"Know ye that the LORD He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.”
(Psalm 100:3)
I know a Person who years ago took clay and formed a man.
With great skill this Sculptor made a skeletal system held together by 650 muscles, and a circulatory system with a heart that would pump 658,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels yearly.
He wove together other critical systems: digestive, respiratory, urinary, reproductive, endocrine, and the nervous system with its master controller, the brain. Then He covered it all with twenty square feet of skin.
No wonder we say "How great Thou art.”
Lord, we worship Thee our Maker, Mediator, and Master.
(Les Rainey)
O Lord, Thy works are all divine; in wisdom hast Thou made them all;
Earth’s teeming multitudes are Thine; Thine—peopled ocean’s great and small.
N.J. Hiebert - 7319
January 2
“He hath filled the hungry with good things:
and the rich He hath sent empty away.”
(Luke 1:53)
If you do not preach the coming of the Lord you only preach a half gospel.
“Apply thine heart unto My knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips” (Proverbs 22:17,18).
The spirit will never bring a scripture to our lips for use unless we
have first possessed it in our hearts.
Nothing justifies us in hardness of spirit.
We have to be faithful to God and tender to the one who erred.
(Edward Dennett)
N.J. Hiebert - 7320
January 3
“I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” (Isaiah 48:10).
Does not the Word come like a soft shower, assuaging the fury of the flame? Yes, is it not an asbestos armour, against which the heat has no power? Let the affliction come—God has chosen me.
Poverty, thou mayest stride in at my door; but God is in the house already, and He has chosen me. Sickness, thou mayest intrude; but I have a balsam ready—God has chosen me. Whatever befall me in this vale of tears, I know that He has chosen me.
Fear not, Christian; Jesus is with thee.
In all thy fiery trials, His presence is both thy comfort and safety.
He will never leave one whom He has chosen for His own. “Fear not, for I am with thee," is His sure word of promise to His chosen ones in “the furnace of affliction.”
(C. H. Spurgeon)
“He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4).
N.J. Hiebert - 7321
January 4
“. . . Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before.”
(Philippians 3:13)
The NEW YEAR is not present with us. Only a NEW DAY!
So it will be continually. We shall see but ONE DAY at a time.
If EACH DAY is lived right, the whole year will be right;
if each day is wrong, the year will be all wrong.
Each day is a white page to be written.
Write it beautifully, and the year will be beautiful.
NEW YEAR PRAYER
Lord, Thou ast given me a clean, new year. Help me to keep its pages pure, unspoiled;
To write upon its scroll but kindly thoughts, with no unsightly blots to have it soiled.
Let me not mar, in thought or word or deed, this page, so white, so pure, unsullied, fair.
Help me to know that when I stand in need of help from Thee, thou’rt always standing there.
When duty calls me, Lord, let pleasure wait. Let me fulfill my calling. Let Thy will,
Not mine, be done. Oh let me ever hear Thy calm, approving voice, Thy guidance still.
Lead me, dear Lord, in paths of peacefulness. But if, perchance, Thy paths should ever lie
O’er mountain trails, though they be rough and bleak, then may I answer, “Master, here am I.”
(I. S. Ellis)
An artist who was asked, “what is your best picture?” answered, "My next.”
Make tomorrow your best day!
"Yesterday ended last night."
(Mountain Trailways)
N.J. Hiebert - 7322
January 5
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”
(1 Peter 1:23)
An old professor of Biology used to hold a little brown seed in his hand
and say, “I know just exactly the composition of this seed.
It has in it nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon.
I know the exact proportions.
I can make a seed that will look exactly like it.
But if I plant my seed it will come to nought: its element will be absorbed in the soil.
If I plant the seed God made, it will become a plant, because it contains the
mysterious principle which we call “the life principle.”
The Bible looks like other books.
We cannot understand altogether its marvellous power.
Planted in good ground it shows that it has the life
principle in itself; it brings forth spiritual fruit.”
Each page of Thine hath true life in’t,
And God’s bright mind expressed in print.
“The heart is the total personality.”
(Taken from the archives of Tom Dear)
N.J. Hiebert - 7323
January 6
“My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart,
and my portion forever.”
(Psalm 73:26)
Has the year brought sadness? Joy is yet in store.
Has it given gladness? Next year giveth more.
Let your Father measure all your pain and care,
Let Him weight the burden that your heart must bear.
Sending light or shadow as He deemeth best,
For in His sure wisdom you can safely rest.
Peace for all the morrows, strength for all the days,
These shall be your portion through the New Year’s ways.
(Flint’s Best-Loved Poems)
N.J. Hiebert - 7324
January 7
“I (Jesus) came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
(Luke 5:32)
How is it possible to be blameless—holy?
When we look at ourselves, such words just frighten us.
But when we look unto the Lord, we never need be afraid.
"Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it."
(1 Thessalonians 5:24)
We can rely on these words, because we know that on the Cross of Calvary
all was finished that had to be done to prepare us for the future.
Jesus said: "It is finished.”
and when we look at Calvary’s cross,
we know: Faithful is He Who did it and Who also will do it.
It is Jesus Who calls us.
(Corrie Ten Boom)
N.J. Hiebert - 7325
January 8
“Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we
through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”
(Romans 15:4)
The hope of heaven leaves a blot upon the world in the Christian’s thoughts.
He that looks on heaven, must needs look off earth.
The soul’s eye can as little as the body’s be
above and below at the same time.
Here is not my hope, saith the soul, and therefore not my haunt:
my hope is in heaven, from whence I look for my Saviour,
and my salvation to come with Him.
Hast thou heaven in hope?
It is more than if thou hadst the whole world in hand.
The greatest monarch the earth hath will be glad, in a dying hour,
to change his crown for thy helmet; his crown will not procure him this helmet,
but thy helmet will bring thee to a crown; a crown not of gold,
but of glory, which, once on, shall never be taken off.
(William Gurnall 1617- 1679)
N.J. Hiebert - 7326
January 9
“. . . In the tenth day of this month (April) they shall take to them every man a lamb,
according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: and if the household
be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house
take it according to the number of the souls; every man according
to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.”
(Exodus 12:3-4)
At the Passover, if the roast lamb proved to be more than one household needed, they were to share it with “his neighbour next unto his house.” Have we taken time to feed on the roast Lamb,
as well as to take shelter behind His precious blood?
Have we found the roast Lamb to be an inexhaustible feast, enough for me and my household, with unlimited supplies for my neighbour next to my house? That is a good place to begin.
Let us each one share the roast Lamb with our neighbour in the house next unto us and we may find in time, as our Lord pointed out to the lawyer, that “my neighbour” may be one of another nation, one who for years has been despised and scorned and neglected; then let me go and share the roast Lamb with him also.
Let us be clear, the Lord may send us where He will, be it near or far.
Because He is God the Lord, our Lord, He has the right, and
the authority to send us anywhere He pleases.
(G. C. Willis)
N.J. Hiebert - 7327
January 10
“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 3:14)
People often talk of the heavenly calling as if it were a piece of knowledge or a theory.
Was it such to Enoch when he walked with God, or with Moses when he endured as seeing Him who is invisible? Don’t let our minds take it up as a piece of knowledge instead of realizing a living Christ in heaven.
It is that living Man on the throne of God who has distinctly called me by name, and not only that, but He bears my name before God, as one for whom He has done a great deal, and for whom He means to do a great deal more. Why does my soul go up and find its anchorage up there? Why? Oh, that living Man who has stolen my heart is up there.
He who, as Son of God, thought it worth while to come off the throne to go to the cross as my substitute, to take the cup of wrath due to me. And God has put His Amen upon this love which is stronger than death.
And is it not a reasonable thing for me to say that if the Son of God loved me and gave His life for me, I must love Him in the place where He is? How blessed, as God’s eye rests on Him and then comes down to look on me, to have the certainty that, weak and foolish though I be, I shall never find Him against me; that I am so one with that risen Head, that God can say, What is true of the Head is true of the members!
How unutterly blessed to be able to say that that One crowned with glory and honour on the throne of God, is the One round whom my heart’s affections should centre more and more! And that this risen Son of man up there, is occupied with a suffering people down here, in all the circumstances they may have to pass through.
(G. V. Wigram)
N.J. Hiebert - 7328
January 11
“Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.”
(Numbers 14:30)
The wilderness was a bracing air to Joshua and Caleb, they were full of hope.
The new man has no strength of his own—no back to bear a burden.
He has only the Holy Ghost to depend on.
The very first principle of the Christian’s walks is not to
do his own will,—not even in good things.
(Hunt’s Sayings)
N.J. Hiebert - 7329
January 12
No comments:
Post a Comment