Autumn Devotional in Honor of Pastor Chuck Smith

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:12-13

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.

Revelation 21:3

Beyond these chilling winds and gloomy skies, —

Beyond death’s cloudy portal —

There is a land where beauty never dies,

Where love becomes immortal.

A land whose light is never dimmed by shade,

Whose fields are ever vernal,

Where nothing beautiful can ever fade,

But blooms for aye eternal.

The city’s shining towers we may not see,

With our dim earthly vision:

For Death, the silent warder, keeps the key

That opes these gates elysian.

But sometimes, where adown the western sky

A fiery sunset lingers,

Its golden gates swing inward noiselessly,

Unlocked by unseen fingers:

And while they stand a moment half ajar,

Gleams from the inner glory,

Stream brightly through the azure vault afar,

And half reveal the story.

O land unknown ! O land of love divine !

Father, all-wise, eternal,

Oh, guide these wandering, way-worn feet of mine

Unto those pastures vernal.

Heaven

NANCY A.W. PRIEST

         There is an “eventide” in the year, -- a season, as we now witness, when the sun withdraws his propitious light, when the winds arise, and the leaves fall, and nature around us seems to sink into decay. It is said, in general, to be the season of melancholy; and if by this word be meant that it is the time of solemn and of serious thought, it is undoubtedly so; yet it is a melancholy so soothing, so gentle in its approach, and so prophetic in its influence, that they who have known it feel, as instinctively, that it is the doing of God, and that the heart of man is not thus finely touched but to fine issues. When we go out into the fields in the evening of the year, we regard, even in spite of ourselves, the still but steady advances of time. A different voice approaches us ... A few days ago, and the summer of the year was grateful, and every element was filled with life, and the sun of heaven seemed to glory in his ascendant.  He is now enfeebled in his power; the desert no more “blossoms like the rose;” the song of joy is no more heard among the branches; and the earth is strewed with that foliage which once bespoke the magnificence of summer…. Such also in a few years will be our own condition…. If there were no other effects, my brethren, of such appearances of nature upon our minds, they would still be valuable; they would teach us humility, and with it they would teach us charity.

ARCHIBALD ALISON

  Sermon on Autumn

In Heaven God will give Himself wholly to us, even as He is One and Undivided; yet He will give Himself variously to the innumerable blessed ones around Him.  And we shall give ourselves to Him in like manner, for we shall see Him Face to face in all His Beauty, and love Him Heart to heart. 

F. DE SALES

Of the Love of God

~This Devotional is dedicated to Pastor Chuck Smith who has arrived to his true Home.

"Temperament we are born with, character we have to make..."

Does He not see my ways,

And count all my steps?

Job 31:4

For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.”

1 Samuel 30:24

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.

Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL

Temperament we are born with, character we have to make; and that not in the grand moments when the eyes of men or of angels are visibly upon us, but in the daily, quiet paths of pilgrimage, when the work is being done within in secret which will be revealed in the daylight of eternity. Habits, like paths, are the result of constant actions. It is the multitude of daily footsteps which go to and fro which shapes them. Let it light up your daily wanderings to know that there, —in the quiet bracing of the soul to uncongenial duty, the patient bearing of unwelcome burdens, the loving acceptance of unlovely companionship, — and not on the grand occasions, you are making your eternal future. It is the multitude of little actions which makes the great ones.

        J. BALDWIN BROWN

 Our common, everyday lives are the means God implies by which we shall build our Christian lives. A farm or an office are not places to make crops or money, but men.  All the little things about our daily toil are the framework and scaffolding of our spiritual life. 

HENRY DRUMMOND

"Blessed of My Father," that is our eternal name!

 “Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…”

Matthew 25:34

“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Luke 12:32

Whither, ‘midst falling dew,

While glows the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler’s eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,

As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek’st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, --

The desert and illimitable air, --

Lone  wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann’d

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;

 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark of night is near.

And soon that toil shall end,

Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend

Soon o’er thy sheltered nest.

Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou has given,

And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

“To a Waterfowl”

 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

         The soul that shuts itself and holds its peace while the world is near grows securer in silence of contemplation, and lets out its gentle thoughts and whispering joys, its hopes or sad fears, unto the listening ear and before the kindly eye of God!  But in souls which have caught something of the beauty of the divine life, prayer in many of its moods becomes more than this. There are times of yearning and longing, far beyond the help of the most hopeful.  There is a prayer which is the voice of the soul pleading its birthright, crying out for its immortality; it is heavenly homesickness.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

1813-1887

"Blessed of My Father," that is our eternal name!  How those words come to us in the tingling stillness of the night, when panic fears oppress our loneliness, and so strangely vex our souls!  How they rise soft and clear above the tolling of the world, in hours of weariness and obstinate temptation!  How they sing songs to the fear of death, and lull it when it wakens and cries, "Blessed of My Father!"

F.W. FABER

1815-1863