Doing What GOD Can Bless

Deu 28:8  The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
 

If we obey the LORD our GOD He will bless that which He gives us.

Riches are no curse when blessed of the LORD.

When men have more than they require for their immediate need and begin to lay up in storehouses, the dry rot of covetousness or the blight of hard-heartedness is apt to follow the accumulation; but with GOD'S blessing it is not so.

Prudence arranges the saving, liberality directs the spending, gratitude maintains consecration, and praise sweetens enjoyment.

It is a great mercy to have GOD'S blessing in one's iron safe and on one's banking account.

What a favor is made ours by the last clause! "The LORD shall bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand unto."

We would not put our hand to anything upon which we dare not ask GOD'S blessing, neither would we go about it without prayer and faith.

But what a privilege to be able to look for the LORD's help in every enterprise!

Some talk of a lucky man: the blessing of the LORD is better than luck.

The patronage of the great is nothing to the favor of GOD. 

Self-reliance is all very well; but the LORD's blessing is infinitely more than all the fruit of talent, genius, or tact.

~Charles Spurgeon~

 

"I Have Prayed For Thee"

Heb 7:25  Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Now our text tells us that somebody is praying for us, and the somebody is our risen Savior. That is the only meaning which our text can have, and with all its mystery we thankfully accept it.

We light on the same truth again in the song of triumph in the eighth of Romans. John, too, in his old age, dwelt on the consolation of that thought (1Jo 2:1). And if we only let it sink into our hearts, we find it the good news of God. 

Others may forget us in their prayers; there is One in heaven who never does forget.

Others may fail us when their lamp burns low; He ever liveth.

We are engirdled by the prayers of One who loves us and has the ear of God and therefore is able to save unto the uttermost.

Nor was this ministry begun in heaven; it was carried over from the days on earth. Our Lord on earth was an interceding Savior.

One remembers His words to Simon Peter recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke: "Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not."

And if our Lord so prayed when He was here, why should it be thought a thing incredible that He would continue that ministry in heaven?

Does not Satan desire to have us just as he desired to have Simon? And often when our foot has wellnigh slipped, have we not escaped out of the fowler's snare?

And why should we be charged with being mystical because we adoringly ascribe our rescue to the intercession of the risen Lord?

Did He not say, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter"?

Have we never experienced with an inward certainty that in the hour of need that Comforter has come? 

All fresh enduements of the Holy Spirit, whether for service or for suffering, are intimations of a praying Savior.

Again, we remember another intercession, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." And if He prayed that prayer when on the cross, we may be perfectly certain that forgiveness followed. 

Did not He say beside the grave of Lazarus, "I knew that thou hearest me always"?

How little any of us know what we are doing! How often we say, "If I had only known!" Hence springs remorse and agony of conscience and thoughts which reproach us in the silent night.

In such seasons, may we not lift our hearts to Him who ever lives to intercede and hear Him praying for our human ignorance as once He prayed upon the cross?

So much of our sin is not deliberate. Evil is wrought by want of thought. We are such ignorant and foolish beings that we can rarely follow our actions to their issues.

But He is praying for us just as He prayed on Calvary, and He is able to save unto the uttermost because He ever liveth to make intercession for us.

And then one thinks what this implies, for prayer is never an isolated thing.

Whenever anybody prays for you, it means that he bears you on his heart.

When a mother prays for her boy who is a prodigal, that is a token that she loves him still. When a sister prays for a brother who is careless, that means that he is very dear to her.

If our Lord is praying for us in His ascension, that tells us He has not forgotten us but is eager to help us in our need.

Prayers that do not lead to action are mockeries. True prayer issues in endeavor.

Unless we are willing to help the man we pray for, our prayers are nothing else than empty breath. 

Thus do we find assurance of His help when the way is dark and the heart is very sore, in the good news with which the Gospel rings, that He ever liveth to make intercession for us.

~George H. Morrison~

Cry Out To Be Delivered!

2Pe 2:9  The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Few will sincerely and spiritually go to the LORD, and cry from their hearts to be delivered from the power of a temptation, until it presses so weightily upon their conscience, and lies so heavy a burden upon their soul, that none but GOD can remove it.

But when we really feel the burden of a temptation; when, though our flesh may love it, our spirit hates it; when, though there may be in our carnal mind a cleaving to it, our conscience bleeds under it, and we are brought spiritually to loathe it and to loathe ourselves for it;

When we are enabled to go to the LORD in real sincerity of soul and honesty of heart, beseeching him to deliver us from it, I believe, that the Lord will, sooner or later, either remove that temptation entirely in his providence or by his grace, or so weaken its power that it shall cease to be what it was before, drawing our feet into paths of darkness and evil.

As long, however, as we are in that state of which the prophet speaks, "Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty" (Hosea 10:2); 

As long as we are in that carnal, wavering mind, which James describes, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways;" 

As long as we are hankering after the temptation, casting longing, lingering side glances after it, rolling it as a sweet morsel under our tongue, and though conscience may testify against it, yet not willing to have it taken away, there is no hearty cry, nor sigh, nor spiritual breathing of our soul, that GOD would remove it from us.

But when we are brought, as in the presence of a heart-searching GOD, to hate the evil to which we are tempted, and cry to him that he would, for his honor and for our soul's good, take the temptation away, or dull and deaden its power; 

Sooner or later the LORD will hear the cry of those who groan to be delivered from those temptations, which are so powerfully pressing them down to the dust.

~J. C. Philpot~

Weapons Doomed To Fail

Isa 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

There is great clatter in the forges and smithies of the enemy. 

They are making weapons wherewith to smite the saints.

They could not even do as much as this if the LORD of saints did not allow them; for He has created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire.

But see how busily they labor! How many swords and spears they fashion!

It matters nothing, for on the blade of every weapon you may read this inscription: It shall not Prosper.

But now listen to another noise: it is the strife of tongues. 

Tongues are more terrible instruments than can be made with hammers and anvils, and the evil which they inflict cuts deeper and spreads wider.

What will become of us now? Slander, falsehood, insinuation, ridicule-these are poisoned arrows; how can we meet them? 

The LORD God promises us that, if we cannot silence them, we shall, at least, escape from being ruined by them.

They condemn us for the moment, but we shall condemn them at last and forever.

The mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped, and their falsehoods shall be turned to the honor of those good men who suffered by them.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Sanctified Souls Are Satisfied

Jer 31:14  And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD.
 
Note the "My" which comes twice: "My people shall be satisfied with My goodness."

The kind of people who are satisfied with GOD are marked out as GOD'S own.

He is pleased with them, for they are pleased with Him.

They call Him their GOD, and He calls them His people;

He is satisfied to take them for a portion, and they are satisfied with Him for their portion.

There is a mutual communion of delight between GOD'S Israel and Israel's GOD.

These people are satisfied. 

This is a grand thing. Very few of the sons of men are ever satisfied, let their lot be what it may; they have swallowed the horse-leech, and it continually cries, "Give! give!"

Only sanctified souls are satisfied souls.  

GOD Himself must both convert us and content us.

It is no wonder that the LORD's people should be satisfied with the goodness of their LORD.

Here is goodness without mixture, bounty without stint, mercy without chiding, love without change, favor without reserve.

If GOD'S goodness does not satisfy us, what will?

What! are we still groaning?

Surely there is a wrong desire within if it be one which GOD'S goodness does not satisfy.

LORD, I am satisfied. Blessed be Thy name. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Flesh, Or Self-Principle~In The Will

And what is true of the intellect and the emotions is true in the realm of the will.

With many people it is their will that is in the way.

They have got a position, and they tenaciously hold to it and support it; they have got a grip, and they just cannot let go.

They will support their position with Scripture, or even with a “revelation” superior to Scripture!

Their will is the cause of all the trouble.

The cause of the setting back of all God’s purposes in their lives is just there: in their choices, their decisions, their position, their way; in their natural self-strength, that has never been broken. 

And so it is just there that circumcision must take place.

It applies in so many other ways. The cross, as the instrument of spiritual circumcision, has to be applied to this self-life deeper and ever more deeply, because there seems to be no end to it. 

But that is the painful side, the dark side.

What is happening on the other side? Is it not that room is being made for Christ?

The real seed, the seed of Christ, is growing, becoming more and more manifest.

The opposite of the characteristics which we have been considering - strength of intellect or emotion or will - is meekness.

He said: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29).

Pursue this right through, and you cannot fail to recognize that there was something radically different in the very depths of His being.

I have said that we cannot calculate the whole range of this self-principle, in its myriad forms of self-expression and self-occupation and self-attention and self-pity and self-consciousness and self-satisfaction.

Even in our Christian life, in our devotion to the LORD, we are so happy that other people see how devoted we are, and how humble we are! 

And it is the self, the wretched...may I use the word? the stinking self, coming up all the time. 

For a true child of God is oblivious of himself, has lost consciousness of himself in every way. 

If other people point out something good about them, they had not realized it, they were not aware of it.

They are surprised that anyone could say anything good about them; they are not conscious of that.

And on the other side, should people be critical and point out failings, well, they only say, “Yes, I know: I had that out with the LORD”, or “I have got that before the LORD right now."

I am not deceiving myself about that. This is the true child of Heaven.

So we could go on. That is the meaning of circumcision.

In the light of that, the true meaning, the true principle, think of a Pharisee - a child of Abraham - saying: “I am better than anyone else”, or making long prayers for everybody to see and to hear!

A child of ABRAHAM! You remember all that the LORD said about them.

Oh, they have missed the point! Ah, but do not let us criticize and blame.

It is a very searching thing for ourselves, is it not?

Paul says that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but a new creation. 

True circumcision is not of the flesh, but of the heart.

The LORD give us circumcised hearts, and give us grace to have this severance pursued to finality.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Unconscious Influence Of Our Thoughts

Again I want you to consider this...how much of our unconscious influence lies in our thoughts.

Not only by what we do and what we say, but by the kind of thoughts we are cherishing in secret, do we impress ourselves upon our neighbors and help or hinder the little world we move in.

That very suggestive and spiritual writer, Mr. Maeterlinck, puts the matter in his own poetic way.

He says, "Though you assume the face of a saint, a hero or a martyr, the eye of the passing child will not greet you with the same unapproachable smile, if there lurk within you an evil thought."

Now probably there is a little exaggeration there; one thought, flashing and then expelled, may not reveal itself.

The totality of saintly character is too great to be overborne by the intrusion of one shadow of the devil.

But it is certain that by the thoughts we harbor and let ourselves dwell upon and cherish in the dark, we touch and turn and influence our world when we never dream that we are doing it.

There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed - what a depth there is in that one word of Jesus!

He is not merely thinking of God's judgment bar tomorrow.

He is thinking of the undetected revelation of today.

Christ recognized that the kind of thing we brood on, the kind of thought we allow ourselves to think, though it never utter itself in actual words, or clothe itself in the flesh and blood of deeds, encompasses and affects the life of others like a poisonous vapor or like a breath of spring.

Your secret is not such a secret as you think. 

Why are men drawn to you? Why are men repelled by you? 

Why is it that sometimes we instinctively shrink from people in the very first hour that we meet them?

It is because the heart...more powerful than any x-ray deciphers for itself the secret story, brushes past speech and deed into the hidden place and apprehends the existence that is there.

To think base thoughts is a sin against our neighbor as surely as it is a sin against ourselves.

To be unclean even in imagination is to make it harder for others to be good.

In the interests of our influence then, no less than of our happiness, you see the need of governing our thoughts.

~George H. Morrison~

In God's Time

Hab 2:3  For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Mercy may seem slow, but it is sure. The LORD in unfailing wisdom has appointed a time for the outgoings of His gracious power, and GOD'S time is the best time.

We are in a hurry; the vision of the blessings excites our desire and hastens our longings; but the LORD will keep His appointments.

He never is before His time; He never is behind.

GOD'S word is here spoken of as a living thing which will speak and will come.

It is never a dead letter, as we are tempted to fear when we have long watched for its fulfillment.

The living word is on the way from the living GOD, and though it may seem to linger, it is not in reality doing so.

GOD'S train is not behind time. It is only a matter of patience, and we shall soon see for ourselves the faithfulness of the LORD.

No promise of His shall fail; "it will not lie." No promise of His will be lost in silence; "it shall speak."

What comfort it will speak to the believing ear!

No promise of His shall need to be renewed like a bill which could not be paid on the day in which it fell due-"it will not tarry."

Come, my soul, canst thou not wait for thy GOD? Rest in Him and be still in unutterable peacefulness.

~Charles Spurgeon~