Give Up Yourself

"What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul?" Deuteronomy 10:12

What asks our Father of His children save
Justice and mercy and humility,
A reasonable service of good deeds,
Pure living, tenderness to human needs,
Reverence, and trust, and prayer for light to see
The Master's footprints in our daily ways?
No knotted scourge, nor sacrificial knife,
But the calm beauty of an ordered life
Whose every breathing is unworded praise.
J. G. WHITTIER

Give up yourself to God without reserve; in singleness of heart meeting everything that every day brings forth, as something that comes from God, and is to be received and gone through by you, in such an heavenly use of it, as you would suppose the holy Jesus would have done in such occurrences. This is an attainable degree of perfection. - WILLIAM LAW

We ought to measure our actual lot, and to fulfil it; to be with all our strength that which our lot requires and allows. What is beyond it, is no calling of ours. How much peace, quiet, confidence, and strength, would people attain, if they would go by this plain rule. - H. E. MANNING

Compiled by Mary W. Tileston, taken from "Daily Strength for Daily Needs"

Finding Rest

Perhaps the words of the Carpenter, promising rest, are so compelling because of our endless desire and quest to rest - not just to rest in the body, but to rest the heart, to find peace, to finally settle down in the valley fertile with contentment.

"Come to me, all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

By Max Lucado, taken from "Walking with the Savior"

Lift Your Priase!

"Let them give thanks to the Lord for His loveingkindness, and for His wonders to the sons of men! "Psalm 107:8

If we complained less and praised more, we should be happier and God would be more glorified. Let us daily praise God for common mercies - common as we frequently call them, and yet so priceless that when deprived of them we are ready to perish. let us bless God for the eyes with which we behold the sun, for the health and strength to walk abroad, for the bread we eat, for the raiment we wear. Let us praise Him for everything we receive from His bounteous hand, for we deserve little and yet are most plenteously endowed. But the sweetest and the loudest note in our songs of praise should be of redeeming love. God's redeeming acts toward His chosen are forever the favorite themes of their praise. If we know what redemption means, let us not withhold our sonnets of thanksgiving. We have been redeemed from the power of our corruptions, uplifted from the depth of sin in which we were naturally plunged. We have been led to the cross of Christ - we are no longer slaves but children of the living God. Child of God, can you be silent?

By Charles Spurgeon, taken from "Daily Devotional Insights"

Trust His Word

"I trust in thy word" (Ps. 119:42).

Just in proportion in which we believe that God will do just what He has said, is our faith strong or weak. Faith has nothing to do with feelings, or with impressions, with improbabilities, or with outward appearances. If we desire to couple them with faith, then we are no longer resting on the Word of God because faith needs nothing of the kind. Faith rests on the naked Word of God. When we take Him at His Word, the heart is at peace.

God delights to exercise faith, first for blessing in our own souls, then for blessing in the Church at large, and also for those without. But this exercise we shrink from instead of welcoming. When trials come, we should say: "My Heavenly Father puts this cup of trial into my hands, that I may have something sweet afterwards."

Trials are the food of faith. Oh, let us leave ourselves in the hands of our Heavenly Father! It is the joy of His heart to do good to all His children.

But trials and difficulties are not the only means by which faith is exercised and thereby increased. There is the reading of the Scriptures, that we may by them acquaint ourselves with God as He has revealed Himself in His Word.

Are you able to say, from the acquaintance you have made with God, that He is a lovely Being? If not, let me affectionately entreat you to ask God to bring you to this, that you may admire His gentleness and kindness, that you may be able to say how good He is, and what a delight it is to the heart of God to do good to His children.

Now the nearer we come to this in our inmost souls, the more ready we are to leave ourselves in His hands, satisfied with all His dealings with us. And when trial comes, we shall say:

"I will wait and see what good God will do to me by it, assured He will do it." Thus we shall bear an honorable testimony before the world, and thus we shall strengthen the hands of others. - George Mueller.

By Mrs. Charles E. Colman, taken from "Streams in the Desert"

Invisible Blessings

Being very much of the earth--earthy--we always want tangible, visible things--proofs, demonstrations, something to latch onto. If we always had them, of course, faith would be "struck blind." When Jesus hung on a cross, the challenge was flung at Him: Come down! He stayed nailed, not so that spectators would be satisfied (that miracle, his coming down, would have been a great crowd-pleaser), but that the world might be saved.

Many of our prayers are directed toward the quick and easy solution. Long-suffering is sometimes the only means by which the greater glory of God will be served, and this is, for the moment, invisible. We must persist in faith. God has a splendid purpose. Believe in order to see it.

"Our troubles are slight and short-lived, and their outcome an eternal glory which outweighs them far. Meanwhile our eyes are fixed, not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen" (2 Cor 4:17, 18 NEB).

By Elisabeth Elliot

I call you friends

Jesus described for his followers what he came to do. He came to build relationships with people. He came to take away the enmity, to take away the strife, to take away the isolation that existed between God and man. Once he bridged that, once he over came that, he said, "I will call you friends."

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father." John 15:15

By Max Lucado, taken from "Walking with the Savior"

Things that are Invisible

Simply because you can't put your hands around something doesn't mean it's not there. In fact, those things that are most precious to us are the things that are invisible, aren't they? Love, tenderness, happiness, air, feelings, emotions - those things we cannot touch, but they are very real. And so it is with God's power: It may not be touchable, but it's real and it's obtainable.

"Your love is wonderful. By your power you save those who trust you from their enemies. Protect me as you would protect your own eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings." Psalm 17:7-8

By Max Lucado, taken from "Walking with the Savior"

For it pleased the Father . . .

"For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." Colossians 1:19

I have been writing and speaking on this verse for many months. I sit hour after hour on trains and think about it. And yet I know so little of what it really means.

" . . . it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell."

All fulness.

In Jesus Christ. In HIS person. how can it e that to those of us who know Him, He is enough? How can one life fill the emptiness in every human life? How is this possible? We cannot know. We can only experience this fulness by emptying ourselves of ourselves and by receiving Him fully.

No-one can tell anyone else how to do this. Only each individual person knows what it is that prevents the complete capture by Christ. He is in pursuit. Every minute. He is near now, pressing in upon us from within and from without. He would be "fulness" to each person in the world. Fulness includes everything. And it pleased the Father that all fulness should be in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son. In Him is everything we ever need. Our part is to "learn of" Him.

In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

By Eugenia Price, taken from "Share My Pleasant Stones"

Trials

"The trial of your faith . . ." I Peter 1:7

Faith untried may be true faith, but it is sure to be little faith, and it is likely to remain dwarfish so long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: Tempests are her trainers, and lightnings are her illuminators. When a clam reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship moves not to its harbor; for on a slumbering ocean, the kneel sleeps, too. Let the winds rush howling forth, and let the waters lift up themselves; though the vessel may rock and her deck may be washed with waves and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway toward her desired haven. No stars gleam so brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky, no water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand, and no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs in adversity. Tried faith brings experience. You could not have believed your own weakness had you not been compelled to pass through the rivers; and you would never have known God's strength had you not been supported amid the water-floods. Faith increases in solidity, assurance, and intensity, the more it is exercised with tribulation. Faith is precious, and its trial is precious, too.

By Charles Spurgeon, taken from "Daily Devotional Insights"

God's Love

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. He was, he is and he is coming." Revelation 4:8

God's love for you is not dependent on how you look, how you think, how you act, or how perfect you are. His love is absolutely nonnegotiable and nonreturnable. Ours is a faithful God.

My Max Lucado, taken from "Walking with the Savior"

What are you willing to give up?

I have been reading a book about the life and testament of Jim Elliot this week. Jim Elliot was one of four missionaries killed by the Auca Indians in attempts to share with them about Jesus. I am humbled by his life's desire to follow the Lord no matter what the cost. And because of his sacrifice those he was trying to reach came to know Jesus as well as countless others who have read his story.

"He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

Taken from "Shadow of the Almighty, The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot by Elisabeth Elliot

Our Role and God's Role

"He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are judgment; a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is He." DEUTERONOMY 32:4

"We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture." PSALMS 100:3

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." PSALMS 23:1, 4

DUTIES are ours, events are the Lord's; when our faith goeth to meddle with events, and to hold a court (if I may so speak) upon God's Providence, and beginneth to say, "How wilt Thou do this or that?" we lose ground; we have nothing to do there; it is our part to let the Almighty exercise His own office, and steer His own helm; there is nothing left us, but to see how we may be approved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls, in well-doing, upon Him who is God omnipotent, and when what we thus essay miscarrieth, it shall neither be our sin nor cross. - SAMUEL RUTHERFORD

SHALL there be a mutiny among the flocks and herds, because their lord or their shepherd chooses their pastures, and suffers them not to wander into deserts and unknown ways? - JEREMY TAYLOR

Compiled by Mary Wilder Tileston, taken from "Joy and Strength"

What is Grace?

"All have sinned and are not good enough for God's glory, and all need to be made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift." Romans 3:23-24

What is grace? It's what someone gives us out of the goodness of their heart, not out of the perfection of ours. The story of grace is the good news that says that when we come, He (God) gives. That's what grace is.

By Max Lucado, taken from "Walking with the Savior

Newness in Christ

"Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Revelation 21:5

I do not know, but it is sometimes as well, when one has been plunged in sorrow or feels ashamed of his past life - after having regretted that which is bygone and repented of it and sorrowed over it - to feel as if he breathed another atmosphere and had started on a fresh career. Having thrown away the old sword, he is now about to see what he can do with the new; having put off an old garment, he is desirous to walk more worthily of his vocation with fresh ones that are provided for him. Perhaps the thoughts of freshness, the fact of new time having dawned on our path, may be a little help to those of us whoa re dull and heavy, and we may be stirred up to action. If not to action, it may awaken earnest hope that the infusion of a new start into our lives, new vigor instead of the old lethargy, new love instead of the old lukewarmness, new zeal instead of the old deathlikeness, new persevering industry for Christ instead of the old idleness may result. God grant that it may be so!

By Charles Spurgeon, taken from "Strengthen My Spirit"

Don't Fret

"Do not begin to be anxious" (Phil. 4:6, PBV).

Not a few Christians live in a state of unbroken anxiety, and others fret and fume terribly. To be perfectly at peace amid the hurly-burly of daily life is a secret worth knowing. What is the use of worrying? It never made anybody strong; never helped anybody to do God's will; never made a way of escape for anyone out of perplexity. Worry spoils lives which would otherwise be useful and beautiful. Restlessness, anxiety, and care are absolutely forbidden by our Lord, who said: "Take no thought," that is, no anxious thought, "saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?" He does not mean that we are not to take forethought and that our life is to be without plan or method; but that we are not to worry about these things. People know you live in the realm of anxious care by the lines on your face, the tones of your voice, the minor key in your life, and the lack of joy in your spirit. Scale the heights of a life abandoned to God, then you will look down on the clouds beneath your feet. -Rev. Darlow Sargeant

It is always weakness to be fretting and worrying, questioning and mistrusting. Can we gain anything by it? Do we not unfit ourselves for action, and unhinge our minds for wise decision? We are sinking by our struggles when we might float by faith.

Oh, for grace to be quiet! Oh, to be still and know that Jehovah is God! The Holy One of Israel must defend and deliver His own. We may be sure that every word of His will stand, though the mountains should depart. He deserves to be confided in. Come, my soul, return unto thy rest, and lean thy head upon the bosom of the Lord Jesus. -Selected

"Peace thy inmost soul shall fill Lying still!"

Compiled by Mrs. Charles Cowman, taken from "Streams in the Desert"

Sitting Still

"Their strength is to sit still." (Isa. 30:7) KJV.

In order really to know God, inward stillness is absolutely necessary. I remember when I first learned this. A time of great emergency had risen in my life, when every part of my being seemed to throb with anxiety, and when the necessity for immediate and vigorous action seemed overpowering; and yet circumstances were such that I could do nothing, and the person who could, would not stir.

For a little while it seemed as if I must fly to pieces with the inward turmoil, when suddenly the still small voice whispered in the depths of my soul, "Be still, and know that I am God." The word was with power, and I hearkened. I composed my body to perfect stillness, and I constrained my troubled spirit into quietness, and looked up and waited; and then I did "know" that it was God, God even in the very emergency and in my helplessness to meet it; and I rested in Him. It was an experience that I would not have missed for worlds; and I may add also, that out of this stillness seemed to arise a power to deal with the emergency, that very soon brought it to a successful issue. I learned then effectually that my "strength was to sit still." --Hannah Whitall Smith

There is a perfect passivity which is not indolence. It is a living stillness born of trust. Quiet tension is not trust. It is simply compressed anxiety.

Not in the tumult of the rending storm,
Not in the earthquake or devouring flame;
But in the hush that could all fear transform,
The still, small whisper to the prophet came.

0 Soul, keep silence on the mount of God,
Though cares and needs throb around thee like a sea;
From supplications and desires unshod,
Be still, and hear what God shall say to thee.

All fellowship hath interludes of rest,
New strength maturing in each poise of power;
The sweetest Alleluias of the blest
Are silent, for the space of half an hour.

0 rest, in utter quietude of soul,
Abandon words, leave prayer and praise awhile;
Let thy whole being, hushed in His control,
Learn the full meaning of His voice and smile.

Not as an athlete wrestling for a crown,
Not taking Heaven by violence of will;
But with thy Father as a child sit down,
And know the bliss that follows His "Be Still!"

-Mary Rowles Jarvis

Compiled by Mrs. Charles Cowman, taken from "Streams in the Desert"

Mind The Checks

"And after the earthquake a fire; and after the fire a sound of gentle stillness" (1 Kings 19:12, RV margin.)

A soul, who made rapid progress in her understanding of the Lord, was once asked the secret of her easy advancement. She replied tersely, "Mind the checks." And the reason that many of us do not know and better understand Him is, we do not give heed to His gentle checks, His delicate restraints and constraints. His is a still, small voice. A still voice can hardly be heard. It must be felt. A steady, gentle pressure upon the heart and mind like the touch of a morning zephyr to your face. A small voice, quietly, almost timidly spoken in your heart, but if heeded growing noiselessly clearer to your inner ear. His voice is for the ear of love, and love is intent upon hearing even faintest whispers. There comes a time also when love ceases to speak if not responded to, or believed in. He is love, and if you would know Him and His voice, give constant ear to His gentle touches. In conversation, when about to utter some word, give heed to that gentle voice, mind the check and refrain from speech. When about to pursue some course that seems all clear and right and there comes quietly to your spirit a suggestion that has in it the force almost of a conviction, give heed, even if changed plans seem highest folly from standpoint of human wisdom. Learn also to wait on God for the unfolding of His will. Let God form your plans about everything in your mind and heart and then let Him execute them. Do not possess any wisdom of your own. For many times His execution will seem so contradictory to the plan He gave. He will seem to work against Himself. Simply listen, obey and trust God even when it seems highest folly so to do. He will in the end make "all things work together," but so many times in the first appearance of the outworking of His plans,

"In His own world He is content
To play a losing game."

So if you would know His voice, never consider results or possible effects. Obey even when He asks you to move in the dark. He Himself will be gloriously light in you. And there will spring up rapidly in your heart an acquaintanceship and a fellowship with God which will be overpowering in itself to hold you and Him together, even in severest testings and under most terrible pressures. - Way of Faith

Compiled by Mrs. Charles E Cowman, taken from "Streams in the Desert"

Alone In The Desert

"And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place" (Luke 9:10).

In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air is purest. - Andrew Bonar

"Come ye yourselves apart and rest awhile,
Weary, I know it, of the press and throng,
Wipe from your brow the sweat and dust of toil,
And in My quiet strength again be strong.

"Come ye aside from all the world holds dear,
For converse which the world has never known,
Alone with Me, and with My Father here,
With Me and with My Father not alone.
"Come, tell Me all that ye have said and done,
Your victories and failures, hopes and fears.
I know how hardly souls are wooed and won:
My choicest wreaths are always wet with tears.

"Come ye and rest; the journey is too great,
And ye will faint beside the way and sink;
The bread of life is here for you to eat,
And here for you the wine of love to drink.
"Then fresh from converse with your Lord return,
And work till, daylight softens into even:
The brief hours are not lost in which ye learn
More of your Master and His rest in Heaven."

Compiled by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, taken from "Streams in the Desert"

God's Stairway

". . . but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." I John 2:17

Step by step we climb each day
Closer to God with each prayer we pray
For "the cry of the heart" offered in prayer
Becomes just another "spiritual stair"
In the "heavenly staircase" leading us to
A beautiful place where we live anew . . .
So never give up for it's wroth the climb
To live forever in "endless time"
Where the soul of man is safe and free
To live in love through eternity!

Helen Steiner Rice

From Start To Finish

The great witnesses to faith in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, beginning with Abel, who offered a sacrifice by faith, down to those nameless others whose stories are not success stories by any stretch of the imagination, did not know Jesus, God's full revelation of Himself. Yet they believed. Yet they were strong in faith. It was, although they were ignorant of it, Christ on whom their faith rested. Faith depends on Him "from start to finish" (Heb 12:2 NEB). The whole saga of human faith from Abel to us in the twentieth century depends on Him who endured a cross. The whole story of any one individual's faith also depends on Him from start to finish. There is no other ground anywhere. He is the Rock.

I don't know why I keep forgetting this and assuming that somewhere along the line (or the racetrack) I am supposed to manage it by myself. It is Jesus at the start, Jesus every foot of the track, Jesus at the finish. Trust Him. Trust Him. Trust Him.

So, through life, death, through sorrow and through sinning.

Christ shall suffice me, for He hath sufficed.

Christ is the End, for Christ was the Beginning--

Christ the Beginning, for the End is Christ.

(F.W.H. Meyer, St. Paul)

By Elisabeth Elliot

Nothing on Earth Is Forever Yours - Only the Love of the Lord Endures!

"O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever." Psalms 136:1

Everything in life is passing
and whatever we possess
Cannot endure forever
but ends in nothingness,
For there are no safety boxes
nor vaults that can contain
The possessions we collected
and desire to retain . . .
So all that man acquires,
be it power, fame, or jewels,
Is but limited and earthly,
only "treasure made for fools" . . .
For only in God's kingdom
can man find enduring treasure,
Priceless gifts of love and beauty -
more than mortal man can measure,
And the "riches" he accumulates
he can keep and part with never,
For only in God's kingdom
do our treasures last forever . . .
So use the word forever
with sanctity and love,
For nothing is forever
but the love of God above!

Helen Steiner Rice