Good Friday Devotional "Deep depression of spirit is the most grievous of all trials...."

 

 'My heart is like wax: it is melted within My breast…'                       

Psalm 22:14

 

        Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God….                    

Hebrews 2:17

 

Jesus, only You know our deepest trials,

You bore the grief of our fallen world.

Your Body was pierced, Your heart full of sorrow;

Our sins fell upon You, so we can be restored.

 

I am a wind-blown reed, weakened and bruised;

You'll not break me, nor quench my flickering flame.

You were crushed and wounded to make me new;

Jesus, my heart overflows for Your Cross of grace.

C. TAYLOR

 

Our Blessed Lord experienced a terrible sinking and melting of soul.  'The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?'  Deep depression of spirit is the most grievous of all trials; all besides is as nothing.  Well might the suffering Saviour cry to His God, 'Be not far from Me', for above all other seasons a man needs his God when his heart is melted within him because of heaviness.  Believer, come near the cross this morning, and humbly adore the King of glory as having once been brought far lower, in mental distress and inward anguish, than any one among us; and mark His fitness to become a faithful High Priest, who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities.  Especially let those of us whose sadness springs directly from the withdrawal of a present sense of our Father's love, enter into near and intimate communion with Jesus.  Let us not give way to despair, since through this dark room the Master has passed before us.  Our souls may sometimes long and faint, and thirst even to anguish, to behold the light of the Lord's countenance: at such times let us stay ourselves with the sweet fact of the sympathy of our great High Priest.  Our drops of sorrow may well be forgotten in the ocean of His griefs; but how high ought our love to rise!  Come in, O strong and deep love of Jesus, like the sea at the flood in spring tides, cover all my powers, drown all my sins, wash out all my cares, lift up my earth-bound soul, and float it right up to my Lord's feet, and there let me lie, a poor broken shell, washed up by His love, having no virtue or value; and only venturing to whisper to Him that if He will put His ear to me, He will hear within my heart faint echoes of the vast waves of His own love which have brought me where it is my delight to lie, even at His feet forever.

 

 C. H. SPURGEON

Mornings and Evenings

 

      …such is the Lord Jesus, the One who in the first chapter of Hebrews is shown as the unique Son of God, heir of all things, the brightness of God's glory, the express image of His person, upholding all things by the word of His power, is seen in the second chapter as stooping to be "made like unto His brethren in all things."  God has arranged it that in every conceivable way Jesus has been made like unto His brethren. There are no sufferings that His brethren suffer but that He has suffered them too.  There are no tears that His brethren shed, but that He has shed them too….God has made the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering.  He would not be an adequate High Priest for us had He not been through everything that we go through….  In our hour of suffering He says, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.  I am your Brother, I have been made like unto you in everything."

 

 ROY HESSION 1908-87

 

From Shadow to Substance

 

Late Winter '22 Devotional - "We have seen Him in the light of faith. But we want to see Him as He is."

 

“But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ ? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.”

Mark 12:26-7

 

 

“And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 8:11

 

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

 

 

       The reunion of the saints will not be limited to the little circle that makes the family here. We belong to a bigger family than the one we live with in the flesh, like elder children born and out in the world before the younger children appear, the poets, prophets, painters, and martyrs preceded us. We never saw them in the flesh. Never heard their voices, but they will be with us in the great family reunion in the Father’s house.

       Like every family reunion, there shall be One, however, whose personality shall be dominant. What would the gathering of all the saints amount to if He would not be there who sent to prepare the place? It would be a palace without a hearth. It would be a tree without foliage. It would be a sky without sun.

       We all want to see the loved ones with whom we walked dusty miles. We all want to see the immortals who went on before us. But far above and beyond all cravings is the desire to see our Lord and Master.

       We have seen Him in the sacred page. We have seen Him on the artist’s canvas. We have seen Him in the light of faith. But we want to see Him as He is. 

       We have often heard Him in the multitude. But we want to know Him as the family of Bethany knew Him. We want to hear Him as the group at Emmaus heard Him. Free from all the restraints of mortality and time, we want to grasp the nail pierced hand, hear the love-filled voice of our Savior in His Heavenly Home.

       The joy of fellowship with our Savior will not obliterate the joy of fellowship with each other, but it will subordinate it as the enjoyment of a soul-stirring sermon or chorus subordinates minor relations. Through eternity we shall be together in our Father’s house, each real enough to each other, yet entranced by our Lord.

 

Whirlwinds of God 

Christmas Devotional '21 "His hands made the universe. All glory was His."

    

    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

Advent Devotional I '21 "At His birth, a manger for the Child, a star for the Son..."

 

 

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. Thou shalt multiply the nation, Thou shalt increase their gladness; they will be glad in Thy presence as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil…. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace…”

ISAIAH 9:2-3,6-7

 

 

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,

Christ, the true, the only Light,

Sun of Righteousness, arise,

Triumph o’er the shades of night;

Dayspring from on High, be near;

Day-star, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn

Unaccompanied by Thee;

 

Visit then this soul of mine,

Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;

Fill me, Radiancy divine,

Scatter all my unbelief;

More and more Thyself display,

Shining to the perfect day.

 

CHARLES WESLEY~1740

Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies

 

        We have two words, Child and Son: neither waste. Born and given. Born of the Virgin His Mother, given by God His Father. All along His life you shall see these two. At His birth, a manger for the Child, a star for the Son: a company of shepherds viewing the Child, a choir of angels celebrating the Son. In His life; hungry Himself, to show the nature of the Child; yet feeding five thousand, to show the power of the Son. At His death, dying on the Cross, as the Son of Adam, at the same time disposing of Paradise, as the Son of God.

 

BISHOP ANDREWS

 

        “Little Bethlehem!” That Birth is sure too big for this place! What shall we make of this? Nothing but what cometh from it of itself without straining; that with God it is no new thing to bring great out of little…For little Bethlehem’s sake then love the virtue that is like it. Honor it, there is a star over it, there is a Savior in it. More good comes out of that poor town than from all the great and glorious cities in the world. Bethlehem gives us a Guide, if we will follow Him, Who will bring us to Paradise; and Him we must follow, if ever we mean to come there.

BISHOP ANDREWS

 

        During the First World War a little boy was walking out with his father one night. Each home which had given a son to the war displayed a small silver star in the front window. When the houses were left behind, the little boy looked up at the dark sky. There was no moon, and all but one of the stars had forgotten to shine. There it was, just one bright star. The little boy went very quiet, then asked, “Daddy, did God give a Son, too?”

J. SIDLOW BAXTER

Awake My Heart

Autumn Devotional '21 "We lose our peace, not when others hate us...but when we hate others."

 

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” John 14:27

 

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven…”

Matthew 5:44-45

 

The basis of Christian peace is single-hearted, joyous, and intelligent trust in God’s goodness, and acceptance of His will. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one. It is that kind of honorable peace which Christ offers us. ‘My peace,’ He said. Think for a moment of the circumstances in which the offer was made. He was at the very storm-center of a world seething with hatred and unrest. Black tempests were gathering around Him. He was facing the ordeal of His cross. And yet it was out of that very maelstrom which was sucking Him down to death that He spoke of His peace. 

         When we are in accord with God, we find peace. How can a man be at peace whose being is out of tune with the nature of things, whose will is at cross purposes with God? Our lives need to be linked on to God. We are born to take our part in the movement which is far larger than ourselves. While our lives are moving in the orbit of selfishness there is sure to be confusion. There was no shadow between Christ and God. There was perfect understanding between Him and His Father, and where there are no shadows between a man and God, no earthly troubles can break this deep and final peace of the spirit; and out of that peace comes power to meet whatever life may bring.

          Another way in which Christ’s peace showed itself was in His relation to men, a relation which sprang from His oneness with God. Much of our dispeace comes from a wrong attitude to others. The dark heart of the world’s unrest today is full of such things as hatred, suspicion, jealousy, spite, contempt of man for man. There is no peace in any heart till it is emptied of these or lifted above their reach. It is not a pleasant thing to be hated, but the dispeace comes when that hatred is allowed to stir the dust of our own passion. We lose our peace —not when others hate us, if there is no lurking suspicion that it has been deserved, but when we hate others. To hate or suspect or despise another spoils our own spirit, and it opens that door to a perfect storm of unrest. That was, in part, what Christ meant when He spoke of loving our enemies. He knew that there is nothing so fatal to peace as the spirit of hatred and revenge. Taunts and criticism drew from Him nothing but compassion. The worse people were, the more they were in need of God. The more they hated the more they were in need of love and guiding. Part of the secret of peace in this loving attitude towards others, ‘Fret not thyself about evil-doers’—do not let the wrongs of others overthrow the balance of your own soul. All the big souls have had this love, this forbearing outlook on others, and it has kept them strong amid a thousand peering littlenesses. 

         Peace comes from surrender and response to the love of God in all its challenge and all its security. And the love of God is a challenging thing. ‘My peace,’ said Christ, ‘I give to you.’ What lives the disciples led after that gift! This peace calls us to battle. There is no peace we can accept for ourselves so long as the world is full of the sin and suffering which makes the lives of others unhealthy and unholy. There is no rest from mortal fight for any of us so long as our hearts are tainted with selfishness and pride. For the man who loves with the love of Jesus, and who enters into an alliance with Him, there is no languorous ease, no sheltered garden where he can slink out of the dust and heat. 

         But it means moving out, too, in response to the assurance of God’s love. In giving us peace Christ gives us Himself. So He will never see us beaten. We shall be equal to every situation into which love may bring us. It is the peace of the full river, glorious, unresting yet unhurried. It is the deep assurance that love will conquer in the end, and already, through the victory of Christ, the situation is in the control of those pierced hands. 

 

JAMES HASTINGS

The Speaker’s Bible -John

 

The story is told that once a patron sent for two artists and invited each of them to set out on canvas his idea of peace. One of them painted a moorland scene, quiet, lonely, with no living thing in sight, and in the center a lake, still, unruffled, desolate. That is the peace of stagnation and of death. The other chose a roaring tumbling waterfall. Across the face of it was a spray of mountain ash, and on the spay a robin singing quietly. That was much nearer to the peace of Christ.

A.A. DAVID

Our Father

Photo Credit: Debbie Heyer

Summer Devotional '21 "Then He tells us His secrets, great & wonderful, eternal & infinite..."

 

I will give you the treasures of darkness

And hidden riches of secret places,

That you may know that I, the LORD,

Who call you by your name,

Am the God of Israel.

Isaiah 45:3

 

“His right hand presseth me to His heart.”

Isaiah 41:10—German Translation

 

 

Awake, my heart and sing!  For

Your Maker chose you to be His bride—

He set His heart on you from ages past,

To draw you close to His wounded side.

 

Awake, my soul and sing!  For

Your destiny shines brighter than the stars—

He will bring you into His Kingdom of light,

Where you may rest safely in His arms.

 

chorus: “I have created you for My glory,

Be not dismayed for I am with you—”

I will be your God, unto eternity.”

 

Awake, my spirit and soar!  For

Life immortal very soon will be yours—

Jesus makes ready for you an eternal dwelling,

Where boundless joy and love outpours.

 

Awake, my love and hear!  For

The Lord God who created you has declared,

“Have no fear, for I call you by name —you are Mine,

Come, enter My kingdom which I have prepared.”

C.A. TAYLOR

You Are Mine

 

         Our Lord is constantly taking us into the dark, that He may tell us things,—into the dark of the shadowed home, where bereavement has drawn the blinds; into the dark of the lonely, desolate life, where some infirmity closes us in from the light and stir of life; into the dark of some crushing sorrow and disappointment.

         Then He tells us His secrets, great and wonderful, eternal and infinite; He causes the eye which has become dazzled by the glare of earth to behold the heavenly constellations; and the ear to detect the undertones of His voice, which are often drowned amid the tumult of earth’s strident cries. 

 

F.B. MEYER

Isaiah

 

 

         Every great sorrow is in a certain sense a lonely sorrow. It drives a man into the fastnesses of himself…. Christ is the one Guest who can enter the sacred chamber of a great sorrow. The soul’s sense of loneliness yields to Him. The heart’s sensitive reserve gives way. Christ enters, and thenceforth sorrow takes on a new meaning and aspect. The blinding bereavement, and crushing loss of disappointment, the trial that has wrenched the very heart strings asunder, the awful temptation that has swept the soul at last from its moorings—all these crises of life fall into harmony with the divine love and divine purpose when the Saviour enters the hidden chamber of our griefs. We never know what sorrow means, or what it can do for the soul till then. “Lo!” says Christ to the spirit brooding in lonely grief, “lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Blessed promise! Lord Jesus, come Thou into all our sorrow-burdened hearts; fill them with Thy divine sympathy, and help us to learn through Thy love the sacred meaning and uses of all life’s dark and painful experiences!

 

JAMES BUCKHAM Ph.D.

Spring Devotional '21 "‘Follow Me.’ It is the story of Christian pilgrimage on earth."

Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them. After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Matthew Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the tax booth. And He said to him, “Follow Me.”  So, he left all, rose up, and followed Him. Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them.

Luke 5:27-29/Mark 2:13

 

         When Jesus said to Matthew at the lakeside ‘Follow Me’ He was really laying down a principle which lies at the root of all Christian discipleship. Christian discipleship involves membership in a society, but throughout it is governed by loyalty to Jesus Christ. It is a personal relationship; the idea of friendship comes into it—my personality interpenetrated by His personality; obedience by me to Him.

         There is a double relation in this discipleship. There is the relation of the disciple to the Master, and there is the relation of the Master to the disciple. Let us begin by thinking of the relation of the disciple to the Master. ‘Follow Me’ comes the call to each one of us. What does it mean? Clearly it means something much more than putting ourselves on a register as professed Christians, or saying that we believe Christian facts and doctrines to be true. Remember in the Gospel we are told of some who say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and yet to them the answer is made, ‘I never knew you.’

         The Christian way is overshadowed by a Figure, and that Figure moves in and out among the pilgrims who throng the way. They keep Him before their minds as their standard and inspiration. He is the Way for them just in proportion as they try to catch His spirit and breathe His atmosphere. Every disciple ought to be able to look back over the road and say, ‘I have grown a little more like Jesus and my inner life is stronger; I see spiritual things more clearly; the grip of sin on me is loosening; Jesus Christ is more to me now than He was in the past.’ 

         Then there is the other side of the relationship, the relation of the Master to the disciple. Human friendships present a varying aspect. You may have a friendship between two people where the give-and-take on either side is more or less equal; or you may have a friendship where one of the two is far in advance of the other; he is a much stronger character, a more attractive and inspiring personality, and the other leans on him and learns from him, and is drawn to him by strong invisible ties. Quite clearly the relationship between ourselves and Jesus is of this latter kind. He is so incomparably above us that the initiative, so to put it, lies with Him. In this friendship He is the Giver and we are, in the main, receivers.

         Now here we reach the deepest meaning of Christian discipleship. That discipleship is far more than a following of Jesus; it is a receiving from Jesus of a communicated life. How, indeed, could we hope to follow Him if He were not drawing us and enabling us to follow Him? Christian discipleship is the union of the disciple with the Master in an intimacy so close that the forces of the Master’s life flow into the life of the disciple, until the climax is reached in those words of St Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians: ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’

         That is the other side of the relationship, and clearly it is the more important side, for what Christ gives us is that which enables us to follow Him and that which alone enables us. How rich is this thought of a universal Person sharing His life with man! We all differ from each other; no two human beings are alike; and yet He is broad enough to meet all our needs, and He can give us that life which will help us to develop our individuality. 

         What Christ gives is far more than anything that we can give; but there is one thing we can give and must give, if we are to receive anything at all from Him—we must give ourselves. A worthless gift? Yes. A character shot through and through with the sin which is abhorrent to His pure soul? Yes. Masses of neglected opportunities, willful wrongdoing, utter disloyalty to God? Yes. But those are the very things He wants—the sinner and the wastrel and the careless. He wants their wills, their faintest resolves after goodness, their discontents and their unrests. He wants the man in all his wretchedness that He may redeem him and make him better. Why, that is just His work, to transform the sinner into the saint. That is what He came for, and today He is just as loving and gracious as He was when He made friends with the outcasts of Jewish society. 

         First, then, a call, ‘Follow Me,’ heard first long ago by a lakeside in Galilee, but repeated all down the centuries to every soul of man, the voice of One speaking to us, claiming our loyalty. Then a following which on our part means an initial act of self-committal to Him who calls, and then a patient daily treading of the way. And that way is the Via Crucis. It means self-sacrifice, the losing of the narrower life in the service of the larger life. On the other side we have a companionship which brings with it not only a love which pardons, but a power which transforms. Old habits disappear, new habits take their place, and all the while the ties are multiplying which bind him ever closer and closer to this divine-human Friend and Saviour. ‘Follow Me.’ It is the story of Christian pilgrimage on earth. Will the story of eternity be any other? Can it be any other? seeing that He whom we follow here is Lord of earth and heaven, God’s supreme purpose, humanity’s King and everlasting Redeemer. 

J.HASTINGS

Speaker's Bible

Matthew Vol.2