“IT IS FINISHED'“
It is finished. John 19:30
Precious words that released young Hudson Taylor from years of doubt and striving! While reading a tract his eye caught the words, “The finished work of Christ.” He had known for years of the atoning work of Christ, but for the first time he saw that if it were a finished work there was nothing for him to do but accept it and praise God forever.
God has taken care of everything in Christ. My sins, my salvation, my life, my past and present and future, all my needs and the needs of the whole world, all are wrapped up in a finished work. If God has taken care of everything I do not need to try to take care of anything. I have only to believe, receive, rejoice, and then out of the fulness of my heart love and obey Him.
No matter what comes up, there is provision for it in Christ. And when we find that everything is in Jesus, He becomes to us everything!
“Finished”—not something with ragged edges and frazzled ends that I must piece out. God has taken care of everything forever in Christ. And we are complete in Him. Day by Day - Vance Havner
Nothing either great or small nothing sinner, no
Jesus died and paid it all long, long ago.
When He from His lofty throne stooped to do and die
Everything was fully done, hearken to His cry.
“It is finished!” yes, indeed, finished every jot:
Sinner, this is all you need—tell me is it not? James Proctor
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The Lord Knoweth:
Them that are His (2 Timothy 2:19);
His own sheep (John 10:14);
Them that trust in Him (Nahum 1:7);
What we need (Matthew 6:32);
The way I take (Job 23:10);
Our frame (Psalm 103:14);
How to deliver (2 Peter 2:9).
We Know:
That the Son of God is come (1 John 5:20);
That our Redeemer lives (Job 19:25);
Whom we have believed (2 Timothy 1:12);
That we have eternal life (1 John 5:13);
That all things work together for good (Romans 8:28);
That we have an eternal Home (2 Corinthians 5:1);
That we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2).
The Wonderful Word - George Henderson
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My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart. Job 17:11
Mine heart within me is broken. Jeremiah 23:9
Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings. Malachi 4:2
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. Psalm 147:3
My every wound to Thee I take to heal, for Thou art touched with every pang I feel;
O Friend of friends—the faithful, true and tried—in Thee, and Thee alone, I now confide.
What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a Friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Saviour still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake Thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In HIs arms He’ll take and shield thee; Thou will find a solace there.
Joseph M. Scriven
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But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
We are bound to have our days of rain, our times of tears, our hours of disappointment. There are bound to be blustery storms of testing, counter air-currents of frustration, and nights of darkness.
But through them all, in them all, our Father is always there. He does not desert us. He does not abandon us. He is at work in the environment of our lives, persistent in pressing in upon us in ways we do not always see, much less understand.
In these difficult, grievous, heavy times He expects that we shall simply settle down quietly upon the shore of His great grace and wait patiently for Him. He does not call us to beat our way with flashing wings and spent bodies against the storms of life. He does not ask us to fight the adverse winds in fury.
He simply tells us that those who wait upon the Lord, who wait for the weather to change, who wait for Him to alter the environment, will mount up with wings refreshed. They shall fly and not grow weary, borne aloft on the fresh updrafts of His faithfulness.
For, our Father is true to His children. Just as the sun will shine again after the storms have swept the beach, so the rising power of Christ’s presence will again warm the shore of my soul. The uplifting wind of His Spirit will once more bear up my spirit. Again I shall soar in strength and beauty. Songs of My Soul - Phillip Keller
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He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Hebrews 10:37
Even so, come Lord Jesus. Revelation 22:20
O joyful day! O glorious hour! when Jesus, by almighty power,
Revived and left the grave; in all His works behold Him great,
Before, almighty to create, almighty now to save!
The first begotten from the dead, He’s risen now, His people’s head,
And thus their life’s secure; and if, like Him, they yield their breathe,
Like Him they’ll burst the bonds of death, their resurrection sure.
Why should His people, then, be sad? none have such reason to be glad
As those redeemed to God: Jesus, the mighty Saviour, lives,
To them eternal life He gives, the purchase of His blood.
Then let our gladsome praise resound, and let us in His work abound,
Whose blessèd name is Love; we’re sure our labour’s not in vain,
For we with Him ere long shall reign—with Jesus dwell above. T. Kelly
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“They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.” Psalm 92:14
Some of the fruits of the Spirit seem to be especially and peculiarly characteristic of sanctified older years; and do we not want to bring them all forth? Look at the splendid ripeness of Abraham’s faith in his old age; the grandeur of Moses’ meekness, when, he went up the mountain alone to die; the mellowness of Paul’s joy in his later epistles; and the wonderful gentleness of John, which makes us almost forget his early character of “a son of thunder,” wanting to call down God’s lightnings of wrath.
The same Spirit is given to us, that we too may bring forth fruit that may abound, and always more fruit.
The brightest of all: “Even to your old age, I am He; always the same Jehovah-Jesus; with us all the days, bearing and carrying us “all the days;” reiterating His promise—”even to hoar hairs will I carry you…; even I will carry and will deliver you, just as He carried the lambs in His bosom. For we shall always be His little children, and doubtless He will always be our Father. The rush of years cannot touch this!
Fear not the westering shadows, O Children of the Day!
For brighter still and brighter, shall be your homeward way.
Resplendent as the morning, with fuller glow and power,
And clearer than the noonday, shall be your evening hour.
Royal Bounty - Francis Ridley Havergal
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He made as though He would have gone further. Luke 24:28
How perfect that little movement was! What title had He, a Stranger as He seemed to be, to intrude Himself on them? He had only joined them by the way, in the courtesy of one who was traveling the same road. What right had such a one to cross their threshold?
If Jesus be but a Stranger in our eyes, He will still walk outside. Till we know Him as the Saviour, the Lover of our souls, surely He asks for nothing. We may dwell in our own houses, and furnish our own tables, till then.
But when He is known by us as the Son of God Who has loved us and given Himself for us, then He claims a place in our hearts and our homes; and then will He dwell with us and sup with us (Revelation 3:20) as it were, unbidden; entering, in the person of some of His little ones, either to get a cup of cold water, or to have the feet washed, at moments when, perhaps, we looked not for Him.
The Gospel by Luke - J. G. Bellett
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Little Prayers
Lord Jesus receive my spirit. Acts 7:59
Sometimes we are very much disappointed with ourselves because we cannot pray proper prayers, only little ones that hardly seem to be prayers at all. I have been finding much comfort in the little prayers of the gospels. They could not be more little.
There was Peter’s, “Lord, save me”, (Matthew 14:30), and the poor mother’s, “Lord, help me”; (Matthew 15:25) and sometimes even less, no prayer at all but only the briefest telling of the trouble, “My servant lieth at home sick”; and less than that, a thought, and a touch, (Matthew 8:6); “She said within herself, If I may but touch. . .” (Matthew 9:21).
Again we hear of just a feeling, “They were troubled”, and a cry “They cried out for fear”—that was all, but it was enough. (Matthew 14:26).
Often in the throng of the day’s work and warfare, there will not be time for more than a very little prayer—a thought, a touch, a feeling, a cry—but it is enough; so tender, so near, is the love of our Lord. Edges of His Ways
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Give ear to my prayer, O God. Psalm 55:1
I will call upon God: and the Lord shall save me. Psalm 55:16
Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. Psalm 5:22
Prayer is prayer, whether it comes from the weak or the strong. It is not so much the heart or the lip from which it comes, though the heart must be clean and the lip sincere. It is the Ear to which it goes which is the great thing.
When God inlines the heart to pray,
He hath an ear to hear;
To Him there’s music in a groan,
And beauty in a tear.
The humble seeker cannot fail
To have his needs supplied,
Since He for sinners intercedes,
Who once for sinners died.
Benjamin Beddome
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Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)
I had the inestimable privilege of being brought up in a Christian home. I feel sure the well-being of a nation lies in the proportion of Christian mothers it possesses. The mind of a child is plastic, and takes impressions for good or evil at a very early age. One may and does forget a good deal of what was learned at a mother’s knee, but the impression lasts through life, and cannot be thrown off.
Many a young fellow has broken loose from the restraints of a Christian home, who in the end found early impressions too insistent to be disregarded, and lived to thank God for the prayers and training of a Christian mother. When I was only eleven years old I made a profession of faith in Christ. Looking back it was a very feeble and shallow start that was made. As I grew up to manhood many a time I was tempted to give up the profession of Christianity, but something held me back.
Infidel doubts assailed me. Any attack on the Bible distressed me and shook my confidence. Such questions as, Why does God allow evil? Why does He allow the devil to work such mischief in the world? Why was I born in sin and shaped in iniquity? crowded into my mind and shook my foundations. But all this only in the end led me to take a stronger hold on Christ as my Saviour.
It is said that a young sapling gets firmer hold of the soil as the result of fierce winds loosening the roots. When the storm is over, the loosened roots have room to push farther out, and take a firmer grip. The life and safety of a tree lie in the fact that there is as much out of sight below the surface as there is above ground. The taller the tree the longer and more far-reaching the roots.
So it is with the Christian. Nothing will stand the assault of the enemy save a true heart-knowledge of the Lord as Saviour, a true faith-grip of the Gospel of the grace of God. There must be an out-of-sight hold on divine realities before there can be effective Christian life and testimony. Why I Believe The Bible - A. J. Pollock
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Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be? 2 Peter 3:11
Then whose shall those things be? Luke 12:20
We live in an age of “things”. We strive to obtain necessities and luxuries that will bring us personal comfort and assure compliments from our friends. Tragically, we can only be certain of two facts regarding “things”. We will leave them behind for others, and they will ultimately be dissolved. May the Lord help us to desire Himself, not “things”. Arnot P. McIntee
Is there a thing beneath the sun,
That strives with Thee, my heart to share?
O, tear it thence and reign alone,
The Lord of every object there. — Charles Wesley
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These words . . . shall be in thine heart . . . bind them for a sign upon thine
hand . . . as frontlets between thine eyes. Deuteronomy 6:6,8.
Israelites bound pouches containing specific portions of God’s Word to their foreheads and hands, literally indicating that His words of wisdom were at the forefront of every thought and that His words would strengthen their hands for the day’s labour.
Our mouth is not only for food, but for the spiritual nutrition of His sustaining Word.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4).
Bound to our fingers, His words help us manipulate life’s complexities. “Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.” Proverbs 7:3 and at our feet they illuminate our walk. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” (Psalm 119:105).
The Scriptures should be no empty word for us but our every life. “Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify upon you. (Deuteronomy 32:46).” A daily read is a must!
Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life;
Let me more of Thy beauty see wonderful words of life,
Philip Bliss
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That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. Philippians 3:10
Hudson Taylor stopped at no sacrifice in following Christ. “Cross-loving men are needed,” he wrote in the midst of his labours in China, and if he could speak to us today would it not be to call us to the highest of all ambitions; “That I may know Him [the One we, too, supremely love], and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” Can we not hear again the tones of His quiet voice as He says:
“There is a needs be for us to give ourselves for the life of the world. An easy, non-self-denying life will never be one of power. Fruit-bearing in-and feeding upon the Word through which He reveals Himself to the waiting soul.”
It was not easy for Mr. Taylor, in his changeful life, to make time for prayer and Bible study, but he knew that it was vital. Well do the writers remember traveling with him month after month in Northern China, by cart and wheelbarrow, with the poorest of inns at night.
Often with only one large room for coolies and travellers alike, they would screen off a corner for their father and another for themselves, with curtains of some sort; and then, after sleep at last had brought a measure of quiet, they would hear a match struck and see the flicker of candlelight which told that Mr. Taylor, however weary, was pouring over the little Bible in two volumes always at hand. From two to four A. M. was the time he usually gave to prayer; the time when he could be most sure of being undisturbed to wait upon God. That flicker of candlelight has meant more to them than all they have read or heard on secret prayer; it meant reality, not preaching but practise.
The hardest part of a missionary career, Mr. Taylor found, is to maintain
regular, prayerful Bible study. “Satan will always find you something to
do,”he would say, “When you ought to be occupied about that, if it is only arranging a window blind. Take time. Give God time to reveal Himself to you. Take time to read His Word as in His presence, that from it you may know what He asks of you and what He promise you.” Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret
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Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes. Song of Solomon 2:15
As I set traps for the little foxes, so now I have to judge in myself anything that would hinder fellowship with Him, that would hinder my spiritual growth.
What are the little foxes that spoil the vine? I can tell you a good many. There are the little foxes of vanity, of pride, of envy, of evil speaking, of impurity (I think this though is a wolf instead of a little fox).
Then there are the little foxes of carelessness, of neglect of the Bible, of neglect of prayer, of neglect of fellowship with the people of God. These are the things that spoil the vine, that hinder spiritual growth. Deal with them in the light of the cross of Christ; put them to death before they ruin your Christian experience, do not give them any place.
Song of Solomon - H. A. Ironside
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