Isa 43:10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Facts Vs. Feelings

2Co 5:7  (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
     
By faith, not appearance; God never wants us to look at our feelings. 

Self may want us to; and Satan may want us to.

But God wants us to face facts, not feelings; the facts of Christ and of His finished and perfect work for us.

When we face these precious facts, and believe them because God says they are facts, God will take care of our feelings.
     
God never gives feeling to enable us to trust Him; 

God never gives feeling to encourage us to trust Him; 

God never gives feeling to show that we have already and utterly trusted Him.
     
God gives feeling only when He sees that we trust Him apart from all feeling, resting on His own Word, and on His own faithfulness to His promise.
     
Never until then can the feeling (which is from God) possibly come;

And God will give the feeling in such a measure and at such a time as His love sees best for the individual case.
     
We must choose between facing toward our feelings and facing toward God's facts. 

Our feelings may be as uncertain as the sea or the shifting sands.

God's facts are as certain as the Rock of Ages, even Christ Himself, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

When darkness veils His lovely face  I rest on His unchanging grace;

In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Belief, Not Understanding

John 11:40  Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
     
Mary and Martha could not understand what their Lord was doing.

Both of them said to Him, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."

Back of it all, we seem to read their thought: "Lord, we do not understand why you have stayed away so long.

We do not understand how you could let death come to the man whom you loved.

We do not understand how you could let sorrow and suffering ravage our lives when your presence might have stayed it all.

Why did you not come?

It is too late now, for already he has been dead four days!

And to it all Jesus had but one great truth: "You may not understand; but I tell you if you believe, you will see."

Abraham could not understand why God should ask the sacrifice of the boy; but he trusted.

And he saw the glory of God in his restoration to his love.

Moses could not understand why God should keep him forty years in the wilderness, but he trusted; and he saw when God called him to lead forth Israel from bondage.
     
Joseph could not understand the cruelty of his brethren, the false witness of a perfidious woman, and the long years of an unjust imprisonment; but he trusted, and he saw at last the glory of God in it all.
     
Jacob could not understand the strange providence which permitted the same Joseph to be torn from his father's love, but he saw the glory of God when he looked into the face of that same Joseph as the viceroy of a great king, and the preserver of his own life and the lives of a great nation.
     
And so, perhaps in your life. You say, "I do not understand why God let my dear one be taken.

I do not understand why affliction has been permitted to smite me.

I do not understand the devious paths by which the Lord is leading me.

I do not understand why plans and purposes that seemed good to my eyes should be baffled.

I do not understand why blessings I so much need are so long delayed.
     
Friend, you do not have to understand all God's ways with you. 

God does not expect you to understand them. 

You do not expect your child to understand, only believe.

Some day you will see the glory of God in the things which you do not understand

~J. H. M.~
     
If we could push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all God's working see, We might interpret all this doubt and strife, And for each mystery could find a key.
     
But not today.

Then be content, poor heart; God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold.

We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart - Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.
     
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest, When we shall clearly know and understand, I think that we shall say, 'God knew best.'

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Fear To Fear

Whenever fear comes in and makes us falter, we are in danger of falling into sin.

Conceit is to be dreaded, but so is cowardice. "Dare to be a Daniel." 

Our great Captain should be served by brave soldiers.

What a reason for bravery is here! God is with those who are with Him. 


God will never be away when the hour of struggle comes.

Do they threaten you? 

Who are you that you should be afraid of a man that shall die? 

Will you lose your situation?

Your God whom you serve will find bread and water for His servants.

Can you not trust Him? 

Do they pour ridicule upon you? 

Will this break your bones or your heart? 

Bear it for Christ's sake, and even rejoice because of it.

God is with the true, the just, the holy, to deliver them; and He will deliver you.


Remember how Daniel came out of the lions' den and the three holy children out of the furnace. 

Yours is not so desperate a case as theirs; but if it were, the LORD would bear you through and make you more than a conqueror.

Fear to fear. 

Be afraid to be afraid. 

Your worst enemy is within your own bosom.

Get to your knees and cry for help, and then rise up saying, "I will trust, and not be afraid."

~Charles Spurgeon~

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Christ's Intolerance Is Based On His Love

The intolerance of Jesus is very signally the intolerance of love. 

Love beareth all things - all things except one, and that is the harm or hurt of the beloved. 

Here is a little child out in the streets, ragged and shoeless in the raw March weather.

Let it stay out till midnight, no one complains at home.

Let it use the foulest of language, no one corrects it.

Poor little waif, in whom all things are tolerated, and tolerated just because no one loves it!

What kind of mother has that little child? What kind of father has that little child?

You know them in the street, swollen and coarse, reeking with all the vileness of the city.

They tolerate everything because they do not love; when love steps in, that toleration ceases. 

Now we all know that when our Saviour came, He came at the bidding and in the power of love; love wonderful, love that endured the worst, love that went up to Calvary to die.

And just because that love was so intense, and burned with the ardor of the heart of God, things that had been tolerable once were found to be intolerable now.

That is the secret of the Gospel's sternness and of its passionate protest against sin. 

That is why age after age it clears the issues, and says, "He that is not with me is against me."

The love that beareth all things cannot bear that hurt or harm should rest on the beloved. 

Christ is intolerant because He loves.

~George H. Morrison~

Friday, March 10, 2017

Walk In Light

John 12:46  I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

This world is dark as midnight; Jesus has come that by faith we may have light and may no longer sit in the gloom which covers all the rest of mankind.

Whosoever is a very wide term: it means you and me.


If we trust in Jesus we shall no more sit in the dark shadow of death but shall enter into the warm light of a day which shall never end.

Why do we not come out into the light at once?

A cloud may sometimes hover over us, but we shall not abide in darkness if we believe in Jesus. 


He has come to give us broad daylight. Shall He come in vain.' 

If we have faith we have the privilege of sunlight: let us enjoy it. 

From the night of natural depravity, of ignorance, of doubt, of despair, of sin, of dread, Jesus has come to set us free; and all believers shall know that He no more comes in vain than the sun rises and fails to scatter his heat and light.

Shake off thy depression, dear brother.


Abide not in the dark, but abide in the light. 

In Jesus is thy hope, thy joy, thy heaven, Look to Him, to Him only, and thou shalt rejoice as the birds rejoice at sunrise and as the angels rejoice before the throne.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

It Is Better To Trust In The LORD Than To Put Confidence In Man

Doubtless the reader has been tried with the temptation to rely upon the things which are seen, instead of resting alone upon the invisible God.

Christians often look to man for help and counsel, and mar the noble simplicity of their reliance upon their God. 

Does this evening’s portion meet the eye of a child of God anxious about temporals, then would we reason with him awhile.

You trust in Jesus, and only in Jesus, for your salvation, then why are you troubled?

Because of my great care.

Is it not written, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord”? 

Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication make known your wants unto God.

Cannot you trust God for temporals? 

Ah! I wish I could.

If you cannot trust God for temporals, how dare you trust him for spirituals?

Can you trust him for your soul’s redemption, and not rely upon him for a few lesser mercies?

Is not God enough for thy need, or is his all-sufficiency too narrow for thy wants? 

Dost thou want another eye beside that of him who sees every secret thing?

Is his heart faint? Is his arm weary?
 

If so, seek another God; but if he be infinite, omnipotent, faithful, true, and all-wise, why gaddest thou abroad so much to seek another confidence? 

Why dost thou rake the earth to find another foundation, when this is strong enough to bear all the weight which thou canst ever build thereon?

Christian, mix not only thy wine with water, do not alloy thy gold of faith with the dross of human confidence.

Wait thou only upon God, and let thine expectation be from him.

Covet not Jonah’s gourd, but rest in Jonah’s God.

Let the sandy foundations of terrestrial trust be the choice of fools, but do thou, like one who foresees the storm, build for thyself an abiding place upon the Rock of Ages.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Saturday, March 4, 2017

The Egyptions Are Dead Upon The Shore

Exo 14:30  Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.

What a relief that morning brought from the anxieties of the previous night!

Then, as they lifted up their eyes, they saw Pharaoh and the dreaded Egyptian taskmaster in full pursuit; now they beheld the seashore strewn with their bodies, stark and cold.

They would never see them again, nor hear the crack of their whips.

So in life we are permitted to see the dreaded temptations and evils of earlier days suddenly deprived of all power to hurt us. 

The Egyptians are dead upon the shore; and we see the great work of the Lord. 

Let us take comfort in this.

In the pressure of trial...You are suffering keenly; yet remember that no trial is allowed to come from any source in which there is not a Divine meaning.

Nothing can enter your life, of which God is not cognizant, and which He does not permit. 

Though the pressure of your trial is almost unbearable, you will one day see your Egyptians dead.

Amid the temptations of the great adversary of souls. - They may seem at this moment more than you can bear; 

But God is about to deliver you.

He can so absolutely free you from the habits of self-indulgence which you have contracted...

And from the perpetual yielding to temptation to which you have been prone, that some day you will look with amazement and thankfulness on these things, as Egyptians dead on the seashore.

So also in the presence of death. - Many believers dread, not the after-death, but the act of dying.

But as the morning of eternity breaks, they will awake with songs of joy to see death and the grave and all the evils that they dreaded, like Egyptians, strewn on the shores of the sea of glass.

~F. B. Myer~