“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”
(Matthew 11:28-30)
“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying,
if any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.”
(John 7:37)
Christ, therefore, is the key to all the Bible. He is its central Figure.
It all speaks of Him Who is at once our Prophet, our Priest, and our King.
We can hear His voice in the Old Testament if we read it in the light of the New.
The New Testament has a richer meaning when we read it as the completion and fulfilment of the Old. It is when we see Christ in this way in all the Scriptures that the Bible becomes
to us the living voice of the the living God.
In the Old Testament, the New lies hid; in the New Testament the Old lies open.
In the Old Testament the New lies concealed; in the New Testament, the old is revealed.
What is enfolded in the Old Testament is unfolded in the New.
The New is in the Old contained; the old is by the New explained.
These all indicate that the two principal parts of the Bible are like the two sides of the human
body, organically one—the two hands and feet both by their likeness
and unlikeness, contributing to mutual efficiency.
(The Wonderful World - George Henderson)
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January 22
“Ye shall receive power,
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
(Acts 1:8)
Do thou, the very God of peace, us wholly sanctify,
And grant us such a rich increase of power from on high,
That spirit, soul and body may, preserved free from stain,
Be blameless until that great day; Lord Jesus Christ, Amen!
We must not expect consciousness of power.
It is on this point that so many stumble.
They want to feel power, and failing to do so they conclude that they
are in the wrong condition of soul for its exercise.
No mistake could be greater.
On the other hand, the Lord has to break down His servants . . . in order
to reduce them to the sense of their own utter impotence,
that they may learn the lesson that His strength
is made perfect in weakness.
Human arrangements interfere with divine power.
(Edward Dennett)
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January 23
The Unfinished Song
“Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood . . .
be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
(Revelation 1:5, 6)
". . . and no man could learn that song but the
. . . redeemed from earth.”
(Revelation 14:3)
There will be no silent voices in that ever-blessed throng;
There will be no faltering accents in that hallelujah song;
Like the sound of many waters shall the mighty pæan be
When the Lord’s redeemed shall praise Him for the grace that set them free.
But ’tis here the theme is written; it is here we tune our tongue;
It is here the first glad notes of joy with stammering lips are sung.
It is here the first faint echoes of that chorus reach our ear;
We shall finish it in heaven, but our hearts begin it here.
“Unto Him who loved us”— to the Lamb for sinners slain,
“Unto Him who loved us”— evermore the joyful strain;
“Unto Him who loved us”— full and strong and sweet and clear;
But, if we would know it yonder, we must learn to sing it here.
(Flint’s Best - Loved Poems)
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January 24
“Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into His chambers, . . .”
(Song of Solomon 1:4)
“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect:
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which
also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
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,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 3:12-14)
~~~~
It is much better to be drawn by the joys of heaven,
than driven by the sorrows of earth.
The believer should not wait to be shaken out of present things.
He should not wait for the world to give him up before
he gives up the world.
He should give it up in the power of communion
with heavenly things.
There is no difficulty in giving up the world when we have,
by faith, laid hold of Christ; the difficulty
would then be to hold it."
(Food for the Desert)
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January 25
“The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
(Galatians 2:20)
Out of Christ’s shed blood—flows my justification!
Our of His agony—comes my victory!
Out of His pain—come my ease!
Out of His stripes—comes my healing!
Out of His gall and vinegar—comes my honey!
Out of His curse—comes my blessing!
Out of His crown of thorns—comes my crown of glory!
Our of His sin-atoning death—comes my eternal life!
O what a melting consideration is this!
(John Flavel)
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January 26
“We look not at the the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen:
for the things which are seen are temporal; but the
things which are not seen are eternal.”
(2 Corinthians 4:18)
"To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you.”
(1 Peter 1:4)
Carry on, oh beloved; the evening is at hand,
And desolate and fearful the solitary land;
Take heart! The rest eternal awaits our weary feet;
From strength to strength press onwards, the end, how passing sweet!
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January 27
“We love, because He first loved us.”
(1 John 4:19)
“The Father Himself loveth you, because
ye have loved Me.”
(John 16:27)
God loves me; and, as on His love I dwell,
My heart grows warm, and I can love as well.
I love the Son; and, loving Him, I find
I share a Father’s love, strong, wise and kind.
O blessed circle! End there cannot be.
I still must love, and still He loveth me:
Loving and loved, throughout Eternity!
Bells & Pomegranates
James M. S. Tait
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January 28
“God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.”
(Psalm 46:1)
There are two ways of getting out of a trial.
One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over.
The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing
than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of
obtaining a larger measure of Divine grace.
Thus even the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the things that seem to be
against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way.
Surely, this is to be more than conquerors through
Him who loved us.
(A. B. Simpson)
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January 29
“But my God shall supply all your need according
to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
(Philippians 4:19)
I have been linking together the ‘all’ of “all your need”
with the ‘all’ of "all your care" in 1 Peter 5:7; and I have found them very sweet.
“My God” gives to me that which meets all my need; and I cast upon upon Him—
give to Him—all my care. What an exchange!
And as Baskerville points out, just as it is quite impossible to catalogue all for our needs: so it is equally impossible to catalogue all our cares.
The biggest, as well as the smallest, are all included in that little word all, whether it be needs or cares.
Thanks be to God!
Moody once spoke of Philippians 4:19 as a blank cheque:
The firm—“My God”
The promise—“shall supply"
The amount—“All your need”
The capital—“His riches”
The Bank address—“in glory”
The signature:— “Christ Jesus”
This cheque must be endorsed by the person to whom it is made payable.
(G. Christoper Willis)
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January 30
"Doth not He see my ways, and count all my steps?”
(Job 31:4)
The haft of Satan’s hatchet, with which he lies chopping at the root of the Christian’s comfort,
is commonly made of the Christian’s wood.
First, he temps to sin, and then for it.
Satan is but a creature, and cannot work without tools.
He can indeed make much of little, but not anything of nothing, as we see in his assaulting of Christ,
where he troubled himself to little purpose, because he came and
found nothing in Him (John 14:30).
Though the devil throws the stone, it is the mud in us that disturbs our comfort.
(William Gurnall….1617-1679)
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January 31
“. . . all my springs are in Thee.”
(Psalm 87:7)
In order to grow in our faith,
we need to be placed into circumstances where
we are forced to reach out to the Source of our strength.
That is the way our spiritual vision is
exercised, and how we discover new dimensions in our God.
(This Day is the Lord’s - Corrie Ten Boom)
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February 1
“Greater love hath no man that this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
(John 15:13)
WHEN WE WISH to know the love of God we should go to Calvary.
Can we look upon that scene and say God did not love us?
That cross speaks of the love of God.
Greater love never has been taught than that which the cross teaches.
What prompted God to give up Christ—what prompted
Christ to die—if it were not love?
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Christ laid down His life for His enemies;
Christ laid down His life for His murderers;
Christ laid down His life for them that hated Him;
and the spirit of the cross, the spirit of Calvary, is love.
When they were mocking Him and deriding Him, what did He say?
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
That is love.
He did not call down fire from heaven to consume them;
there was nothing but love in His heart.
(D. L. Moody)
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