“Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?"
(Hebrews 12:9)
Your character may not be vindicated down here.
Jesus died under a cloud.
He was never cleared in this world of the false accusations
that had been made against Him.
The will of God was the only law of Christ’s life.
He was never governed by human considerations or affections.
Are we set upon this—that the will of God should be our only law?
A soul who is in the secret of the divine mind
must be content to be unappreciated and to walk alone.
If we are not in the path of God’s will
we are not in the path of power.
Our true wisdom is in subjection to the will of our Lord.
To human eyes no plan of taking Jericho could
have been more foolish than that
which Joshua adopted; but
it was God’s plan,
and hence its complete success.
(Edward Dennett - Footprints for Pilgrims)
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November 1
THE DEPARTING ANGEL
“And forthwith the angel departed from him.”
(Acts 12:10)
The angel had brought Peter out of prison through the gate and safely outside.
Now the miracle was over and the angel took his leave.
Peter was on his own.
God intervenes by His angel many a time to loose our souls from prison.
He does the supernatural thing when the occasion demands it.
But He does not perform miracles when we can get along without them.
He lets us do the thing we can do for ourselves, all within the circles of His grace of course.
Peter shifted for himself when he came to and realized he was not dreaming.
Some saints expect angels to wake them up and serve them breakfast in bed.
Do not expect the supernatural when God would have you proceed in the normal natural course of things.
Peter did not sit down and wait for another angel—he headed toward a prayer meeting.
Thank God for His angels, but they depart.
Trust His indwelling Spirit to guide you every day, miracle or no miracle.
Angels come and go, but He abides.
(Day by Day - Vance Havner)
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November 2
“Without shedding of blood is no remission.”
(Hebrews 9:22
“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
(1 John 1:7)
Mary Ann believed in God and His Son Jesus, but she struggled with why Jesus had to shed His blood to bring salvation. Who would think of cleansing something with blood? Yet the Bible says, “and almost all things are by the law purged with blood” (Hebrews 9:22). That in Mary Ann’s opinion, was disgusting!
Then one day she had to go to a hospital. A genetic condition had altered her immune system, and doctors became alarmed when the illness started attacking her blood. As she was in the emergency room she thought, If I lose my blood, I will die. But Jesus shed His blood so I can live!
Suddenly everything made sense. In the midst of her pain, Mary Ann felt joy and peace. She understood that blood is life, and a holy life was needed to make peace with God for us. Today she is alive and well, thanking God for her health and for Jesus’ sacrifice on her behalf.
Hebrews 9 explains the meaning of the Old Testament blood ritual (vv. 16-22) and the once and for all offering of Jesus that brought animal sacrifice to an end (vv.23-26).
Bearing our sin, He willingly died and shed His blood to become our sacrifice. We now have confidence to enter God’s presence. How could we ever thank Jesus enough for making His sacrifice our sacrifice, His life our life, and His Father our Father? (Keila Ochoa)
“ Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries, (2015), Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted permission."
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November 3
“Looking unto Jesus”
(Hebrews 12:2)
“. . . they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him
which died for them, and rose again.”
(2 Corinthians 5:15)
"Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth:
for I am God, and there is none else.”
(Isaiah 45:22)
Oh the bitter shame and sorrow, that a time could ever be,
When I let the SAVIOUR’S pity plead in vain, and proudly answered:
‘All of self, and none of Thee.’
Yet He found me: I beheld Him bleeding on the accursed tree,
Heard Him pray: ‘forgive them, Father; And my wistful heart said faintly:
'Some of self, and some of Thee.’
Day by day His tender mercy, healing, helping, full and free,
Sweet and strong, and ah! so patient, brought me lower, while I whispered:
‘Less of self, and more of Thee.’
Higher than the highest heaven, deeper than the deepest sea,
LORD, Thy love at last hath conquered; grant me now my supplication:
’None of self, and all of Thee.’
(Theodore Monod - 1874
Translated from French by Helen Willis)
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November 4
"Now are they many members, yet but one body.”
(1 Corinthians 12:20)
There may be a vast difference as to knowledge,
gift, and fruitfulness; as to title there is none.
The sapling and the tree, the babe and the father,
the convert of yesterday and the matured believer,
are all on the same ground.
Christ is our title.
The Holy Ghost is our capacity.
Self has nothing to do with either the one or the other.
(Food for the Desert)
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November 5
“What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?
I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.”
(Psalm 116:12-13)
In the matter of our soul’s salvation, there is nothing we can do to earn or deserve it—
We cannot put God in our debt or reimburse Him in any way,
because salvation is a gift of grace.
The proper response to God’s free offer of eternal life is
first to take the cup of salvation, that is, to accept it by faith.
Then we should call upon the name of the Lord, that is,
thank and praise Him for the unspeakable gift.
Even after we are saved there is nothing we can do to repay the
Lord for all His benefits toward us.
“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small.”
However, there is a fitting response we can make, and that is
the most reasonable thing we can do.
“Love so amazing so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
(Adapted)
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November 6
“Thou couldst have no power at all against me,
except it were given thee from above.”
(John 19:11)
Nothing that is not God’s will can come into the life of one who trusts and obeys God.
This fact is enough to make our life one of ceaseless thanksgiving and joy.
For “God’s will is the one hopeful, glad, and glorious thing in the world”;
and it is working in the omnipotence for us all the time, with
nothing to prevent it if we are surrendered and believing.
Someone who was passing through deep waters of affliction wrote to a friend:
“Is it not a glorious thing to know that, no difference how unjust a thing
may be, or how absolutely it may seem to be from Satan,
by the time it reaches us it is God’s will for us,
and will work for good to us?
For all things work together for good to us who love God.
And even of the betrayal, Christ said,
“The cup which my Father gave me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11).
We live charmed lives if we are living in the center of God’s will.
All the attacks that Satan, through others’ sin, can hurl against
us are not only powerless to harm us, but are
turned into blessings on the way.
(H.W.S.)
"In the center of the circle of the Will of God I stand:
There can come no second causes all must come from His dear hand.
All is well! for ’tis my Father who my life hath planned.
Shall I pass through waves of sorrow? then I know it will be best;
Though I cannot tell the reason, I can trust, and so am blest.
God is Love, and God is faithful—so in perfect Peace I rest.
With the shade and with the sunshine, with the joy and with the pain,
Lord, I trust Thee! both are needed, each Thy wayward child to train,
Earthly loss, did we but know it, often means our heavenly gain."
(I.G.W.)
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November 7
“Jesus saith . . . I am the Way, the Truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
(John 14:6)
“Let the wicked forsake his way . . . and let him return
unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him.”
(Isaiah 55:7)
A tragic fire engulfed a building on Christmas day in Medford, Massachusetts.
Five people died. The fire chief said,
“They perished because they went the wrong way!”
Because of sin, Adam and his posterity travel the wrong way.
The Lord Jesus called it the “broad way” (Matthew 7:13) and its end is destruction.
A merciful God can put us on the “narrow way” (Matthew 7:14) which leads to glory,
if we confess our sin and embrace His Son.
Are you on the narrow way?
(Neil Dougal)
"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying;
Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save."
(Fanny J. Crosbie)
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November 8
“Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the
son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.”
(Genesis 37:3)
If the character of Joseph set him apart from his brethren,
the love of his father gave him a distinguished place above his brethren.
“Israel loved Joseph more than all his children.”
Moreover, Israel bears witness to this place of distinction by clothing Joseph
with a coat of many colours—
a public testimony to the delight of the father in his son.
At once our thoughts travel from Joseph to Christ
and the unique place He had in the Father’s affections, and the
Father’s pleasure in bearing witness to His delight in His Son.
The very chapter that tells us, “God so loved the world,”
also tells us that “. . . the Father loveth the Son.”
A measure is given to the love of God for the world,
infinite though it be,
but no measure is, or can be,
given for the Father’s love to the Son.
The announcement stands in all its majestic dignity.
(Hamilton Smith)
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November 9
“There be three things which go well, yea four, are comely in going: a lion which
is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any; a greyhound; an he
goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up.”
(Proverbs 30:29-31)
The he goat is the “climber.” Refusing the low and often unhealthful valleys, he mounts up, higher,
and higher, to the rocky hills and the peaks of the mountains, breathing the exhilarating air of
“the top of the rocks,” (Psalm 104:18) he finds both pleasure and safety in his retreat.
The lesson is simple.
It is the Christian who, like Habakkuk, walks upon the high places, that will be able to rejoice in the day of trouble,
and joy in the God of his Salvation when everything of earth seems to fail (Habakkuk 3:17-19).
From the soul of the climbing saint there will ever be melody
“the Chief Singer on the stringed instruments.”
Heavenly-mindedness lifts the soul above all the mists of this poor world,
and enables one to view all from God’s standpoint.
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.”
(Colossians 3:1)
This is the lesson of the "he goat".
Would that every believer did enter into it.
(Selected)
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November 10
“For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself,
lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”
(Hebrews 12:3)
Have we that faith which so realizes Christ’s presence so as to keep us
as calm and composed in the rough sea as the smooth?
It was not really a question of the rough or the smooth sea when
Peter was sinking in the water, for he would have sunk without Christ
just as much in the smooth as in the rough sea.
The fact was, the eye was off Jesus and on the wave,
and that made him sink.
If we go on with Christ, we shall get into all kinds
of difficulty, many a boisterous sea;
but being one with Him,
His safety is ours.
(J.N. Darby)
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November 11
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
(Galatians 2:20)
OURSELVES KEPT FOR JESUS
“Keep myself, that I may be
Ever, only, all for Thee.”
"FOR THEE”
That is the beginning and the end of the whole matter of consecration.
There was a prelude to its endless song—
A prelude whose theme is woven into every following harmony
in the new anthem of consecrated life:
“The Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
Out of the realized “for me” grows the practical “for Thee.”
If the former is a living root,
the latter will be its living fruit.
(Frances Ridley Havergal)
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November 12
“But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.”
(2 Timothy 2:16)
People say sometimes, “ I don't think it makes any difference
what a man believes if he is only sincere.”
But you know down in your heart that this is not true.
You might drink poison, sincerely believing that is is pure water,
but it would kill just the same as if you knew its nature and
took it with intent to commit suicide.
No; you do not believe it makes no difference what one believes so long as he is sincere.
You know in your own heart that one can be sincerely wrong
and bring disaster upon himself and others.
What we need to be sure of is that God has spoken in His Word.
It is only the Word that will keep us right.
When we turn from the Word to human theories,
which are are just profane and vain babblings,
they will increase unto more ungodliness.
Experience proves that no man’s life will be in the right
who refuses the truth of the Word.
(H.A. Ironside)
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November 13
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