“God shall hear.”
(Psalm 55:19)
I was standing at a bank counter in Liverpool waiting for a clerk to come. I picked up a pen and began to print on a blotter in large letters two words which had gripped me like a vice: “PRAY THROUGH.”
I kept talking to a friend and printing until I had the desk blotter filled from top to bottom with a column. I transacted my business and went away. The next day my friend came to see me, and said he had a striking story to tell.
A business man came into the bank soon after we had gone. He had grown discouraged with business troubles. He started to transact some business with the same clerk over that blotter, when his eye caught the long column of “PRAY THROUGH.”
He asked who wrote those words and when he was told exclaimed, “That is the very message I needed. I will pray through. I have tried in my own strength to worry through, and have merely mentioned my troubles to God; now I am going to pray the situation through until I get light."
(A personal testimony of Charles M. Alexander. 1867 - 1920)
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for what I have not seen!
Don’t stop praying, but have more trust;
Don’t stop praying! for pray we must;
Faith will banish a mount of care;
Don’t stop praying! God answers prayer.
(C.M. Alexander)
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February 20
“Jesus . . . said unto her Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about
many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that
good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
(Luke 10:41-42)
The Prayer of Martha
Lord, I am cumbered with so many cares,
I needs must serve thro’out the livelong day,
Must keep the little clinging hands from harm,
And guide the stumbling feet along the way,
Till weary head and heart may take their rest
When prattling voices hush at set of sun.
O Jesus, Master! at Thy feet, for me,
Keep Mary’s place till Martha’s work is done.
(Annie Johnson Flint)
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February 21
"Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests
have delivered Thee unto me: what has Thou done?"
(John 18:35)
“And he went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus,
Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer."
(John 19:9)
During the trial of Jesus, Pilate asked these two questions:
“What have you done?”
and
“Where are you from?”
John’s Gospel gives the answers.
He came from eternity with God (John 1:1).
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
While here He turned water to wine, fed a multitude from very little,
gave sight to a blind man, raised a man from the dead,
pointed people to living water and challenged them to be born again.
The Man from above has done all things well.
(Jack Innes)
"All worlds His glorious power confess, His wisdom all His works express;
But oh! His love what tongue can tell?
My Jesus has done all things well."
(Anon)
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February 22
“I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound."
(Philippians 4:12)
Cold is the affection, and small the energy; but in principle I know nothing at all worthy
of such visions of faith, but that spirit of devotedness that can say with Paul,
“I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound,”
(Philippians 4:12).
and that spirit of desire which looks after Him still, and says,
Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.
Our God has joined Himself thus by links which never can be broken,
which His own delight and glory in them, as well as
His counsel and strength, will secure for ever.
These links we have gazed at,
mysterious and precious as they are.
Himself has formed them, yea, Himself constitutes them,
faith understand them; and on the Rock of Ages the
believing sinner rests, and rests in peace and safety.
(J.G. Bellett)
“Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee.”
(Sarah Flower Adams)
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February 23
“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28)
The Lord speaks of two kinds of rest in Matthew 11.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
This is the immediate gift of His love through faith in Himself.
All who believe, without exception, have this rest.
All our weary and fruitless efforts after salvation are brought to a close when we come to Jesus,
and the heavy burden of sin under which we groaned is forever removed.
But the Lord further says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.” (v. 29)
Rest of conscience He gives through the forgiveness of our sins, when first we believe in Him.
Rest of heart we find in obedience and subjection to His will.
“Take my you upon you, and learn of Me . . . and ye shall find rest”— (v. 29)
rest and peace in every circumstance, however trying.
(Andrew Miller)
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February 24
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
(Hebrews 11:1)
In January 1915, the ship Endurance was trapped and crushed in the ice off the coat of Antarctica. The group of polar explorers, led by Ernest Shackleton, survived and managed to reach Elephant Island in three small lifeboats.
Trapped on this uninhabited island, far from normal shipping lanes, they had one hope. On April 24, 1916, 22 men watched as Shackleton and five comrades set out in a tiny lifeboat for South Georgia, an island 800 miles away.
The odds seemed impossible, and if they failed, they would all certainly die. What joy, then, when more than four months later a boat appeared on the horizon with Shackleton on its bow shouting, “Are you all well?” And the call came back, “All safe! All well!”
What held those men together and kept them alive over those months? Faith and hope placed in one man. They believed that Shackleton would find a way to save them.
This human example of faith and hope echoes the faith of the heroes listed in Hebrews 11. Their faith in the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” kept them going through great difficulties and trials.”
As we look out upon the horizon of our own problems, may we not despair. May we have hope through the certainty of our faith in the One Man—Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.
My hope of Jesus shines brightly even on our darkest day.
(Randy Kilgore)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries, Copyright (2015), Grand Rapids, MI - Reprinted permission."
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February 25
“. . . God meant it unto good . . . “
(Genesis 50:20)
Trouble is a blessing; it brings out—it rough-hews us—
and its repeated blows chisel us into fair proportions and beauty.
Endure, be tested, tried and proven, rejoice and be glad.
Trouble becomes triumph if rightly used.
Rejoice in the midst of trouble.
Be calm, still, quiet.
Rest in Him.
Let the troubles work; don’t hinder, never complain.
Stillness is the way to take trouble;
count it all joy.
We shall look some day with wonder at the troubles we have had.
When God ploughs, He intends to sow.
(Traveling Toward Sunshine)
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February 26
“I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.”
(Psalm 34:4,6)
My fear is not yours, but nearly everyone has,
somewhere inside, a weary little fear which keeps cropping up.
But every time the fear pushes out its head, there, waiting to end it,
is that glorious word, “delivered from all my fears.”
(Not from some, or from most, but from all.)
Out of all his troubles:
This may find someone in trouble.
We may have to pass through the waters,
but we shall be delivered out of them.
They will not overflow us.
(Isaiah 43:2)
“This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,
and saved him out of all his troubles.”
There again, it is not out of some, or out of most,
but out of all.
(Edges of His Way - Amy Carmichael)
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February 27
“The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty
tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.”
(Jonah 1:4)
We will have occasion to notice the various things that God “prepared” for Jonah’s sake.
There was the “great fish . . . a gourd . . . a worm . . . and a sultry east wind. . . . “
It does not, however, say that God prepared the “great wind” (Job 1:4).
Psalm 135:7 tells us that God
“bringeth the wind out of His treasuries.”
So instead of saying He prepared the wind, it says:
“The LORD sent out a a great wind into the sea.”
Surely that word “sent” is not used here by accident.
What a sad and solemn contrast to Jonah does that “great wind” present!
Both were sent by the same Lord. The stormy wind goes when and where it is sent,
“fulfilling His word” (Psalm 148:8).
Man, the highest work of His creation, deliberately chooses his own will,
and refuses to go, when his Lord and Master sends him!
(Lessons From Jonah - G.C. Willis)
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February 28
“Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?”
(John 21:16)
Tradition has painted, by brush and pen, portraits of the man called Peter.
He is memorialized by magnificent cathedrals.
But we must look elsewhere for a memorial
engraved where time cannot erase it.
These words move the heart of every sinner saved by grace
who has felt the pulse of Peter’s passion, known some
sad failure, and the pardoning grace of the Saviour.
The words touch the wellsprings of our tears and we fain would make them ours:
“Lord Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest I love Thee.”
(J. Boyd Nicholson)
"I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow:
’Tis Thou who art worthy, Lord Jesus, ’tis Thou.”
(W.R. Featherstone)
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February 29
Flying By Instrument
“The things which shall be hereafter. . . .”
(Revelation 1:19)
When all is said and done, there is absolutely only one authority on the life to come.
Surmisings of pagans and speculations of philosophers mean nothing.
It is the Bible or else.
It may have its difficult passages, may leave questions unanswered,
but all we know about the next world is told between
the covers of this old Book.
Sometimes the airplane pilot can see nothing and must fly by instrument.
The Christian must often do the same and that instrument is the Word of God.
It guarantees a safe landing!
(Vance Havner)
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