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

Eastertide Devotional '20 "What is it we fear? Christ endured them all..."

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

Matthew 14:27

Lord, my soul longs to draw near to You,

And let Your feather-soft care surround me.

I seek to embrace Your loving mercies anew,

Covering me like the full moon shining upon the sea.

Lord, my heart is afflicted by fears without and within;

May Your Presence calm and dispel this turmoil.

I’ll fly swiftly under the shelter of Your pinions,

Resting my weary head as I let go of useless toil.

When my soul is still, abiding under Your wings,

Then my heart is untroubled and freed from despair.

Your faithfulness like a shield, scatters dark forebodings,

Casting down imaginations doubting Your gracious care.

Bridge 

As the small child, lifted and enfolded in Your arms;

As the one whom You loved leaned upon Your breast;

So, You’ll receive me to Your side, away from all harm.

How is it that God Most High dwells with the lowly?

The Almighty Creator comforts us with love so gracious?

I belong with the Eternal God, exalted and holy;

In the everlasting Presence of peace and goodness.

C.A. TAYLOR

The Everlasting Presence

         ‘Fear not’; ‘Be of good courage’; ‘Be not afraid.’  In one form or another this phrase recurs continually throughout our reading of the Bible, like the refrain of a ballad or a hymn. It is, in short, the trumpet-call with which the God of Israel heralds each one of His recurrent miracles. Can we wonder, then, that this message of comfort would hedge about the greatest miracle of all—the birth of Jesus? That life was ushered in by a glad burst of music which broke upon the midnight darkness at Bethlehem at the Nativity, and ‘fear not’ was the burden of the angel chorus. 

         ‘Anxiety,’ declared Adler, ‘is an extraordinarily widespread trait. It accompanies an individual from earliest childhood to old age. It embitters his life to a marked degree, keeping him from human contacts, and destroying his hope of building up a peaceful life or making fruitful contributions to the world. Fear can touch every human activity. One can be afraid of the outer world, or of the world within himself.’

         ‘Be not afraid.’ What are the things that frighten us—that weigh on the mind and depress the spirit, and lead to morbid terrors by night as well as by day? Quite common things, many of them—the fear of ill-health, of old age, of poverty; the fear of the ingratitude of children as they grow up; the fear of men’s scorn, laughter, and contempt. Can any one say that these are not matters of concern to us that they do not lead us into anxieties, meannesses, hypocrisies—even dishonesties—of which in our hearts we are ashamed, even though the shame we once felt may have become dulled by long custom? Can any one say that these fears do not overshadow our lives to such a degree that we think less than we ought to of the needs and sufferings of others? 

The Christian gospel bids us to look at Jesus and put our fears aside; it repeats His words: ‘It is I; be not afraid.’ For Jesus during all His earthly life faced fears such as these. He knew what poverty and degradation were; He experienced the ungrateful and cowardly desertion of those who owed Him everything; He knew the contempt and laughter of the Sadducees, and the bitter hatred of the Pharisees. But not once did He on that account swerve from the narrow path of perfect Sonship which He had set before Himself. He was faithful and fearless to the last; and it is our duty, with that Pattern before us to be fearless too. 

         Believing as we do, that Jesus was in all things truly man, we must believe that He, too, experienced such moments, if not more, when the thought of death loomed before Him as something almost unbearable; the agony of soul in Gethsemane must have been concerned, in part at least, with this. And a way of escape was still open. But He refused to compromise even at the approach of death in one of its most terrible forms. He yielded nothing to fear. 

         What counsel can we summon to our aid, then, when the icy hand of fear is laid upon us? There are some who bid us say to ourselves that there is nothing to be afraid of. But that Stoic exhortation has never helped mankind very much: our fears are real, we say; how absurd, then, to tell us that their objects are not real! ‘Dismiss your fears; don’t think of them, and all will be well,’ say others; but this again is to counsel an impossibility. For fear is nearer to the frightened man than anything else about him; it is the one thing he can either ignore nor forget.

         Such fears as these of which we have been thinking—the fears of poverty, disgrace, suffering and death—are common and, as we may say, ‘natural’ to man; and many religions have bidden him not to be afraid of them. But no religious pioneer or prophet has been able to stand by man’s side and say, ‘It is I; be not afraid,’ with the same convincing tones as Jesus, who shared all things with all men even unto wounds and death. Not with mere bravado do we face the ultimate issues of life when we have the Cross before our eyes.

         Yet it is not alone because His victory over human fears was the greatest in history that is able to save us from fear. It is not to the example of Jesus alone that we look, but to Jesus crucified and risen and living and ever present with us. What is it we fear—death, desertion, poverty, disgrace? Christ endured them all, and His victorious Spirit may be ours. What is it we fear—the paralyzing strength of temptation: Christ knew it too and for our sake He conquered it. In every occasion of fear the power of Christ’s Spirit is ready to banish all that fills us with terror; and the words of the text are words which speak from His heart to ours— ‘Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.’

JAMES HASTINGS

The Speaker’s Bible

Springtime Devotional '20 "We Kneel -How Weak: We Rise -How Full of Power"

Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.

John 14:1

Lord, what a change within us one short hour

Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make!

What heavy burdens from our bosoms take!

What parched grounds refresh us with a shower!

We kneel ~and all around us seems to lower.

We rise ~and all the distant and the near

Stand forth in sunny outline, brave and clear.

We kneel ~how weak: we rise ~how full of power.

Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong?

Or others ~that we are not always strong;

That we are ever overborne with care;

That we should ever weak or heartless be,

Anxious or troubles, while with us is prayer,

And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?

Archbishop Trench

1807-1886

Where showers fall most, there the grass is greenest. I suppose the fogs and mists of Ireland make it "the Emerald Isle"; and whenever you find great fogs of trouble, and mists of sorrow, you always find emerald green hearts; full of the beautiful verdure of the comfort and love of God. O Christian, do not thou be saying, "Where are the swallows gone? They are gone; they are dead." 

They are not dead; they have skimmed the purple sea and gone to a far-off land; but they will be back again by and by.  Child of God, say not the flowers are dead; say not the winter has killed them, and they are gone.  Ah, no!  Though winter hath coated them with the ermine of its snow; they will put up their heads again and will be alive very soon.  Say not, child of God, that thesun is quenched, because the cloud hath hidden it.  Ah, no; he is behind there, brewing summer for thee; for when he cometh out again, he will have made the clouds fit to drop in April showers, all of them mothers of the sweet May flowers.  And oh! above all, when thy God hides His face, say not that He hath forgotten thee.  He is but tarrying a little while to make thee love Him better; and when He cometh, thou shalt have joy in the Lord, and shalt rejoice with joy unspeakable.  Waiting exercises our grace; waiting tries our faith; therefore, wait on in hope; for though the promise tarry, it can never come too late.

C.H. SPURGEON ~Mornings and Evenings

                                                                                                                                 

        "All-loving Father, sometimes we have walked under starless skies that dripped darkness like drenching rain.  We despaired of starshine or moonlight or sunrise.  The sullen blackness gloomed above us as if it would last forever.  And out of the dark there spoke no soothing voice to mend our broken hearts.  We would gladly have welcomed some wild thunder peal to break the torturing stillness of that over-brooding night. 

        "But Thy winsome whisper of eternal love spoke more sweetly to our bruised and bleeding souls than any winds that breathe across Aeolian harps.  It was Thy 'still small voice' that spoke to us.  We were listening and we heard.  We looked and saw Thy face radiant with the light of love.  And when we heard Thy voice and saw Thy face, new life came back to us as life comes back to withered blooms that drink the summer rain."

Anonymous ~Streams in the Desert

Winter Devotional '20 "To bear sorrow with dry eyes and stolid heart may befit a Stoic but not a Christian."

Lord, You are so incredibly faithful,

To this lamb so wayward and lost, poor and needy.

Yet You rescued and lifted up my weary soul,

My true Shepherd, wrapped around with majesty.

Your ear is finely tuned to my cries—

Your eyes see all my woes and travail;

Your whispers inspire new songs in the night,

Like the North Star shining amidst the strong gale.

With tender compassion and mercies ever dawning,

You guide over rocky terrain through unknown paths,

Providing renewed courage and grace every morning,

Kindly leading me back with Your forgiving hands.

chorus-

At last, I will see the eyes that ever watched over me—

I will clasp those scarred hands that never let me go.

I will behold the face that angels worship in divine glory,

At last, at last, I will know as I am fully known.

Not even knowing how to pray oftentimes,

Going on with living, but not fully alive—

Yet You choose to dwell within, to reside and dine,

Binding up my broken heart with Your promise to abide.

For ages upon ages all Heaven will be adoring,

The Lamb that was slain for the sins of all mankind.

Worthy, oh so worthy are You to receive all blessing,

To be praised with song and forever magnified.

C.A. TAYLOR

My True Shepherd

Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. 
Stay here and watch.”
He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” 

Mark 14:34-36

Do not chide yourself for feeling strongly. Tears are natural. Jesus wept. A thunderstorm without rain is fraught with peril; the pattering raindrops cool the air, and relieve the overcharged atmosphere. The swollen brooks indicate that the snows are melting on the hills and spring is near. “Daughters of Jerusalem,” said our Lord, “weep for yourselves and your children.”  To bear sorrow with dry eyes and stolid heart may befit a Stoic but not a Christian. We have no need to rebuke fond nature crying for its mate, its lost joy, the touch of the vanished hand, the sound of the voice that is still, provided only that the will is resigned.  This is the one consideration for those who suffer¾Is the will right?  If it isn’t, God Himself cannot comfort. If it is, then the path will inevitably lead from the valley of the shadow of death to the banqueting table and the overflowing cup. 

Many say I cannot feel resigned. It is bad enough to have my grief to bear, but I have this added trouble, that I cannot feelresigned. My invariable reply is: you probably never can feel resignation, but you can willit. The Lord Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, has shown us how to suffer. He chose His Father's will. He said repeatedly, “If this cup may not pass from Me except I drink it, Thy will be done.” He gave up His own way and will, saying “I will Thy will O My Father; Thy will, and not Mine, be done.”

 Let all sufferers who read these lines go apart and dare to say the same words: “Thy will, and not mine; Thy will be done in the earth of my life, as in the heaven of Thy purpose; I choose Thy will.” Say this thoughtfully and deliberately, not because you can feel it, but because you will it; not because the way of the cross is pleasant, but because it must be right. Say it repeatedly, whenever the surge of pain sweeps through you, whenever the wound begins to bleed afresh: Not my will but Thine be done. Dare to say Yes to God. “Even so Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight.”

And so you will be led to feel that all is right and well; and a great calm will settle down on your heart, a peace that passeth understanding, a sense of rest which is not inconsistent with suffering, but walks in the midst of it as the three young men in the fiery furnace, to whom the burning coals must have been like the dewy grass of a forest glade. 

 Sorrow is a garden, the trees of which are laden with the peaceable fruits of righteousness; do not leave it without bringing them with you. Sorrow is a mine, the walls of which glisten with precious stones; be sure and do not retrace your steps into daylight without some specimens. Johann Rist used to say, “The dear cross has pressed many songs out of me.” And it is probable that none rightly suffer anywhere without contributing something to the alleviation of human grief, to the triumph of good over evil, of love over hate, and light over darkness.

The way of the cross rightly borne, is the only way to the everlasting light. The path that treads the Garden of Gethsemane, and climbs over the hill of Calvary, alone conducts to the visions of Easter morning and the glories of the Ascension mount. If we will not drink of His cup, or be baptized with His baptism, we cannot expect to share in of His espousals and the ecstasy of His triumph. But if these conditions are fulfilled, we shall not miss one note in the everlasting song, one element in the bliss that is possible to men

If you believed this, could you not bear to suffer? Is not the chief misery of all suffering its loneliness, and perhaps its apparent aimlessness? Then dare to believe that no man dies to himself. Fall into the ground, bravely and cheerfully to die; if you yield to it, you will bear fruit which will sweeten the lot and strengthen the life of others who will never know your name, or stop to thank you for your help.

F.B. MEYER

Steps Into the Blessed Life

The Incarnation Advent '20 Devotional ~"All the crowns of power flashed upon His brow. All mighty angels called Him Lord."

So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the Inn….                                                                                                                               And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.                                                                                                                                                                                                         Luke 2:6-7, 16, 20

Sleep! Holy Babe! 

Upon Thy mother’s breast;

Great Lord of earth and sea and sky,

How sweet it is to see Thee lie

In such a place of rest.

Sleep! Holy Babe! 

Thine angels watch around,

All bending low with folded wings,

Before th’ Incarnate King of kings,

In reverent awe profound.

Sleep! Holy Babe! 

While I with Mary gaze

In joy upon that face awhile,

Upon the loving infant smile

Which there divinely plays.

Sleep! Holy Babe! 

Ah! take Thy brief repose;

Too quickly will Thy slumbers break,

And Thou to lengthened pains awake

That death alone shall close.

EDWARD CASWALL

~ Sleep! Holy Babe

How wonderful this was!  We must remember who it was that was thus born.  The birth of another child in this world was nothing strange, for thousands of children are born every day.  But this was the Lord of glory.  This was not the beginning of His life.  He had lived from all eternity in heaven.  His hands made the universe.  All glory was His.  All the crowns of power flashed upon His brow.  All mighty angels called Him Lord.  We must remember this if we would understand how great was His condescension….   

      Christ’s glory was folded away under robes of human flesh.  He never ceased to be the Son of God; and yet He assumed all the conditions of humanity.  He veiled His power, and became a helpless infant, unable to walk, to speak… lying feeble and dependent in His mother’s bosom… He laid aside His sovereignty, His majesty. What condescension!  And it was all for our sake, that He might lift us up to glory.  It was as a Saviour that He came into this world.  He became Son of man that He might make us sons of God.   He came down to earth and lived among men, entering into their experiences of humiliation, that He might lift them up to glory to share His exaltation.               

J.R. MILLER~

Come Ye Apart

        How gentle the coming!  Who would have had sufficient daring of imagination to conceive that God Almighty would have appeared among men as a little child?  We should have conceived something sensational, phenomenal, catastrophic, appalling!  The most awful of the natural elements would have formed His retinue, and men would be chilled and frozen with fear.  But He came as a little child.  The great God “emptied Himself”; He let in the light as our eyes were able to bear it.

J.H. JOWETT~

My Daily Meditation