Gems from April 10- 21, 2017

April 10

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee,

and Thou shalt glorify Me.”

(Psalm 50:15)

What an immense relief to be able to speak to anyone about our trouble!

and specially when that One is able to succour as well as sympathize.

It does not say how many times we are to call.  Simply, 

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble.”

A call does, however, imply earnestness.

It is not “Speak to Me.”

We may sometimes speak to God as though we hardly meant what we said.

But here it is more vehement—“

Call upon Me,” as though we were in real earnest to make God hear.

The Psalmist says, “In the day when I cried, Thou answeredst me” (Psalm 138:3).

A child in danger or fright calls to its parent, it does not speak as though nothing was the matter.

Now while God knows everything, and can hear even a whisper and read even our thoughts,

yet His direction here is, “Call upon Me.” 

If you have called many times before and not yet been delivered, still continue calling.

Deliverance will surely come in some form or other,  and in the 

meantime the blessing to your own soul will be immense.

You will learn more of God.  For it says, “Call upon Me”—upon  God Himself.

(Angels in White - Russell Elliott)

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April 11

“But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying

and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,

and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away.”

(Matthew 24:37-39)

Our Lord here tells of the conditions that will exist just before His return.

There will be a craze for pleasure and the lust of the flesh.

People will leave God, eternity and judgment out of their thoughts.

How similar to our own day.

May God help us to be faithful in warning those around us 

of the great judgement just ahead.

(Jim Pizzulli)

Look unto Jesus and be saved; see Him uplifted on the tree,

There all the guilt has been displayed; see how He suffered there for me.

(T.B. Gilbert)

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April 12

"Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him, for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.”  (James 2:23)

God may make men as active as possible, like Paul or Boanerges,

when He wants them; but communion is the most precious thing to Him.

“James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James and He (Jesus) 

surnamed them Boanerges which is, The sons of thunder.” (Mark 3:17) 

There is a difference between Peter and John. 

His heart rested with satisfaction on him (John) who leaned on His bosom.

There should be a going of the soul to God in a far more intimate way than to a any one else.

Communion with saints is precious, but I must have intimacy of communion with

God above all; and communion of saints will flow from communion with God.

Joy in God is communion . . . presenting a want to God is not communion.

“God talked with Abraham . . . His friend”

— that is communion.

Communion with God is the retiring place of the heart.

(Pilgrim Portions for the Day of Rest - J.N. Darby)

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April 13

NECESSARY FOOD

“My soul is even as a weaned child.”

(Psalm 131:2)

“For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye . . . are become 

such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.”

(Hebrews 5:12) 

The meaning of the Hebrew word translated “weaned” takes us straight to Hebrews 5:12.

For “to wean” means "to complete, to ripen,”.  To be weaned therefore means to be completed, 

ripened, so that baby food and baby ways are left behind and childish things are put away.

We who are believers are not meant, so to speak, to live on infant prepared food, or to be spoon 

fed—neither in our physical lives or, equally importantly, in our Spiritual lives.

Our blessed God did not mean us always to have the Living Water drawn for us and poured 

out into glasses and set on our tables.  We are meant to draw water 

out of the wells of salvation ourselves  (Isaiah 12:3).

The Eastern picture of this is not what we of the West might think of—that of turning on a tap.

Rather, it is of going to a well, dipping down into it, and drawing water up for ourselves.

It requires no little effort to obtain water in this manner.

We must not go on spiritually being baby souls, starved and thirsty if our food and drink is not doled 

out to us by others. Oh! That we might not allow ourselves to be satisfied 

to only live on what is given by others to us.

If the time has come for us to be teachers, helpers, givers ourselves, let us not

disappoint our God by refusing such happy service. Our blessed

God desires His children to be ripened, complete, weaned.

(The Christian Shepherd - February - 2016)

“But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even

those who by reason of use have their senses exercised 

to discern both good and evil.”  (Hebrews 5:14) 

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April 14

“And he showed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and 

said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; 

who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all and thy house shall be saved.”

(Acts 11:13-14)

“He shall speak to thee.”

And when Peter relates the tale in Jerusalem, he says that the angel had said to Cornelius,

“Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; who shall 

tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.”

Mark that now! What God bids Cornelius do, is to listen to "words, 

whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.”

Many souls think that if they are to be saved, it is by some kind of works; but, when God opens 

the way to the Gentiles, He precludes the thought of works, as he says to this anxious 

man, Send for my messenger, who shall "tell thee words.” No man was ever 

yet saved by his own work: and no man was ever saved 

without believing words—the words of God.

In speaking of being saved, I am using the word as Scripture uses it.  By being saved, I mean, 

a man not only knowing that he is set free from his sins, and that he is pardoned, but

but that he is brought to God,—that he is united to a living triumphant Saviour, 

who died on the cross for him, and is ascended and accepted for him,

 and who has sent down the Holy Ghost to make 

his emancipation know to him. 

(W.T.P. Wolston)

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April 15

“I AM THAT I AM.”

(Exodus 3:14)

"God is His own equivalent, and God needs nothing but Himself to achieve the great purposes 

on which He has set His heart."

(Joshua 23:14)

Joshua had tried God forty years in the brick kilns, forty years in the desert, and thirty years 

in the promised land, and this was his dying testimony.

(D.L. Moody)

“Not one good thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord

your God spake concerning you.”

(Joshua 23:14)

Whatever life may bring to you, “God" will ring true to you:

Star in your sky—food in your store—Staff in your hand—Friend by your side—Light on your path—

Joy in your heart—In your ears music—In your mouth songs.

Yes, rapid as your race may run, 

And scorching as may shine your sun,

And bitter as may blow your blast,

And lonely as your lot be cast—

Whatever life may bring to you,

“God” will aye ring true to you.

(Charles Herbert)

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April 16

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the

high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

(Philippians 3:14)

The athletic example Paul uses has no age, or gender associated with it.

The only prerequisite is to know, love and obey the Lord Jesus. 

In the youthful spring of our lives we press on with enthusiasm and energy,

in the middle age summer of our lives it’s with patience

and wisdom gained through experience, and in the 

older fall of our lives we press on with 

quietness and determination.

The devil’s plan is to discourage us in every season,

but the Bible says press on!

(Charles Tempest)

This world is not my home, I’m just passing through;

My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue.

(A.E. Brumley)

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April 17

“Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He

that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love . . . Hereby know we that we

dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.”

(1 John 4:7-19) 

A deeply blessed, and most practical lesson may be learned from this grand central truth. 

In the days of our regeneration, when “born of the Spirit,” a new life is

implanted in the soul, which finds its rest alone in Jesus. 

“Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.”  This is the rest of God, and of our new life.

Above the world, above the clouds, above the storms, above the 

heavens, it rests on the bosom of the beloved.

Then, why is it that so many true Christians are strangers to solid peace and rest, not

to speak of joy and love?  Simply because Christ Himself is not the one object 

before the mind and the heart; and in all their ways, 

both human and divine.

The uneasiness, the restlessness, the disquietude of true Christians is to be accounted for

on this ground alone.  The moment Christ gets His right place in the heart, everything  

else, consequently, drops into its own right place according to divine order.       

But if anything be allowed to come between the heart and Christ, the Holy Spirit is grieved, the soul

is darkened, weakness and confusion follow, and the whole moral being gets out of order. 

(Andrew Miller)

“Jesus! Thou art enough the mind and heart to fill;

Thy life—to calm the anxious soul; Thy love—its fears dispel.

O fix our earnest gaze, so wholly Lord on Thee,

That with Thy beauty occupied, we elsewhere none may see.”

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April 18

“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness 

and peace have kissed each other.”

(Psalm 85:10)

Thus it is that the soul of the believing sinner finds peace.

He sees that God’s righteousness and his justification rest upon 

precisely the same basis, namely, Christ’s accomplished work. 

When man, under the powerful action of the truth of God, takes his place as a sinner,

God can, in the exercise of grace, take his place as a Saviour, and then every question is settled, 

for the cross having answered all the claims of divine justice, mercy’s copious streams can flow unhindered. 

When a righteous God and a ruined sinner meet on a blood-sprinkled platform, all is settled forever—

settled in such a way as perfectly glorifies God, and eternally saves the sinner.

God must be true, though every man be proved a liar; and when man is so thoroughly 

brought down to the lowest point of his own moral condition before God as to be 

willing to take the place which God’s truth assigns him, he then learns that 

God has revealed Himself as the righteous Justifier of such an one.

This must give settled peace to the conscience; and not only so, but impart a capacity to 

commune with God, and hearken to His holy precepts, in the intelligence of 

that relationship into which divine grace has introduced us.

(C.H. Macintosh)

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April 19

“But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,

He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your

mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

(Romans 8:11)  

Paul’s life was that he drew continually in his body from the strength of Christ.

“The body which rose from Joseph’s tomb was to him a physical reality and 

the inexhaustible fountain of his vital forces.

The Lord is for the body and the body is for the Lord.

Marvellous truth!  Divine Elixir (ointment) of life and fountain of perpetual youth.

Earnest of the resurrection!

Fulfillment of the ancient Psalms and songs of faith.

The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom (or what thing) shall I be afraid? 

My flesh and my heart faint and fail but God is the strength of my heart   

and my portion forever.  Have we learned this secret, and are we 

living the life of the Incarnate One in our flesh?”

(Traveling Toward Sunrise)

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April 20

“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life:

and they are they which testify of me.”

(John 5:39) 

Since language is the incarnation of thought, 

we can get to know the mind of God only through the words of God.

There are, however, depths of meaning in these words which only Spirit- 

anointed eyes can see; and we are now to think of the means by which we pass from

the mere literary element in the Bible to its profoundly spiritual content; how, with reverent feet,

we may enter into that innermost shrine where God ever causes fresh

light to break from His holy Word.

The steps that lead us to that sacred spot, the

things that ensure these unveilings, 

are four in number.  

We must:

Pray - Search the Scriptures - Meditate - Obey

(The Wonderful Word  - G. Henderson)

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April 21

“And of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.

For the law was given by Moses, but grace

and truth came by Jesus Christ”

(John 1:16-17)

“Jonah” means “a dove.”

A dove is the symbol of peace: and the Book of Jonah is in reality an offer of peace from the Lord Himself.

It is not an offer of peace to the people of Nineveh only, but to others as well.

The name "Amittai” (the father of Jonah), means “Truth.”

May it not be, that in these two names, we have told out the same precious 

message of John 1:17, “Grace and Truth  came by Jesus Christ”? 

Truth is the light that shows our sins.

Grace provides the means to cover our sins.  How clearly we see 

these two sides of God’s character shown out in the little book of Jonah!

God is a God of truth, and He must have all our paths brought into the light of His truth;

but where can we find a brighter example of the grace of God 

that is ever ready to pardon and forgive?

We must ever remember that Jonah is truly a type of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and how beautifully do these two names illustrate this!

(Lessons From Jonah the Prophet - G.C. Willis)

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