake.

But in the Jesus given us in the Gospels there is not the faintest trace of such a hesitancy.

There is an absolute and instantaneous certainty in the face of every problem and perplexity.

In other lives, if such certainty be found, it is found generally in exalted hours. It is found in those rare and elevated moments when the mists are scattered somehow, and we know. 

But with Jesus this decisiveness was normal.

He had not to wait for any glorious hours. It never seems to have left Him for an instant as He moved among the villages of Galilee.

From the first recorded utterance of His boyhood, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" on to the last glad triumph on the cross, when He exulted in the thought that it was finished, there is not visible one shadow of perplexity, nor any halting as of uncertain feet, nor any clouding, even for a moment, of the serene decisiveness of Christ.

~George H. Morrison~

In The Midst Of All The Wild Scene~Stephen Fell Asleep!

When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him! 

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look!" he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"

At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. 

While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 

Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!" When he had said this, he fell asleep." Acts 7:54-60

To Stephen, dying was only breathing out his soul into the hands of Jesus Christ! He knew it was not death but life, which was before him.

His body was being mangled and broken but his spirit, his real self, could not be harmed. 

Beyond the strange mystery of death Jesus waits to receive the departing spirit. Death is only a gateway through which the soul passes and then life and glory burst upon the vision of the emancipated spirit!

Very beautiful is the picture of death which is given here: "He fell asleep." Sleep is death's new, sweet name! 

What a picture of peace the word suggests, right here in the heart and fury of the mob! In the midst of all the wild scene  Stephen fell asleep!

We think of a tired child creeping into the mother's bosom and falling asleep. Sleep is not a terrible experience; it is nothing to be dreaded. 

We sleep when we are weary and we awake refreshed. Sleep is not the cessation of life. We expect to awake, after we have slept. 

As we part for the night, we do not say, "Farewell," but "Goodnight," for we expect to meet again in the morning.

This beautiful Scriptural designation of death tells us, therefore, of life beyond, of resurrection, of immortality. 

We shall awake from this sleep of death and our life shall go on again. 

We shall awake refreshed, lying down weary and rising strong; lying down sick, or old, or deformed, or worn-out and rising well, young and radiant in heavenly beauty!

~J. R. Miller~

VISION ESSENTIAL FOR UNITY

Such a vision has many side-effects and values, one of which is the resolving of the whole question of unity.

And what a question that is! I hardly know what to say and what not to say, for there is so much.

Take up the first Letter to the Corinthians and what have you there? People with internal dissensions, divisions and quarrellings, and anything but unity and oneness.

Paul knew it well before he went to them, and so he said: "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). To him that was the one all-unifying thing - a focused vision of Jesus Christ and His Cross. 

If you have this what I am calling 'vision', this dominating sense of purpose and meaning given by the Lord, it will resolve so much of this trouble manifested in divisions and lack of real fellowship. A vision of Jesus Christ is a unifying dynamic.  

We go to the Old Testament for an illustration. Take the case of Nehemiah. Well, Nehemiah had a vision. He was a man of vision. 

He saw Jerusalem rebuilt, with the wall reconstructed and made complete. He had a vision of this new Jerusalem on the earth for that time, and he was a man who was tremendously mastered by his vision. 

Then all these poor people - and they were a bedraggled remnant! - came back, with all the possibilities of more disintegration, murmurings and quarrellings to hinder the realization of this thing that had mastered this man. 

But what? They shared his vision! They were gathered up into it. They met persecution, opposition, and everything that could deter them, but the verdict was: "The wall was finished... in fifty and two days" (Nehemiah 6:15). 

Why? Because the people had a mind to work. And what was that mind? Well, it was this vision of the purpose which had been put into the heart of this man and which unified the people. 

Let the devil come along and do everything that he can to discourage and make difficulty! 

He even tried the subtle ruse of trying to get Nehemiah to come and have a conference in order to discuss things. 'No!' said Nehemiah, 'Not on your life! I am doing a great work and I will not come down there.' 

You see the power of a mighty objective, a vision, to unify, to energize, to keep going? Do we not need that? Does not Christianity need that? Do we not need it in our assemblies? 

We do indeed need something like that, so we must have this new apprehension of God's purpose and will as centered in His Son concerning us, a mighty, animating power in life that is (as I have said and want to say again) more powerful than all our capacity for giving up and being discouraged and resigning.

It is more powerful than all the weaknesses of our own souls.
Oh, I do thank God for survival! That is a weak word, I know. It is not enough to say that we survive, for we are doing more than surviving, but in order to survive all this that is against us, there must be something more than ourselves.

The Word says: "God is greater than our heart" (1 John 3:20), and we have proved that many times. Our hearts have fainted and well-nigh given up the struggle, but He is greater than our hearts.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The End Of Our Strength

John 20:29  Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

How strong is the snare of the things that are seen, and how necessary for God to keep us in the things that are unseen!

If Peter is to walk on the water he must walk; if he is going to swim, he must swim, but he cannot do both. 

If the bird is going to fly it must keep away from fences and the trees, and trust to its buoyant wings. But if it tries to keep within easy reach of the ground, it will make poor work of flying.

God had to bring Abraham to the end of his own strength, and to let him see that in his own body he could do nothing. 

He had to consider his own body as good as dead, and then take God for the whole work; and when he looked away from himself, and trusted God alone, then he became fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able to perform.

That is what God is teaching us, and He has to keep away encouraging results until we learn to trust without them, and then He loves to make His Word real in fact as well as faith.

~A. B. Simpson~

I do not ask that He must prove His Word is true to me, And that before I can believe He first must let me see.

It is enough for me to know 'Tis true because He says 'tis so; On His unchanging Word I'll stand And trust till I can understand.

~E. M. Winter~