Devotional on Forgiveness '21 "God is as pleased to forgive our sins as we are to have them forgiven."

 

Let him return to the LORD,

​​And He will have mercy on him;

​​And to our God,

​​For He will abundantly pardon.

​

​​“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

​​Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

​​So are My ways higher than your ways,

​​And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:7b-9

 

 

 

Jesus, You are the great Almighty I AM,

Led to the slaughter like a silent Lamb.

Earthly kings will stand speechless in Your Presence,

While saints and angels crown You High King of Heaven.

 

It was my sins You bore upon that tree;

Carrying all my sorrows, far too heavy.

Jesus, pierced through, afflicted and smitten,

That my name upon Your heart might be written.

 

chorus: 

I’ve been long afflicted and tossed with tempests,

  My drifting soul stranded in the wilderness.

Bring me back to Eden when I walked in nearness,

Let me find my song again, hymns of pure gladness.

 

You poured Your soul out as a guilt offering,

Cut off from the land of the living.

My heart’s now at peace, knowing I’m forgiven—

No longer hiding, no longer forsaken.

 

What words can I sing that describe such grace?

A love that sacrificed life for this fallen race?

But sing on I will, exalting Your goodness,

My Lord and King, my Redeemer from darkness!

Bring Me Back to Eden

C.A. TAYLOR

 

         “He will abundantly pardon.” There is nothing of cold, distant harshness in God’s mercy-giving. He does not say, “Take thy pardon and go thy way. It is what thou dost not deserve. Thou hast been a wicked rebel; take care of thyself in time to come.” God is ever like Himself. Behold Him in creation; in these myriads of mighty worlds He has hung above us in the heavens. How like the greatness of the Great One is that fulness of immensity. Behold Him in the gifts with which He blesses our earth; with what a lavish hand He scatters beauties and glories. And here, too, as the God of Pardon, God again is like Himself; He pardons like Himself, with Divine generosity.

         It is God’s good pleasure to pardon abundantly. He [Isaiah] has a claim to speak of God with an authority which few can rival. And this is what he has to say to us of God—that God’s mercy is as much higher than our thoughts of it, as much broader, as much more pure and tender, as the heavens are higher and broader and sweeter than the earth; that it transcends all our conceptions of mercy, that it seems incredible to us only because it is so large and rich and free, that we can hardly even bring ourselves to believe in it. He affirms that even here our great poet’s [Shakespeare] description holds good, that we may lift a reverent eye to the very Throne of Heaven and say: “Mercy is twice blessed,” blessing “him that gives,” as well as “him that takes,” since God delights in mercy, and is —if we may speak of so great a mystery in words so homely—at least as pleased to forgive our sins as we are to have them forgiven.

         He shows His desire for our salvation, and His readiness to accept us, in doing what none could have imagined possible, in sending His Son to take our nature upon Him, and to become man for our sakes. Here is the pledge of His faithfulness. Here is the assurance which none can doubt, that He loves the souls of men with the love with which He loves His only-begotten Son. When we will not come to Him, He comes to us. When we refuse to seek Him, He comes Himself to seek and to save us. He does not send, He does not call merely. He comes down from heaven, and lays aside His glory, and speaks to us face to face, with the words of man, with the fellow-feeling of man, with the affectionate love and tender earnestness of man. He who made the light, and rules beyond the stars, comes and calls on us, and speaks to us with the simple plainness with which a father speaks to his little children or a little child appeals to grown men. 

JAMES HASTINGS

Great Texts of the Bible -Isaiah

 

My God, my God, have mercy on my sin,

For it is great; and if I should begin

To tell it all,

The day would be too small

To tell it in.

 

My God, Thou wilt have mercy on my sin

For Thy Love’s sake: yea, if I should begin

To tell This all,

The day would be too small

To tell it in.

 

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI

Winter Devotional '21"....marvel of marvels, that the little soul of man can receive into itself the infinite God."

 

For thus says the High and Lofty One

Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

“I dwell in the high and holy place,

And with him who has a contrite and humble spirit,

To revive the spirit of the humble,

And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Isaiah 57:15

 

And Mary said,

 

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

 for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant.”

Luke 1:46-48

 

Thy home is with the humble, Lord; 

The simplest are the best;

Thy lodging is in childlike hearts;

 Thou makest there Thy rest.

 

Dear Comforter, eternal Love,

If Thou wilt stay with me,

Of lowly thoughts and simple ways 

I'll build a house for Thee.

 

Who made this beating heart of mine, 

But Thou, my heavenly Guest?

Let no one have it, then, but Thee, 

And let it be Thy rest.

 

Thy Home Is with the Humble, Lord 

Frederick Faber~1849 

 

 

That this ”high and lofty One that inhabits eternity” should enter into some poor, crushed, and broken human spirit, that trembles at the very whisper of His voice, and should make the narrow recesses of that heart His abode, His home—this is the mystery and glory of the Godhead,—not alone that He should be infinite, eternal, immortal, invisible, but that, being all these, He should yet be apprehended by the little mind of a man, and call Himself that man’s Friend and Comforter and Father.

In the friendship He offers and gives to the poorest of mankind. The broad cleavage of social caste is one of the most familiar facts of life now as in all former times. God simply ignores it. He is the Friend of all—the Friend of the prosperous and the comfortable—if they will only take Him, making their prosperity and comfort a brighter and happier thing, but none the less, the Friend of the hard-struggling on whom the burden of existence presses sore. There is many a man and woman in straightened circumstances whom people in a better position would not deign to notice or be seen speaking to on the street. But the Most High has no such feeling. Nor does He deem it beneath Him to have the poor professing His name and openly claiming friendship with Him. All the loftiness of His position creates not the slightest gap of sympathy between Him and the lowliest child of man. And there are burdened hearts in the obscurest ranks of society that feel the joy of His companionship in their life-battle, and know that the King of the Universe is with them as they struggle on. 

Again the humility of God is seen in His care to lift up the most unworthy. Perfectly free from what we call pride of position, He is also perfectly free from what we know as pride of character. Holy as His Name is, and jealously as he guards His holiness, there is no holding of Himself aloof from the unholy. In fact, the most wonderful thing about God is His persistent endeavor to get into touch with men and women in their sinfulness, and to rescue them from it. The mission of Christ was the humility of God in practical action—God making the first move, God stooping down among the sinful and unworthy to raise and redeem them.

Another manifestation of the humility of God is His patience amid the obstinate ingratitude and unfriendliness of men. We are sometimes impatient enough with one another. A slight, an unguarded word, an ungenerous act, is taken as —a mortal offense, not to be endured. Pride rises up and stiffens its back, and is hard to be pacified. Meanwhile, how much has God to bear from us all, every day of our life? Blessings received from His hand, and turned into a ground of vainglorious boasting; reverence and obedience withheld in the very presence of clear revelations of His will; the claims of His truth set aside for self-convenience, self-interest, or self-gratification; rebellious murmuring against the appointments of His providence; the faithless preference of worldly gain to the enjoyment of His favour—all that He has to bear from us. 

It is not merely or mainly by His work in the world that the prophet recognizes the humility of God It is by His condescending to come into the lives of men. Here is the marvel of marvels, that the little soul of man can receive into itself the infinite God.

JAMES HASTINGS

The Great Texts of the Bible 

~Isaiah

Cultivating Quiet Before God Devotional '20 "If we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, & minds still before Him."

 

    

My soul, wait silently for God alone,

For my hope is from Him.

Psalm 62:5

 

Come, my people, enter into your rooms,

And shut your doors behind you;

Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment…

Isaiah 26:20

 

“But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Matthew 6:6

 

 

Lord, You promised to be found in the secret place,

Alone, yet not alone, enclosed with You.

Away from the turmoil and clamor,

Where I may lay out all my grief and heartaches.

 

chorus:

You are the unseen God who sees,

The great I AM who grants healing.

You are the God touched by my sorrows,

My great High Priest, who is merciful and mighty.

 

 

I will shut my door to the world’s voices,

And open the door to welcome You in—

My ears waiting to hear Words of hope and life,

That lift my downcast soul to one who rejoices.

 

br:

My longing soul cries out to You

For Your pierced hands will bind my wounds.

 

 

Only You and You only, can make my woeful heart sing,

Forgiver, healer, and lover of my anxious soul—

I’ll draw near to You, Comfort of the broken-hearted,

Incarnate Love, who gives gladness for mourning. 

C.A. TAYLOR

My Longing Soul

 

 

That silence is first a silence of the will. The plain meaning of this phrase is resignation; and resignation is just a silent will. Before the throne of the Great King, His servants are to stand like those long rows of attendants we see on the walls of Eastern temples, silent, with folded arms, straining their ears to hear, and bracing their muscles to execute his whispered commands, or even his gesture and his glance. A man’s will should be an echo, not a voice; the echo of God, not the voice of self. It should be silent, as some sweet instrument is silent till the owner’s hand touches the keys. Like the boy-prophet in the hush of the sanctuary, below the quivering light of the dying lamps, we should wait till the awful voice calls, and then answer, ‘Speak, Lord! for Thy servant heareth.’ Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God’s hand gives the impulse and direction.

         Such a silent will is a strong will. It is no feeble passiveness, no dead indifference, no impossible abnegation that God requires, when He requires us to put our wills in accord with His. They are not slain, but vivified, by such surrender; and the true secret of strength lies in submission. The secret of blessedness is there, too, for our sorrows come because there is discord between our circumstances and our wills, and the measure in which these are in harmony with God is the measure in which we shall feel that all things are blessings to be received with thanksgiving. But if we will take our own way, and let our own wills speak before God speaks, or otherwise than God speaks, nothing can come of that but what always has come of it—blunders, sins, misery, and manifold ruin.

We must keep our hearts silent too. The sweet voices of pleading affections, the loud cry of desires and instincts that roar for their food like beasts of prey, the querulous complaints of disappointed hopes, the groans and sobs of black-robed sorrows, the loud hubbub and Babel, like the noise of a great city, that every man carries within, must be stifled and coerced into silence. We have to take the animal in us by the throat, and sternly say, ‘Lie down there and be quiet.’ We have to stop our ears to the noises around, however sweet the songs, and to close many an avenue through which the world’s music might steal in. He cannot say, ‘My soul is silent unto God,’ whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the marketplace. Unless we have something, at least, of that great stillness, our hearts will have no peace, and our religion no reality.

            As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by his shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warms, whose truth makes fair, our whole being. God speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling noises, His voice is little likely to be heard. It is the calm lake which mirrors the sun, the least cat’s-paw wrinkling the surface wipes out all the reflected glories of the heavens. If we would mirror God our souls must be calm. If we would hear God our souls must be silenced.

         The silence of the soul before God is no mere passiveness. It requires the intensest energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon Him. So put all your strength into the task, and be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.

 

ALEXANDER MACLAREN

Expositions of Holy Scripture

SILENCE TO GOD ~Psalm 62

All Saints Day Devotional '20 -"What they believed, I believe also; what they hoped for, I hope for..."

 

  Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

Daniel 12:3

 

“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”

—Jesus in Matt.13:43

 

When I take my last breath on earth and breathe in my first,

It’ll be taken away with the sight of Your face.

God of pure, uncreated light, my heart shall burst,

Seeing such radiant beauty, I’ll ever behold and praise.

 

chorus:

O, let me be like the angels in Heaven,

Who endlessly behold the face of our Father;

Shining clear and bright, pure as the sun,

Singing in concert, like morning stars forever.

 

 

I have sowed many tears, but will reap an ardent gleam,

These mists have hung heavy, deepening shadows grown;

When first morning light dawns, then begins the dream—

Seeing my King adored by angels on the Great White Throne.

 

bridge:

Let the healing streams of tender mercies rise,

The Sunrise that will break upon us from on High. 

 

 

I long to be set free, laying aside all weakness,

Putting on immortality for all eternity.

I want to dwell in the Kingdom enthroned by Jesus—

Yearning for that moment, You unveil the mystery.

 

Seeing My King

C.A. TAYLOR

 

 

       In the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, the holy Church throughout all the world is one.  Therefore, year by year let us reverently commemorate their names, remembering what they were, but steadfastly gazing at what they are.  Their very words are still ringing in our ears:  of some the beloved image too is full before us.  Let us live as they would bid us, could they still speak:  let us fulfil their known behests, following in their steps, filling up the works that they began, carrying on their hallowed offices, now bequeathed to our care; let us be like them in deadness to sin, and unceasing homage to our unseen Lord.  As we grow holier, we grow nearer to them; to be like them is to be with them; even now they are not far from us, we know not how nigh.

 

HENRY EDWARD MANNING 

1808-1892

 

 

For even Thy Saints, O Lord, who now rejoice with Thee in the kingdom of heaven, whilst they lived, waited in faith and in great patience for the coming of Thy glory.  What they believed, I believe also; what they hoped for, I hope for; whither they are arrived, I trust I shall come by Thy grace.

 

THOMAS à KEMPIS

1380-1471

 Yet not as in the days

Of earthly ties we love them;

For they are touched with rays

From light that is above them:

Another sweetness shines

Around their well-known features;

God with His glory signs

His dearly ransomed creatures.

F.W. FABER

1815-1863

 

              

Labor Day Devotional '20 -"Alongside your every step is your God."

  “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

 

Come away by yourself and rest awhile,

For you are weary of the toil and strain.

Withdraw from the city and all the turmoil,

Fly away like a dove; be with Me in this place.

 

Find the secret chamber and life, alone with Me,

Peaceful and quiet, where you can be renewed.

Your Father in Heaven watches, He sees;

He is your Home; He makes His abode in you.

 

chorus:

Come and abide in My presence;

I am your comfort and your peace.

Be healed and receive My acceptance,

Learn from Me; I’m humble and meek.

 

Take My yoke now, it’s kindly and pleasing;  

Enter the life that is all yours to trod.

Now you have power to fulfill your calling,

For alongside your every step is your God.

 

C.A. TAYLOR

Abide in My Presence

 

 

 

If we examine the four Gospels honestly, we cannot but see that the one thing Christ preached was Himself. He presented no ready-made system of religious truth. He simply said: ‘Come unto Me’ : ‘learn of Me’ : ‘follow Me’ : ‘love Me’ : ‘obey Me’ : ‘I am the Good Shepherd’ : ‘I am the true Vine’ : ‘I am the Bread that came down from heaven’ : ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.’ One thing is sure⎯that Christ conceived Truth, Morality, Religion as all contained in His own personality, and in our personal relation to Himself.      

 The world is always full of tired men and women whose steps have lost all spring, and the days of the Nazarene were no exception. The souls that gathered about Him numbered a great many weary ones. He looked upon them, and saw their weariness, and was moved with infinite compassion, and thus appealed to them: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ ‘I will give.’ How? We remember that other great word He spoke on another day: ‘Not as the world giveth, give I.’ How does the world give? If the world wished to help a heavy-laden man, it would seek to do it by removing his burden. The world’s way of giving rest is by removing a man’s yoke. Its gift of rest would be a gift of ease. ‘Not as the world giveth, give I.’ That is not His way. The restful life is not the easeful life⎯life without burdens or yokes. The gift of Jesus is a gift of rest while wearing the yoke. 

       But Christ’s picture of rest is still more puzzlingly unfamiliar. You have watched a man ploughing, with the clean, fresh earth upturning…and he himself with steady eyes fixed on the goal, and arms, all taut muscle standing out like a whipcord, gripping the shafts, and the patient horses, with their beautiful, glossy skins, shiny with perspiration, straining and heaving as the share slowly rips the stubborn soil⎯and all this up and down, and down and up, unendingly the whole long, tiring day. Translate all that into the local color of the East, the glare of the pitiless sun, the dust-storms  blowing past, the merciless heat, the steaming creatures pulling, pulling⎯up and down, and down and up⎯it is a perfect picture not of rest surely, but of toil. And that is what Christ offers! To be spiritually minded, says Christ, to have poise and balance of soul, one does not need to shrink out of the jostle and press of life into some sheltered nook. Up and down, and down and up, in the pitiless sun: and even there one can keep cool in soul!

       ‘Take My yoke.’ The yoke Christ invites us to take is a double yoke. If we bear one half of it, He Himself bears the other. He helps us to pull the load and bear the burden. “If you will let Me,” He says, “I will come in and share with you, and add My strength to yours, and pull along with you. If there is any grace, and any power, you can rely on them as yours, and draw on them up to the last limit of everything I have, and everything I am, and all that I can do.”

JAMES HASTINGS

The Speaker’s Bible -Matthew

Summer Devotional '20 —"Behold His hands, then, for they are hands of power..."

“Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see….” Luke 24:39

And they began bringing children to Him, so that He might touch them…. And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands upon them. Mark 10:13,16

Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Mark 1:41

I am filled with wonder upon seeing heaven’s splendor,

The radiant moon and stars, hung by Your fingers;

As an artist adds colors and hues to the palette,

You create moments of glory at dawn and sunset.

You formed me in the secret, hidden place,

Woven with marvelous design, purpose and grace.

I am upheld and encircled with loving bands,

By Your mighty, victorious, righteous right Hand.

Oh, to see those scarred Hands, full of tender love;

That moment I yearn for, and always dream of—

I will clasp that perfect Hand to walk through Paradise,

Which healed my soul, as all my longings are realized.

chorus: 

In the kindness of Your Hands, a child finds solace;

By the touch of Your Hands, the blind can now see;

In the power of Your Hands, the deaf hear Your promise;

By the piercing of Your Hands, Sovereign grace saved me.

Jesus, my true Shepherd, I hear Your voice calling;

My keeper, my protector, always providing—

Stretching forth Your willing arms with great compassion;

Gently wiping every tear from all creation.

Your Hands

C.A. TAYLOR

The Bible is signally distinguished for this, that with a message from God it reaches the human heart, but not less remarkable is the attention which it directs to the human hands. In our Western speech, with its leaning towards abstraction, we speak of character and its outflow in conduct; but in the Eastern speech, which has always been pictorial, men spoke of the heart and its witness in the hands. “Who shall ascend into the hill of God? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.”  It is conduct incarnate, the sign of the active life. It is the organ through which is sketched, as on a screen, the thought that is singing and surging in the heart. 

Now if that be true of every human hand, it will be very especially true of the hands of Christ. He is always saying to us ‘Behold my heart’: but in the same voice He says, ‘Behold my hands.’  What are these hands? What do they signify?

They are hands of brotherhood—When Jesus came into Peter’s house, we read, He saw his wife’s mother laid and sick of a fever. And what did He do? He put out His hand and touched her, and she arose and ministered to them all. When He was in Bethsaida they brought a blind man to Him, beseeching Him that He would give him his sight again. And what did He do? He took the blind man by the hand, and hand in hand they left the town together. And the world will never forget that scene in Nain, when Jesus met the sad procession to the grave, and moved with compassion put forth His hand, and touched the bier. In all these cases, and in a hundred others, what men recognized in the touch was brotherhood. Christ came alongside of suffering and sorrow, brought Himself into living and actual touch with it. 

They are hands of power.—When Jesus went back, the second time to Nazareth, do you remember what the villagers said about Him? ‘What wisdom is this that is given Him,’ they said, ‘that even such mighty works are wrought by His hands.’  They had seen these hands busy at carpentering once, but now there was a power in their touch that baffled them. And then we turn to the Gospel of St. John, where our Saviour Himself is speaking of His sheep: and He says, ‘I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.’  Behold His hands, then, for they are hands of power: they are powerful to do and powerful to keep.

They are hands of tenderness. —Of all the exquisite pictures in the gospel there is none more exquisite than the scene when ‘the mothers of Salem their children brought to Jesus.’  With a mother’s instinct for a man who was really good they wished their children to be blessed by Him. And the disciples would have kept the children off:  Christ was too busy with great affairs to heed an infant. They had never guessed yet that the Kingdom of Heaven was mirrored for Jesus in these childish eyes. Then Jesus drew the little children to Him, and blessed them; but He did more than that. It had sunk deep into the memories of the Evangelists that in blessing them He laid His hand upon them. It was an act of the sweetest and most natural tenderness, the gentle and caressing touch of love. When He laid His hand upon the infant’s head, He was laying it upon the mother’s heart. 

Is not that one of the wonders of Christ’s touch—the union of power and gentleness that marks it? It is mighty to heal, mighty to raise the dead; but a bruised reed it will not break. Why are our Christian homes so full of gentle love, so different from the stern spirit of antiquity? There is only one answer, it is ‘Behold His hands:’ it is the touch of Christ which has achieved it. 

They are hands that were pierced. —Their beauty was torn away from them with wounds. They were pierced with nails, and fastened to the Cross, in the hour when Jesus Christ was crucified. But it is the hands which were pierced that have been the mightiest power in human history. Not the hands laid upon the blind man’s eyes, not the hands laid upon the children’s head, have been so mighty in the world’s redemption as the hands that were marred and wounded on the Cross. 

JAMES HASTINGS

The Speaker’s Bible -St. Luke Vol. IV



picture from The Chosen TV Series