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, August 31, 2017

The Well Within~Hindrances In The Realm Of The Heart

There is another possible realm of hindrances to the up-welling of the Spirit, and this is the realm of the heart.

The Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of love.

If there is coldness towards the Lord, a lack of true devotion to Him, then this is like a heavy stone which makes the life more like a quagmire than a fresh spring.


Any reserve which we have, not in the knowing of God's will but in the willingness to do it, will inevitably stem the flow of the Spirit's power.

It is always the work of God's enemy to clog up our lives by introducing love of self or love of the world...

And it needs ruthless determination to remove the accumulated rubbish and re-dig the well in purity of devotion to Christ.

It may well be, though, that the hindrances arise from lack of love to our fellow believers.

We must remember that the Holy Spirit can never have free course in us and through us if we harbor unloving thoughts concerning other of God's children, let alone put those thoughts into actions.

He is the Spirit of fellowship, so that if we fail in that realm then we fail in the matter of love.

It is so easy to allow unworthy considerations to quench brotherly love...

To be clogged up with resentment...

Or to be wrongly influenced by our susceptibilities or hurt feelings.

What is more, we find it the easiest thing in the world to say or hear unkind things about others, things which put them in a bad light and somehow make us feel self-righteous.

We must not dismiss such matters as unimportant, for although they may seem small in themselves, they become the deposits which unite to clog up the well of the Spirit.

This matter of personal relationships is one in which we have to set ourselves definitely to digging out the earthiness which stops up the wells of the Spirit.

We must refuse to speak and refuse to listen to those critical accounts of other believers which would grieve them if they heard and do grieve the Spirit who is always present and who always hears.

More than that, we have to be active in positive cultivation of fellowship.

To some it is quite natural to be independent.

For them deference to others represents a major difficulty.

Sometimes they may deliberately ignore or despise others...

But sometimes they just prefer to do it alone and never seriously think of inter-relatedness and inter-dependence.

The Word of God, however, is most explicit in ordering us to esteem one another...

To submit to one another and to live and work together.
 

The Holy Spirit demands that the people of God live according to a team order of things, that they should be governed by a family spirit.

Anything which is of an isolated or detached nature, which fails to recognize and fully accept the family thought of God, is a check on Him.

By failing to observe fellowship we quench the Spirit.

It is not only a matter of avoiding giving offense but of active pursuit of fellowship.

Some may be wondering why there is so little up-springing from the inner well, when they are sitting back in a wrong kind of modesty, failing to bring in their own personal contribution to fellowship life and ministry.

Unkindness is not the only obstacle in this realm.

Shyness and diffidence can equally rest like a stone on the flow of life.

The only thing to do is to dig it up and move it away.

Get in, get right in, and let yourself go!

Do not always choose the back seat because you like to be left alone, but come forward in the Lord's name and give the Holy Spirit a free course in your lives.

He is well able to check you if you become too self-assertive...

But there is little He can do if your well is all stopped up with fears and inhibitions.

~T. Austin Sparks


Monday, August 28, 2017

Out Of Any Circumstance

Yes, I must and will pray. What else can I do! 

What better can I do? 

Betrayed, forsaken, grieved, baffled, O my LORD, I will call upon Thee. 

My Ziklag is in ashes, and men speak of stoning me; but I encourage my heart in the LORD, who will bear me through this trial as He has borne me through so many others.

Jehovah shall save me; I am sure He will, and I declare my faith. 

The LORD and no one else shall save me. 

I desire no other helper and would not trust in an arm of flesh even if I could. 

I will cry to Him evening, and morning, and noon, and I will cry to no one else, for He is all sufficient. 

How He will save me I cannot guess; but He will do it, I know. 

He will do it in the best and surest way, and He will do it in the largest, truest, and fullest sense.

Out of this trouble and all future troubles the great I AM will bring me as surely as He lives...

And when death comes and all the mysteries of eternity follow thereon, still will this be true: "the LORD shall save me."

This shall be my song all through this autumn day.

Is it not as a ripe apple from the tree of life?

I will feed upon it.

How sweet it is to my taste!

~Charles Spurgeon~

Monday, August 21, 2017

Night of Weeping; Joyous Day

Psa 30:5  For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

A moment under our Father's anger seems very long, and yet it is but a moment after all.

If we grieve His Spirit, we cannot look for His smile...

But He is a God ready to pardon, and He soon puts aside all remembrance of our faults.

When we faint and are ready to die because of His frown, His favor puts new life into us.

This verse has another note of the half of duration kind.

Our weeping night soon turns into joyous day.
 

Shortness of time is the mark of mercy in the hour of the chastisement of believers.

The LORD loves not to use the rod on His chosen; He gives a blow or two, and all is over...

Yea, and the life and the joy, which follow the anger and the weeping, more than make amends for the salutary sorrow.

Come, my heart, begin thy hallelujahs!

Weep not all through the night, but wipe thine eyes in anticipation of the morning.

These tears are dews which mean us as much good as the sunbeams of the morrow.

Tears clear the eyes for the sight of God in His grace and make the vision of His favor more precious.

A night of sorrow supplies those shades of the pictures by which the highlights are brought out with distinctness.
All is well.

~Charles Spurgeon~        
                                                      


Friday, August 18, 2017

Seekers, Finders

                                                     
We need our God; He is to be had for the seeking, and He will not deny Himself to any one of us if we personally seek His face.
 
It is not if thou deserve Him, or purchase His favor, but merely if thou "seek" Him.

Those who already know the LORD must go on seeking His face by prayer, by diligent service, and by holy gratitude:

To such He will not refuse His favor and fellowship. 

Those who, as yet, have not known Him to their souls' rest should at once commence seeking and never cease till they find Him as their Savior, their Friend, their Father, and their God. 

What strong assurance this promise gives to the seeker! "He that seeketh findeth."

You, yes you, if you seek your God shall find Him. 

When you find Him you have found life, pardon, sanctification, preservation, and glory.

Will you not seek, and seek on, since you shall not seek in vain' Dear friend, seek the LORD at once. 

Here is the place, and now is the time. 

Bend that stiff knee; yes, bend that stiffer neck, and cry out for God, for the living God. 

In the name of Jesus, seek cleansing and justification. 

You shall not be refused.

Here is David's testimony to his son Solomon, and it is the writer's personal witness to the reader. 

Believe it and act upon it, for Christ's sake.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Monday, August 14, 2017

Child Chastisement Not Forever

1Ki 11:39  And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever. 

In the family of grace there is discipline, and that discipline is severe enough to make it an evil and a bitter thing to sin.

Solomon, turned aside by his foreign wives, had set up other gods and grievously provoked the God of his father; therefore, ten parts out of twelve of the kingdom were rent away and set up as a rival state. 

This was a sore affliction to the house of David, and it came upon that dynasty distinctly from the hand of God, as the result of unholy conduct. 

The LORD will chasten His best beloved servants if they cease from full obedience to His laws: perhaps at this very hour such chastening is upon us.

Let us humbly cry, "O LORD, show me wherefore thou contendest with me."

What a sweet saving clause is that..."but not for ever"!

The punishment of sin is everlasting, but the fatherly chastisement of it in a child of God is but for a season.

The sickness, the poverty, the depression of spirit, will pass away when they have had their intended effect.

Remember, we are not under law but under grace, The rod may make us smart, but the sword shall not make us die. 

Our present grief is meant to bring us to repentance that we may not be destroyed with the wicked.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Saturday, August 12, 2017

“Oh That I Were As In Months Past.”

                                                  
Numbers of Christians can view the past with pleasure, but regard the present with dissatisfaction...

They look back upon the days which they have passed in communing with the Lord as being the sweetest and the best they have ever known, but as to the present, it is clad in a sable garb of gloom and dreariness.

Once they lived near to Jesus, but now they feel that they have wandered from him, and they say, “O that I were as in months past!”

They complain that they have lost their evidences, or that they have not present peace of mind, or that they have no enjoyment in the means of grace, or that conscience is not so tender, or that they have not so much zeal for God’s glory.

The causes of this mournful state of things are manifold.

It may arise through a comparative neglect of prayer, for a neglected closet is the beginning of all spiritual decline.

Or it may be the result of idolatry.

The heart has been occupied with something else, more than with God; the affections have been set on the things of earth, instead of the things of heaven.

A jealous God will not be content with a divided heart; he must be loved first and best.

He will withdraw the sunshine of his presence from a cold, wandering heart.

Or the cause may be found in self-confidence and self-righteousness.

Pride is busy in the heart, and self is exalted instead of lying low at the foot of the cross.

Christian, if you are not now as you “were in months past,” do not rest satisfied with wishing for a return of former happiness, but go at once to seek your Master, and tell him your sad state.

Ask his grace and strength to help you to walk more closely with him; humble yourself before him, and he will lift you up, and give you yet again to enjoy the light of his countenance.

Do not sit down to sigh and lament; while the beloved Physician lives there is hope, nay there is a certainty of recovery for the worst cases.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

The LORD Desires Us To Go On


Php 3:13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

Php 3:14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

The Lord desires us to go on.

Sometimes going on means loneliness in going on where others cannot go with us.

That means a price is bound up with obedience.

It may mean a big break, a big change.

It is the challenge of whether we are adjustable before the Lord.

Our adjustability is the proof of our utterness for the Lord.

That proof being there, the Lord is able to bring us on into all His thought.

Let us remember always that we shall never get to a place while we are here where there is not some higher level and some greater fullness of Christ.

There will always be yet another step, and perhaps another after that, higher on.

Let us have our hearts set upon reaching all.

The Lord will so graduate things as to make the challenge not too severe.

He takes us a step at a time, and He does not want us to take six steps at a bound, or to contemplate six steps at a time.

He shows us our next step, and that is all we have to be concerned about now.

The other steps will come at the right time.

Every step prepares us for the next.

Very often our lives are like mountain climbing.

You see from below to a certain height, and that seems to be the top, and you make for it.

And when you get to it, you see a little further on that there is another top.

You think that must be the very top, and so you make for it, and when you get to it there is something still further.

You never do seem to get to the top!

But we shall arrive at last.

The Lord hides the other things and says: "Now, that is your next step; obey that and fuller revelation will come after that."

Those of us who look back and see how terrible a thing it would have been if the Lord had shown us at one time all that to which we have been brought, know that if we had seen it all at one time, we could not have gone on.

We see that He brought us by stages, and today we are not ungrateful for the price paid, in view of the measure of Christ which we enjoy and the greater fullness of revelation.

Let us ask the Lord to put into us the spirit of His servant: “Not that I have already obtained it... but one thing I do... I press on....”

~T. Austin Sparks~


Saturday, August 5, 2017

God's Plans Demand Implicit Obedience.

So he arose and went to Zarephath, as before he had gone to Cherith, and as presently he would go to show himself to Ahab. 

A Christian lady, who had learned amongst us the blessedness of a surrendered life, and was soon after obliged to find
another home across the ocean, came back quite recently, over thousands of miles of land and water, to visit the scene of that act, in the hope that she would find again her former joy, which had faded like the hues of a too radiant dawn. 


But to her disappointment, though she worshiped on the
same sacred spot, and listened to the sounds of the well-known voice, she could not recover the priceless jewel she had lost. 


At last the cause appeared. 

She had been living in conscious disobedience to the will of Christ, expressed through her conscience and His Word. 

The motives that prompted the disobedience had a touch of nobility about them; but it was disobedience still, and it
wrought its own penalty.
 

This is the true cause of failure in so many Christian lives. 

We catch sight of God's ideal...

We are enamored with it...

We vow to be only His...
 

We use the most emphatic words...

We dedicate ourselves upon the altar...

For a while we seem to tread another world, bathed in heavenly light.
 

Then there comes a command clear and unmistakable.
 

We must leave some beloved Cherith, and go to some unwelcome Zarephath...

We must speak some word...

Take some step...

Cut off some habit...

And we shrink from it...

The cost is too great...

But, directly we refuse obedience, the light dies off the
landscape of our lives, and dark clouds fling their
shadows far and near. 


We do not win salvation by our obedience; that
is altogether the gift of God, to be received by faith
in the finished work of Jesus Christ our Lord.
 

But, being saved, we must obey. 

Our Savior adjures us, by the love we bear to Himself, to keep
His commandments. 


And He does so because He wants us to taste His rarest gifts, and because He knows that in the keeping of His commandments there is great reward.
 

Search the Bible from board to board, and see if strict, implicit, and instant obedience has not been the secret of the noblest lives that ever lit up the dull monotony of the world.

The proudest title of our King was the Servant of Jehovah. 

And none of us can seek to realize a nobler aim than that which was the inspiration of His heart: "I come to do Thy will, O my God." 

Mary, the simple-hearted mother, uttered a word which is
pertinent to every age, when, at the marriage-feast, she turned to the servants and said, "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."
 

F. B. Meyer

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Wait With Patience

Psa 37:7  Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.  

Have you prayed and prayed and waited and waited, and still there is no manifestation?

Are you tired of seeing nothing move? 

Are you just at the point of giving it all up?

Perhaps you have not waited in the right way?

This would take you out of the right place the place where He can meet you.

With patience wait.

Rom 8:25  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Patience takes away worry. 

He said He would come, and His promise is equal to His presence. 

Patience takes away your weeping. 

Why feel sad and despondent?

He knows your need better than you do, and His purpose in waiting is to bring more glory out of it all. 

Patience takes away self-works.

The work He desires is that you "believe". (John 6:29), and when you believe, you may then know that all is well. 

Patience takes away all want. 

Your desire for the thing you wish is perhaps stronger than your desire for the will of God to be fulfilled in its arrival.
     
 Patience takes away all weakening.


Instead of having the delaying time, a time of letting go, know that God is getting a larger supply ready and must get you ready too.

Patience takes away all wobbling. 

Make me stand upon my standing (Daniel 8:18, margin). 

God's foundations are steady; and when His patience is within, we are steady while we wait.

Patience gives worship. 

A praiseful patience sometimes "long-suffering with joyfulness" (Col. 1:11) is the best part of it all. 

Let (all these phases of) patience have her perfect work" (James 1:4), while you wait, and you will find great enrichment.

~C. H. P~.
 

Hold steady when the fires burn, When inner lessons come to learn,
     

And from this path there seems no turn  "Let patience have her perfect work."
 

~L.S.P.~