From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Daily devotions for 09-08-2005:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: Inventiveness
Evening Title: Seas of Tempest
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Morning: Inventiveness
"And when they could not come nigh unto Him for the press, they uncovered the
roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed
wherein the sick of the palsy lay."
--Mark 2:4
Faith is full of inventions. The house was full, a crowd blocked up the door,
but faith found a way of getting at the Lord and placing the palsied man before
Him. If we cannot get sinners
where Jesus is by ordinary methods we must use extraordinary ones. It seems,
according to Luke 5:19, that a tiling had to be removed, which would make dust
and cause a measure of danger to those below, but where the case is very urgent
we must not mind running some risks and shocking some proprieties. Jesus was
there to heal, and therefore fall what might, faith ventured all so that her
poor paralyzed charge might have his sins forgiven. O that we had more daring
faith among us! Cannot we, dear reader, seek it this morning for ourselves and
for our fellow-workers, and will we not try to-day to perform some gallant act
for the love of souls and the glory of the Lord.
The world is constantly inventing; genius serves all the purposes of human
desire: cannot faith
invent too, and reach by some new means the outcasts who lie perishing around
us? It was the presence of Jesus which excited victorious courage in the four
bearers of the palsied man:
is not the Lord among us now? Have we seen His face for ourselves this
morning? Have we felt His healing power in our own souls? If so, then through
door, through window, or through roof, let us, breaking through all
impediments, labour to bring poor souls to Jesus. All means are good and
decorous when faith and love are truly set on winning souls. If hunger for
bread can break through stone walls, surely hunger for souls is not to be
hindered in its efforts. O Lord, make us quick to suggest methods of reaching
Thy poor sin-sick ones, ;and bold to carry them out at all hazards.
Evening: Seas of Tempest
"There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet." --Jeremiah 49:23
Little know we what sorrow may be upon the sea at this moment. We are safe in
our quiet chamber, but far away on the salt sea the hurricane may be cruelly
seeking for the lives of men. Hear how the death fiends howl among the cordage;
how every timber starts as the waves beat like battering rams upon the vessel!
God help you, poor drenched and wearied ones! My prayer goes up to the great
Lord of sea and land, that He will make the storm a calm, and bring you to your
desired haven! Nor ought I to offer prayer alone, I should try to benefit those
hardy men who risk their lives so constantly. Have I ever done anything for
them? What can I do? How often does the boisterous sea swallow up the mariner!
Thousands of corpses lie where pearls lie deep.
There is death-sorrow on the sea, which is echoed in the long wail of widows
and orphans. The salt of the sea is in many& nbsp;eyes of mothers and wives.
Remorseless billows, ye have devoured the love of women, and the stay of
households. What a resurrection shall there be from the caverns of the deep
when the sea gives up her dead! Till
then there will be sorrow on the sea. As if in sympathy with the woes of earth,
the sea is for
ever fretting along a thousand shores, wailing with a sorrowful cry like her
own birds, booming
with a hollow crash of unrest, raving with uproarious discontent, chafing with
hoarse wrath,
or jangling with the voices o f ten thousand murmuring pebbles. The roar of the
sea may be
joyous to a rejoicing spirit, but to the son of sorrow the wide, wide ocean is
even more forlorn
than the wide, wide world. This is not our rest, and the restless billows tell
us so. There is a
land where there is no more sea--our faces are steadfastly set towards it; we
are going to the
place of which the Lord hath spoken. Till then, we cast our sorrows on the Lord
who trod the sea of old, and who maketh a way for His people through the depths
thereof.
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Daily devotions for 09-06-2005:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: Being Useful
Evening Title: Understanding
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Morning: Being Useful
"Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar."
--Psalm 120:5
As a Christian you have to live in the midst of an ungodly world, and it is of
little use for you
to cry "Woe is me." Jesus did not pray O that you should be taken out of the
world, and what He did not pray for you need not desire. Better far in the
Lord's strength to meet the difficulty, and glorify Him in it. The enemy is
ever on the watch to detect inconsistency in your conduct; be therefore very
holy. Remember that the eyes of all are upon you, and that more is expected
from you than from other men. Strive to give no occasion for blame. Let your
goodness be the only fault they can discover in you. Like Daniel, compel them
to say of you, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we
find it against him concerning the law of his God." Seek to be useful as well
as consistent.
Perhaps you think, "If I were in a more favourable position I might serve the
Lord's cause, but I cannot do any good where I am"; but the worse the people
are among whom you live, the more need have they of your exertions; if they be
crooked, the more necessity that you should set them straight; and if they be
perverse, the more need have you to turn their proud hearts to the truth. Where
should the physician be but where there are many sick? Where is honour to be
won by the soldier but in the hottest fire of the battle? And when weary of the
strife and sin that meets you on every hand, consider that all the saints have
endured the same trial. They were not carried on beds of down to heaven, and
you must not expect to travel more easily than they. They had to hazard their
lives unto the death in the high places of the field, and you will not be
crowned till you also have endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
The refore, "stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."
Evening: Understanding
"Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?" --Job 38:16
Some things in nature must remain a mystery to the most intelligent and
enterprising
investigators. Human knowledge has bounds beyond which it cannot pass.
Universal knowledge is for God alone. If this be so in the things which are
seen and temporal, I may rest assured that it is even more so in matters
spiritual and eternal.
Why, then, have I been torturing my brain with speculations as to ;destiny and
will, fixed fate,
and human responsibility? These deep and dark truths I am no more able to
comprehend than to find out the depth which coucheth beneath, from which old
ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so curious to know the reason of my
Lord's providences, the motive of His actions, the design of His visitations?
Shall I ever be able to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the
universe in my palm? yet these are as a drop of a bucket compared with the Lord
my God.
Let me not strive to underst and the infinite, but spend my strength in love.
What I cannot gain by intellect I can possess by affection, and let that
suffice me. I cannot penetrate the heart of
the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful breezes which sweep over its bosom, and
I can sail over
its blue waves with propitious winds. If I could enter the springs of the sea,
the feat would
serve no useful purpose either to myself or to others, it would not save the
sinking bark, or
give back the drowned mariner to his weeping wife and children; neither
would&nbs p;my solving deep mysteries avail me a single whit, for the least
love to God, and the simplest act of obedience to Him, are better than the
profoundest knowledge.
My Lord, I leave the infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far from me such a
love for the tree
of knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life.
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