An Open Heaven

John 1:51  And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Christ risen means an open heaven. 

The Spirit of the Anointing comes upon us because the crucified One is risen. 

He comes to us out of an open heaven which the Son of God has opened for us....

The Lord Jesus said: “When He, the Spirit is come, He shall guide you into all the truth.” 

And John confirms this in saying: “The anointing which ye received teaches you concerning all things.” 

That is represented by the angels ascending and descending. 

The Holy Spirit is communicating with us, but Christ is the ladder, reaching from earth to heaven. 

Where is that ladder?

It is not in the world. 

The ladder is set up in our hearts.

It is Christ in our hearts.

There is an open way from heaven in our hearts, Christ Himself, leading us into the very presence of God.

The Holy Spirit moves in relation to Christ to bring us into communion with Christ, just as Christ is in communion with His Father.

The all-sufficiency of Christ is secured for us on that basis. 

We are in the heavenlies, because Christ is in us.

If joined to His person the limitations are gone.

There is a direct and immediate communion with God, and the Holy Spirit can reveal to us heavenly things.

Thus we understand what it means to receive everything directly from God in Christ. 

Christ in us means an inward knowledge of God, a heart-relationship with Him. 

It is an inward life from God, an inward power of God. 

But that is a mystery which the world does not and cannot know. 

It cannot understand that our Lord Jesus was willing to accept exactly the same basis of life with its limitation in which we live, although without sin. 

Yet, in fellowship with His Father, He continually broke through these limitations, and overcame them in drawing all His provision, all the fullness from His Father alone. 

His sufficiency was in His Father.

So we are called to live, by the Spirit, a life triumphant over all our weaknesses, a life where Christ is everything, and where His victory is our victory. 

The work of the Cross is finished. 

The veil is rent. 

The way is open. 

Thus Christ risen in heaven means for us an open heaven where everything is possible for us in Christ, that we may glorify Him!

~T. Austin Sparks~

His Kindness And Covenant

Isa 54:10  For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.

One of the most delightful qualities of divine love is its abiding character. 

The pillars of the earth may be moved out of their places, but the kindness and the covenant of our merciful Jehovah will never depart from His people.

How happy my soul feels in a firm belief of this inspired December Declaration! 

The year is almost over, and the years of my life are growing few, but time does not change my LORD. 

New lamps are taking the place of the old; perpetual change is on all things, but our LORD is the same. 

Force over turns the hills, but no conceivable power can affect the eternal God. 

Nothing in the past, the present, or the future can cause Jehovah to be unkind to me.

My soul, rest in the eternal kindness of the LORD, who treats thee as one near of kin. 

Remember also the everlasting covenant.

God is ever mindful of it-see that thou art mindful of it too. 

In Christ Jesus the glorious God has pledged Himself to thee to be thy God and to hold thee as one of His people. 

Kindness and covenant...dwell on these words as sure and lasting things which eternity itself shall not take from thee.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Missing The Joy

Perhaps the most miserable people in the world are the very careful ones.

You that are so anxious about what shall happen to morrow that you cannot enjoy the pleasures of today...

You who have such a peculiar cast of mind that you suspect every star to be a comet...

And imagine that there must be a volcano in every grassy mead...

You that are more attracted by the spots in the sun than by the sun itself...

And more amazed by one dry leaf on the tree than by all the verdure of the woods...

You that make more of your troubles than you could do of your jobs...

I say, I think you belong to the most miserable of men.

~Charles Spurgeon~

God's Children Run Home When The Storm Comes On!

Job 23:3  Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!

In Job's uttermost extremity he cried after the Lord. 

The longing desire of an afflicted child of God is once more to see his Father's face! 

His first prayer is not, "O that I might be healed of the disease which now festers in every part of my body!"

Nor even "O that I might see my children restored from the jaws of the grave, and my property once more brought from the hand of the spoiler!"

But the first and uppermost cry is, "O that I knew where I might find HIM who is my God!

O that I might come even to His presence!

God's children run home when the storm comes on!  

It is the Heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all troubles, beneath the wings of Jehovah.

He who has made God his refuge, might serve as the title of a true believer.

A hypocrite, when afflicted by God, resents the infliction and, like a slave, would run from the Master who has scourged him! 

But not so with the true heir of Heaven...he kisses the hand which smote him and seeks shelter from the rod in the bosom of the God who frowned upon him!

Job's desire to commune with God was intensified, by the failure of all other sources of consolation.

The patriarch turned away from his sorry friends, and looked up to the celestial throne...just as a traveler turns from his empty water bottle, and betakes himself with all speed to the well. 

He bids farewell to earth-born hopes, and cries, O that I knew where I might find my God!

Nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the Creator, as when we learn the emptiness of all other things. 

Turning away with bitter scorn from earth's hives, where we find no honey but many sharp stings...

We rejoice to turn to Him whose faithful Word is sweeter than honey or the honeycomb.

In every trouble, we should first seek God's presence with us. 

Only let us enjoy His smile and we can bear our daily cross with a willing heart, for His dear sake!

~Charles Spurgeon~

Hypocrisy

Every now and then we turn over fair looking stone which lies upon the green grass of the professing church, surrounded with the growth of apparent goodness...

And to our astonishment we find beneath all kinds of filthy insects and loathsome reptiles...

And in our disgust at such hypocrisy, we are driven to exclaim, All men are liars; there are none in whom we can put any trust at all.

It is not fair to say so of all...

But really, the discoveries which are made of the insincerity of our fellow creatures are enough to make us despise our kind...

Because they can go so far in appearances, and yet have so little soundness of heart.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Fellowship Is A Costly Thing

If that fellowship is disturbed between two people in the house of God...

It is not an easy thing for one to go and confess that they are wrong...

Not an easy thing to apologize for doing that harm.

It is not easy to humble ourselves before one another...

We will do anything rather than humble ourselves to another brother or sister. 

No...fellowship is a costly thing. 

It costs humiliation and confession. 

What is true between two is often true between a number. 

If we are going to keep the fellowship in the house of God, it's got to cost us something to do that.

There is a price attached to it.

And if we are not prepared to pay the price of fellowship, it is because we hold fellowship cheaply. 

You see, if a thing to us is of little value, we are not prepared to pay very much for it.

If we really do love the house of God, that is, the fellowship of the Lord's people, we will be prepared to pay any price to keep that fellowship.

A thing which is of value to us is a thing for which we will pay the price.

It is the same in our service to the Lord. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Covered And Protected

Psa 91:4  He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. 

A condescending simile indeed!

Just as a hen protects her brood and allows them to nestle under her wings, so will the LORD defend His people and permit them to hide away in Him. 

Have we not seen the little chicks peeping out from under the mother's feathers?

Have we not heard their little cry of contented joy?

In this way let us shelter ourselves in our God and feel overflowing peace in knowing that He is guarding us. 

While the LORD covers us, we trust. 

It would be strange if we did not. 

How can we distrust when Jehovah Himself becomes house and home, refuge and rest to us?

This done, we go out to war in His name and enjoy the same guardian care. 

We need shield and buckler...

And when we implicitly trust God, even as the chick trusts the hen, we find His truth arming us from head to foot. 

The LORD cannot lie...

He must be faithful to His people...

His promise must stand.

This sure truth is all the shield we need. 

Behind it we defy the fiery darts of the enemy.

Come, my soul, hide under those great wings, lose thyself among those soft feathers!

How happy thou art!

~Charles Spurgeon~

Where Have All My Children Gone?

                                       
Where have all my children gone?

Look back to Isaiah 49:21, and you see that is made more precise: Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?

To this remnant that came back the Lord is saying, "You have lost all your children, but I am giving you a new family and a great family. 

Thy seed shall possess the nations.

He promises a great expanse in restoration, in resurrection from the dead a great expanse and increase. 

In the first place, that evidently was to apply to Israel literally: cast off for a small moment, forsaken, suffering overflowing wrath, yet gathered again.

Historically that applied to Israel.

But Paul, using that in connection with the church, gives it a second meaning and makes it perfectly clear that it had a double application, and it applies here.

There is a little company of the spiritual, and if you stand truly for God you will lose (it cannot be otherwise; it is inevitable) you will lose a great multitude of merely carnal Christians...

You will lose their fellowship.

They will be cut off; God will have to set them aside.

The true ones will be but a small remnant, and they will feel that they are shorn and bereft, brought down to something very small, and they wonder whether it is worth it...

But the Lord comes in at that point.

This not only works out in the general dispensational application, but it works out in our lives individually and as companies of the Lord's people.

We lose the sympathy, the fellowship of the great mass of those who are merely carnal Christians...

And sometimes we are tempted to wonder what is the real profit and value of being true to the Lord when there are so few who are that.

The Lord says in that connection that He is going to realize through the spiritual a great spiritual purpose.

There is going to be an expanding family of the spiritual.

He is not going to leave it like that.

Thy Maker is thy husband.

The Lord is going to get a spiritual company, an ever-growing company of those who are according to His mind.

The Lord believes in increase, in fulness.

The Lord is not in the end going to have a little insignificant thing as the result of all His labours and His sufferings.

The Lord is going to have a great company who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

The end is not going to be just a little thing; it is going to be a mighty thing.

Here His word says that while there may necessarily have to be reduction, He is only reducing in order to increase...

He is only removing that which does not answer to His thought...

And cutting it off...

And setting it aside really to make way for something more according to His mind.

That is a principle that the Lord is always putting into operation:

Getting rid of the thing which stands in the way of the truly spiritual in order to increase the spiritual.

There is quite a lot of stuff that really does not serve the highest ends of the Lord.

It is going on in us.

Sometimes we feel we are reduced to nothing, and all that is left is a mere germ of spiritual life.

The Lord is making room for the expansion of that germ in us.

Sometimes it is outward, the Lord has to cut off.

As John says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us" (1 John 2:19).

1Jn 2:19  They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

The Lord has cut off that which is not going His way in order to make room for something that is.

This extends right from the inward life of the individual through the smaller companies to the whole church.

The day comes when God comes right down as to the whole thing and spews the mass out of His mouth, but it is only to make room for increase.

These words of Isaiah 54 have a double application, not only to Israel, but to the church.

I will lay thy foundations with sapphires.

Thy seed shall possess the nations.

The Lord makes room for spiritual increase by getting rid of the carnal that is in the way wherever it is and whatever it is.

That is what the apostle is saying here in Galatians. (Galations 4:21-31)

It must go, and he could only see with the Galatians that, if they were returning to a carnal basis, it was the way of being set aside,

You are fallen from grace, you are separated from Christ, you will have to be set aside.

So his appeal is to go on...on the basis of that which is spiritual and wholly according to God's mind...

For that is the way of real increase.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Spiritual Weakness Made Manifest By Testing Circumstances

This is a period during which Israel was particularly menaced by the Philistines.

They are always the shadow over Israel's life;

Immediately Israel's weakness and helplessness was related to the Philistines.

The Philistines brought out and made manifest Israel's weakness and helplessness.

The Lord usually has some particular thing by which a state or condition is revealed.

It is not always recognizable as a state in itself.

There has to be something that brings it out.

Because of this or that, the real condition of things is manifested...

And it would not be recognized apart from that instrument that the Lord uses to disclose exactly what the state is.

It becomes positive, rather than abstract, by reason of certain things.

The Lord will, for instance create a situation...

An experience...

A difficulty...

A concrete challenge...

And then the inability to meet it...

To deal with it.
                                                
That shows that that particular thing, which under other circumstances...

If things had been different...

Would have counted for nothing...

Would have at once been conquered and subdued...

Has now become the Lord's means of showing how bad the spiritual state is.

The Lord has a way of doing that.
 
When Israel came into the right position and condition under David, the Phil­istines did not count for anything;

They lost all significance.

But here they are very significant...

They do occupy a very dominant place...

And that is only because of the spiritual state of the Lord's people.

So, spiritual weakness is here made manifest by means of the Philistines.

We have to ask why it was that Israel was helpless before the Philistines.

Why was it that their weakness...

Their deplorable condition...

Was manifested in the presence of the Philistines...

Who otherwise would not have signified anything?

When you dig down for your answer, you find that it was because there was so much in common between Israel and the Philistines.

They had so much in common really deep down underneath.

The Philistines are known to us by a certain epithet...

The 'uncircumcised Philistines'.
 
David used that phrase concerning Goliath of Gath,"this uncircumcised Philistine" (1 Sam. 17:36).

But when you look at Israel, that was really their spiritual state.
They were uncircumcised in heart.
 
They were called the Lord's people, and in a sense, traditionally they were.

They had the ordinances, even the ordinances of circumcision...

But it was all outward.

Paul draws that very distinct line of discrimination...

Between the outward circumcision, which he calls the concision...

And the inward circumcision of the heart.

He says it is the latter that makes us Israelites in truth, not the former (Rom. 2:25-29).

Here you find Israel in exactly that position...

Uncircumcised in heart.

The fact that they said,"Make us a king... like all the nations" (1 Sam. 8:5)...

Showed that the thing which was common to the nations had come into their hearts.

They wanted to be like the other nations;

That is, the spirit of the world had come inside...

And thus they knew nothing of what Paul called "the circumcision of Christ";

Not "the putting away of the filth of the flesh" (1 Pet. 3:21), but the putting away of the old man entirely.

There was deep down something quite in common in Israel and the Philistines...

And that being so, that had to be ex­posed and the world exposed their weakness.

It is like that with a church, with a Christian community, or with a Christendom, which is really worldly in spirit, in principle or in method.

It is the world that exposes their weakness and shows how helpless they are.

The world, like the Philistines, laughs at them and says...

You don't count for anything;

You are not to be taken seriously;

We do not consider that we owe very much to you or that we are to take you seriously.'

The world laughs at the church and the Christian who, in principle, has that which is in common with itself.

The world says, 'We can do your job better than you can.'

So we find that the world is very largely the instrument of exhibiting or exposing the weakness of Christians...

Simply because there is that common basis.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Mountains Turned To Plains

Zec 4:7  Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.

At this hour a mountain of difficulty, distress, or necessity may be in our way...

And natural reason sees no path over it, or through it, or round it.

Let faith come in, and straightway the mountain disappears and becomes a plain.

But faith must first hear the word of the LORD--"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts." 

This grand truth is a prime necessity for meeting the insurmountable trials of life.

I see that I can do nothing and that all reliance on man is vanity. 

Not by might...I see that no visible means can be relied on...

But the force is in the invisible Spirit. 

God alone must work, and men and means must be nothing accounted of. 

If it be so that the Almighty God takes up the concerns of His people, then great mountains are nothing.

He can remove worlds as boys toss balls about or drive them with their foot. 

This power He can lend to me.

If the LORD bids me move an Alp I can do it through His name. 

It may be a great mountain, but even before my feebleness it shall become a plain; for the LORD hath said it. 

What can I be afraid of with God on my side?

~Charles Spurgeon~

"We Would See Jesus"

                                                   
When any great blessing is awaiting us, the devil is sure to try and make it so disagreeable to us that we shall miss it.

It is a good thing to know him as a liar, and remember, when he is trying to prejudice us strongly against any cause, that very likely the greatest blessing of our life lies there.

Spurgeon once said that the best evidence that God was on our side is the devil's growl, and we are generally pretty safe in following a thing according to Satan's dislike for it.

Beloved, take care, lest in the very line where your prejudices are setting you off from God's people and God's truth, you are missing the treasures of your life.

Take the treasures of heaven no matter how they come to you, even if it be as earthly treasures generally are, like the kernel inside the rough shell, or the gem in the bosom of the hard rock.

I have seen Jesus and my heart is dead to all beside, I have seen Jesus, and my wants are all, in Him, supplied.

I have seen Jesus, and my heart, at last, is satisfied, Since I've seen Jesus.

~A. B. Simpson~

Instant Obedience!

Gen 17:23  And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto him.

Instant obedience is the only kind of obedience there is...

Delayed obedience is disobedience. 

Every time God calls us to any duty, He is offering to make a covenant with us...

Doing the duty is our part...

And He will do His part in special blessing.

The only way we can obey is to obey "in the selfsame day," as Abraham did. 

To be sure, we often postpone a duty and then later on do it as fully as we can.

It is better to do this than not to do it at all. 

But it is then, at the best, only a crippled, disfigured, half-way sort of duty-doing...

And a postponed duty never can bring the full blessing that God intended, and that it would have brought if done at the earliest possible moment.

It is a pity to Rob ourselves, along with Robbing God and others, by Procrastination.

In the selfsame day is the Genesis way of saying, "Do It Now."

~Messages for the Morning Watch~

Luther says that a true believer will crucify the question, Why?

He will obey without questioning.

I will not be one of those who, except they see signs and wonders, will in no wise believe.

I will obey without questioning.

Ours not to make reply...

Ours not to reason why...

Ours but to do and die.

Obedience is the fruit of faith...

Patience, the bloom on the fruit.

~Christina Rossetti~

Perhaps YOU Have DISOBEYED Some CLEAR Command

Sometimes a soul comes to its spiritual adviser, speaking thus:

"I have no conscious joy, and have had but little for years."

"Did you once have it?" 

"Yes, for some time after my conversion to God." 

"Are you conscious of having refused obedience to some distinct command, which came into your life, but from which you shrank?"

Then the face is cast down, and the eyes film with tears, and the answer comes with difficulty:

"Yes, years ago I used to think that God required a certain thing of me; but I felt I could not do what He wished, was uneasy for some time about it, but after a while it seemed to fade from my mind, and now it does not often trouble me."

"Ah, soul, that is where you went wrong, and you will never get right till you go right back through the weary years to the point where you did drop the thread of obedience, and perform that one thing which God demanded of you so long ago, but on account of which you did leave the narrow track of implicit obedience."

Is not this the cause of depression to thousands of Christian people?

They are God's children, but they are disobedient children.

The Bible rings with one long demand for obedience.

The key-word of the Book of Deuteronomy is, Observe and Do.

The burden of Christ's Farewell Discourse is, If ye love me, keep My commandments.

We must not question or reply or excuse ourselves.

We must not pick and choose our way.

We must not take some commands and reject others.

We must not think that obedience in other directions will compensate for disobedience in some one particular.

God gives one command at a time, borne in upon us, not in one way only, but in many; by this He tests us.

If we obey in this, He will flood our soul with blessing, and lead us forward into new paths and pastures.

But if we refuse in this we shall remain stagnant and waterlogged, make no progress in Christian experience, and lack both power and joy.

~Andrew Murray~

The Arm Of The Lord~The Vindication Of A Course Taken

Now, I find that the first thing that is meant by the Arm of the Lord on behalf of His people is this...

It means the vindication of the course that they have taken.

If you turn to your Bible with that in mind, you will find how much there is that gathers around it.

You will agree that it is a very important matter, that the course that we have taken should be proved at the end to have been the right one.

There could be nothing more terrible and tragic than that having taken a course...

And given ourselves and all that we have to it...

Poured out our lives in it and for it...

We should find at the end that we have been wrong...

And that the Lord is not able to vindicate the course that we have taken. 

It is plainly of the utmost importance that the course that we have taken should, in the end, receive the Divine approval...

That over against everything, in spite of everything, from men and from demons, God should be able to say: 'That man was right!'

That, after all, was the vindication of Job, was it not? How much that man met of misconstruction and misrepresentation! 

But in the end God said, 'My servant Job is right'; and it is no small thing to have God say that. 

In Isaiah 53 it is that: the vindication of a course taken, in spite of everything. 

And that 'in spite of everything' amounts to a good deal in that chapter, does it not?

An overwhelming weight of contradiction and misunderstanding;

But, in the end, the Servant is vindicated; 

God says He was right. 

To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

To that One - to that One!

That thought runs everywhere through the Bible, in relation to all the great men of faith, as they walked with God. 

What a difficult way they went! 

But in the end, God said, not in word only, but in very, very practical vindication, 'He was right, he was right.'

That is the meaning of the Arm of the Lord.

That is what I want when I ask for the Arm of the Lord:

O Lord, that I may take such a way with You that, in the end, You may be able to stand by that way and say: He was right.' 

Do you want that?

There is no value in anything that does not work out like that. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

Dear Friends, Why Do You Make Your House Like Hell?

Dear friends, why do you make your house like Hell? 

A traveler one day called at a cottage to ask for a drink of water.

Entering, he found the parents cursing and quarreling, with the children trembling and crouched in a corner. 

Wherever he looked, he saw only marks of degradation and misery. 

Greeting the family, he asked them, "Dear friends, why do you make your house like Hell?"

Ah, Sir, said the man, "you don't know the life and trials of a poor man!"

Do what I can - "everything goes wrong!"

The stranger drank the water, and then said softly (as he noticed a Bible in a dark and dusty corner)...

Dear friends, I know what would help you, if you could find it.

There is a treasure concealed in your house... search for it.

And so he left them.

At first the cottagers thought it a jest, but, after a while they began to reflect.

The whole family tried to find the "treasure" but in vain.

Increasing poverty brought only more quarrels, discontent, and strife.

One day, as the woman was thinking upon the stranger's words...her eye fell on the old Bible. 

It had been a gift from her mother, but since her death long ago it had been unheeded and unused.

A strange foreboding seized her mind. 

Could the stranger have meant the Bible?

She took it from the shelf, opened it, and found the verse inscribed on the title-page, in her mother's handwriting, "The law of your mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." 

It cut her to the heart. 

Ah! thought she, "this is the treasure which we have been seeking!" 

How her tears fell fast upon the pages!

From that time she read the Bible every day, and taught the children to pray...but without her husband's knowledge. 

One day he came home, as usual, quarrelsome and in a rage. 

Instead of meeting his angry words with angry replies...she spoke to him kindly and with gentleness. 

Husband, said she, "we have sinned grievously."

We have ourselves to blame for all this misery, and we must now lead a different life.

He looked amazed.

What are you talking about? was his exclamation.

She brought the old Bible, and, sobbing, cried, Here is the treasure. 

See, I have found it!

The husband's heart was moved. 

She read to him of the Lord Jesus, and of His love.

She continued to read the Scriptures daily, as she sat with the children around her, thoughtful and attentive.

So time went on.

It was a year later that the stranger returned that way.

Seeing the cottage, he remembered the circumstances of his visit, and thought he would call and see this family again. 

He did so, but he would scarcely have known the place...it was so clean, so neat, so well ordered. 

He opened the door, and at first thought he was mistaken, for the family came to meet him so kindly, with the peace of God beaming upon their faces.

How are you, my friends? said he.

Then they recognized the stranger and for some time they could not speak.

Thanks, thanks, dear Sir...we have found the treasure which you spoke of! 

Now the blessing of God dwells in our house and His peace in our hearts!

So they said and their entire condition, and the happy faces of their children, declared the same more plainly!

~Author Unknown~

Fret Not Over Evil-doers

Psa 37:1  A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

Do not get into a perilous heat about things. 

If ever heat were justified, it was surely justified in the circumstances outlined in the Psalm. 

Evil-doers were moving about clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day. 

Workers of iniquity were climbing into the supreme places of power, and were tyrannizing their less fortunate brethren. 

Sinful men and women were stalking through the land in the pride of life and basking in the light and comfort of great prosperity, and good men were becoming heated and fretful.

Fret not thyself. Do not get unduly heated!

Keep cool!

Even in a good cause, fretfulness is not a wise help-meet.

Fretting only heats the bearings; it does not generate the steam.

It is no help to a train for the axles to get hot; their heat is only a hindrance.

When the axles get heated, it is because of unnecessary friction; dry surfaces are grinding together, which ought to be kept in smooth co-operation by a delicate cushion of oil.

And is it not a suggestive fact that this word "fret" is closely akin to the word "friction," and is an indication of absence of the anointing oil of the grace of God?

In fretfulness, a little bit of grit gets into the bearings...

Some slight disappointment...

Some ingratitude...

Some discourtesy...

And the smooth working of the life is checked. 

Friction begets heat; and with the heat, most dangerous conditions are created.

Do not let thy bearings get hot.

Let the oil of the Lord keep thee cool, lest by reason of an unholy heat thou be reckoned among the evil-doers.

~The Silver Lining~

Dear restless heart, be still; don't fret and worry so...

God has a thousand ways His love and help to show...

Just trust, and trust, and trust, until His will you know.

Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God's own smile...
 
His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile...

Just love, and love, and love, and calmly wait awhile.

Dear restless heart, be brave; don't moan and sorrow so...

He hath a meaning kind in chilly winds that blow...

Just hope, and hope, and hope, until you braver grow.

Dear restless heart, repose upon His breast this hour...

His grace is strength and life, His love is bloom and flower...

Just rest, and rest, and rest, within His tender power.

Dear restless heart, be still! Don't struggle to be free...

God's life is in your life, from Him you may not flee...

Just pray, and pray, and pray, till you have faith to see.

~Edith Willis Linn~

Let Us Be Alert

Rom 13:11  And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
 
Rom 13:12  The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
 
Let us wake out of sleep...

Let us be alert...

Let us be alive to the great necessities that really concern us.

Let us put off the garments of the night and the indulgences of the night; the loose robes of pleasure and flowing garments of repose...

The festal pleasures of the hours of darkness are not for the children of the day. 

Let us cast off the works of darkness.

Let us arm ourselves for the day. 

Before we put on our clothes, let us put on our weapons...

For we are stepping out into a land of enemies and a world of dangers...

Let us put on the helmet of salvation,...

The breastplate of faith and love...

And the shield of faith...

And stand armed and vigilant as the dangers of the last days gather around us.

Let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

This is our robe of day. 

Not our own works or righteousness...

But the person and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ...

Who gave us His very life...

And becomes to us our All-Sufficiency.

~A. B. Simpson~

When God Says No

1Ki 8:56  Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.

Some day we shall understand that God has a reason in every NO which He speaks through the slow movement of life. 

Somehow God makes up to us.

How often, when His people are worrying and perplexing themselves about their, prayers not being answered, is God answering them in a far richer way! 

Glimpses of this we see occasionally, but the full revelation of it remains for the future.
     
If God says 'Yes' to our prayer, dear heart, And the sunlight is golden, the sky is blue...

While the smooth road beckons to me and you...

And the song-birds warble as on we go...

Pausing to gather the buds at our feet...

Stopping to drink of the streamlets we meet...

Happy, more happy, our journey will grow...

If God says 'Yes' to our prayer, dear heart.
     
If God says 'No' to our prayer, dear heart, And the clouds hang heavy and dull and gray...

If the rough rocks hinder and block the way...

While the sharp winds pierce us and sting with cold...

Ah, dear, there is home at the journey's end...

And these are the trials the Father doth send To draw us as sheep to His Heavenly fold...

If God says 'No' to our prayer, dear heart."
     
Oh for the faith that does not make haste, but waits patiently for the Lord...

Waits for the explanation that shall come in the end, at the revelation of Jesus Christ! 

When did God take anything from a man, without giving him manifold more in return?

Suppose that the return had not been made immediately manifest, what then?

Is today the limit of God's working time?

Has He no provinces beyond this little world?

Does the door of the grave open upon nothing but infinite darkness and eternal silence ?
     
Yet, even confining the judgment within the hour of this life...

It is true that God never touches the heart with a trial without intending to bring upon it some grander gift, some tenderer benediction. 

He has attained to an eminent degree of Christian grace who knows how to wait.

~Selected~
     
When the frosts are in the valley, And the mountain tops are grey...

And the choicest buds are blighted, And the blossoms die away...

A loving Father whispers, "This cometh from my hand"...

Blessed are ye if ye trust Where ye cannot understand.
     
If, after years of toiling, Your wealth should fly away...

And leave your hands all empty, And your locks are turning grey,

Remember then your Father Owns all the sea and land...

Blessed are ye if ye trust Where ye cannot understand.

~Selected~

The Anchor Of Calvary

There was an evil hour once when I released the anchor of my faith...

I cut the cable of my belief...

I no longer moored myself tight to the coasts of the Revelation of God...

I allowed my vessel to drift with the wind...

I said to reason, "You be my captain;"...

I said to my own brain, "You be my rudder;"...

And I started on my mad voyage. 

Thank God, it is all over now; but I will tell you its brief history.

It was one hurried sailing over the tempestuous ocean of free thought. 

I went on, and as I went, the skies began to darken...

But to make up for that deficiency, the waters were brilliant with the glitter of brilliancy...

I saw sparks flying upward that pleased me, and I thought, "If this is free thought, it is a good thing." 

My thoughts seemed like gems, and I scattered stars with both my hands...

But before long, instead of these flashes of glory, I saw grim fiends, fierce and horrible, come up from the waters...

And as I rushed on, they gnashed their teeth, and grinned at me...

They seized the bow of my ship and dragged me on...

While I, in part, was impressed at the swiftness of my motion, but yet shuddered at the terrific rate with which I passed the old landmarks of my faith.

As I hurried forward with a dreadful speed, I began to doubt my very existence...

I doubted if there were a world...

I doubted if there were such a thing, as myself...

I went to the very verge of the dreamy realms of unbelief...

I went to the very bottom of the sea of Unbelief.

I doubted everything.

But here the devil foiled himself...

For the very extravagance of the doubt, proved its absurdity. 

Just when I saw the bottom of that sea, there came a voice which said, "And can this doubt be true?" 

At this very thought I awoke. 

I started from that death-dream, which, God knows, might have damned my Soul, and ruined my body, if I had not awoke. 

When I arose, faith took the helm...

From that moment I no longer doubted. 

Faith steered me back...

Faith cried, "Away, away!"

I cast my anchor on Calvary...

I lifted my eye to God...

And here I am, "alive, and out of hell."

~Charles Spurgeon~