He is Here

Today : He is Here

After Jesus left there, he went to the region of Tyre. When he went into a house, he did not want anyone to know, but he was not able to escape notice. — Mark 7:24 NET

The fame of Christ had gone out too widely over the whole country for Him to travel anywhere without being recognized. No doubt there was something in His appearance and bearing that distinguished Him from other men and soon revealed Him. There must have been a rare sweetness in His face, the outpouring of the great love of His heart. There was no halo upon His features, as artists represent Him in their pictures; yet there must have been a glow of grace that revealed Him to sad and hungry hearts.

But really Christ never can be hid. He can be in no place in this world very long and His presence not be recognized. You may hide sweet flowers so that they cannot be seen, but soon the fragrance will disclose their hiding-place. So the sweetness of the Saviour’s life and love will always tell when He is near. When He enters a human heart He cannot be hidden; for soon His Spirit begins to breathe out in all the words, actions, and life of the new follower. When He enters a home He cannot long be hidden, for the home is changed — worldness, bitterness, and sin giving place to prayer and praise, to the spirit of love and gentleness, and to purity and holiness. When He enters a community He cannot remain concealed. The stories of missionary work illustrate this. Cannibal islands are changed into God-fearing, man-loving settlements. Christ will always reveal His presence in this world.

The same is true also of all faithful discipleship. A Christian cannot be hid. If the love of Christ is in his heart, people around him will very soon know it. They will see it in his bearing, in his disposition, in the way he honours God, in the way he treats his fellow-men. When a man can hide his religion, he has not much of it to hide. True religion breathes out in fragrance, shines out in light.

What Defileth?

Today : What Defileth?

What defiles a person is not what goes into the mouth; it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.” — Matt 15:11 NET

There are many applications of this principle. The food we eat does not affect our moral character. No external ceremonies really touch the soul. Indeed, nothing in this world has any power to defile a heart while it remains outside and is not allowed to enter. A man may be a coal-miner, always black and grimy, and always working in dirt, and yet he may have a soul white and unspotted. This is true of living amid temptations. So long as we keep them outside, they have no power to injure us.

Luther says somewhere that we cannot prevent the birds flying about our heads, but we can prevent them building their nests in our hair. We cannot prevent a great many evil things buzzing around us continually, but we can keep them from entering our hearts and nesting there. And so long as we do this, the worst things in the world cannot lay a spot upon our souls.

The Saviour says further, that it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles. So, then, there may even be evil in the heart which does not defile unless it is allowed to shape itself in thoughts, words, or deeds. The suggestion of wrong-doing is not a sin until the suggestion is accepted and entertained. Temptation to sin is not itself sin. Jesus was tempted. Suggestions of evil were made to Him by Satan; yet He never sinned, because these suggestions never found any lodgment in His heart, and therefore never found any expression in word or act, or even in thought. So temptations come to us from without. These things we cannot help; we are not responsible for them; there is no sin in merely having these suggestions. But the sin begins the moment we open the door to one of these sinful solicitations. That which “cometh out” defileth.

Corban

Today : Corban

Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this.” — Mark 7:13 NET

It is a good thing to dedicate one’s property to God. But when we have done this we must take good heed that we use it in the ways marked out for us by the Divine commandments. It will not do to cover miserliness and greed by a pretence that we have given our money to God, and therefore cannot use it for charitable purposes.

For example, if a man has needy parents, one of the first uses of consecrated money is to provide for their wants. He may say that he is gathering means to build an orphanage, or an asylum for infirm old men or old women, and that he has consecrated his property to this great charity; but if meanwhile he allows his own aged parents to suffer, his consecration of property is not acceptable to God. He who sets aside the fifth commandment that he may use his money for the poor is playing a miserable farce before God. No amount of service in the work of the Church avails when one is neglecting the duties he owes to his own family.

The case is still worse when, as under the Rabbinical rules, the money or property was never really used at all for God, the plea of “Corban” being only a pretext to evade the requirements of filial duty. The consecration of money to God implies always the use of the consecrated money in the service of God as He may call for it. God does not want money hoarded up; He wants it going about doing good. We apply the parable of the talents to everything but money, when there surely is nothing to which the parable applies more certainly than to money. At least we may never pretend that we have given our money to God, and therefore cannot give it away. Giving it away for wise use is the very thing God wants us to do with it.

Pharisaism

Today : Pharisaism

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they perform a ritual washing, holding fast to the tradition of the elders. — Mark 7:3 NET

The religion of the Pharisees consisted not in love to God, and in disposition, character, and conduct, but in certain ceremonial rites which they observed with great scrupulousness. They washed their hands before meals, because ceremonial uncleanness in the hands communicated itself to the food. Yet they took no pains to wash their hearts of evil or uncharitable thoughts and feelings toward others. They washed when they came in from their shops because worldly business defiled them; but they were not careful in their dealings with others to be just, honest, and true. They saw that every pot and kettle, every vessel, and all household arrangements, were ceremonially cleansed; but they did not stop to look within their own heats to see if all was clean there for the indwelling of God’s Spirit.

We all need to watch against making our religion consist in forms of worship. We may pray many times a day, and read a regular number of chapters, and go through many and laborious devotions, and yet not have a particle of true religion. We are truly religious just in the measure in which we have the spirit of Christ in our disposition, heart, and character. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

Loving God and our fellow-men is the sum of all duty. Unless we have this twofold love in our hearts, manifested in life and character, our profession of religion is vain. Not a word should be said against external cleanliness; a clean heart should make the life clean to the tips of the fingers and in all tastes, feelings, habits, words, and actions. But clean hands and well-scrubbed floors and shinning dishes and careful ceremonial observances will never please God, if in the heart there be no love for Him and no love for men. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for the shall see God.”

Failures

Today : Failures

I brought him to your disciples, but they were not able to heal him.” — Matt 17:16 NET

There are a great many teachers in our Sunday schools who have had similar experiences. Children have been brought to them possessed by evil spirits, and they have failed to cast out the demons. They have tried every device, gentle and severe; they have prayed and laboured, they have talked and wept; but the evil spirits in their scholars have defied all efforts to dislodge them. Teachers of such incorrigible scholars may learn some lessons here.

It may be a little encouragement, first of all, to know that even Christ’s apostles met at least one case that they could not do anything with; no wonder if common people like us fail now and then. It is failures like this in the apostles that bring them down to our level. When we see them victorious and successful at every point, we are discouraged. But when we find them baffled and defeated, we see that they were human, just like us, and could do nothing by themselves. We get far more real help from St. Paul’s experience with his “thorn” than we get from his “third heaven” exaltation. In this latter he is so far beyond us that we cannot follow him; in the former we are on familiar ground.

It may be instructive also to study the reasons of the apostles’ failure. For one, the Master was absent; the disciple cannot do anything without His Lord. This is a lesson we should deeply impress on our own minds. Unless we have Christ with us, all our Christian work will utterly fail. Of ourselves we can never change a heart. Another reason was want of faith in the disciples; unbelief makes any one weak. Though absent, Christ’s power would have been theirs, had not their faith failed. Still another reason was the hardness of the case: all cases are not alike difficult, some requiring more faith and spiritual power than others.

WHAT HAS GOD SPOKEN ?

WHAT HAS GOD SPOKEN ?

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

The word that comes out of a man defines a man. The bible says out of the abundant of the heart the mouth speaks. The word of God is powerful,the word of God is pure. What has God spoken to you?

Every believer at one point or the other has had an encounter with God and a word had been given. The word of God is Yea and Amen but your belief can make the word come into fulfillment. God’s word is powerful but you can limit it with the level of your faith or belief.

Disobedience to the word of God is like a man who got a gun and shoots himself in the leg and complain that he is not moving fast. God doesn’t joke with his word . Anything he tells you to do is for your benefit. Whoever a father loves he chastises.

In the scripture when Zachariah the priest was in the temple and an angel appeared to him and he didn’t belief. The angel said something ” I stand in the presence of God”… Looking at that phrase, it means the angel knows what it took him to be in the presence of God to be able to give that message and they know God and how he values his word.

Zachariah’s voice went for it for a moment. Has God spoken to you and you feel it is taking too long? Don’t be discouraged. God is not a man, whatever he says he will surely do it..

IF GOD TELLS YOU ANYTHING, BELIEVE IT WITH ALL YOUR LIFE BECAUSE HE IS NOT A MAN THAT HE SHOULD LIE.

Prayer: Father in the name of Jesus give me grace to believe every word from you.

Electric City

Electric City

“And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Revelation 22:5)

Today’s Morsel:  Kaukauna, Wisconsin, is known as the Electric City.  Prior to 1880, and shortly afterward, Kaukauna was known as "The Lion on the Fox".  This nickname was changed to "The Electric City" upon the completion of a hydroelectric plant in the city.  John said, “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2); And that there will be no need of light there because God will be the light there.  Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18).  He can light up any city with just a spoken word.  He also states, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12)  Follow Him now, and the light will lead you to the city that is prepared for you.  Are you looking for that city of lights?

Sing: There’s a country far beyond the starry sky, there’s a city where there never comes a night; if we’re faithful we shall go there by and by; tis the city where the Lamb is the Light.

In the city where the Lamb is the Light.   In the city where there cometh no night; I’ve a mansion over there, and when free from toil and care, I am going where the Lamb is the Light.

Thought For Today: Are you ready for the Electric City?

Confession and Our Forgiveness

Confession and Our Forgiveness

1 John 1:5-10

A common misconception among believers is that our heavenly Father – a loving, caring heavenly Father – is just waiting to pounce on us when we don’t cross our moral T’s or dot our virtuous I’s.

Though well-intentioned, this is not scriptural. The atoning, sacrificial death of Jesus Christ takes care of all of a believer’s sins – past, present, and future.

So what purpose does confession serve? It does not affect your position as His child. That, too, was sealed at salvation. However, confession affects your intimacy with God, the daily communication you have with Him that is vital to maintaining the Spirit-filled life. This is the “forgiveness” of 1 John 1:9.

There is nothing you did to warrant the forgiveness God extended through the death of His Son. There is nothing you can do to deserve His continual grace. However, through your confession, God releases you from the guilt of having sinned against Him.

The word confess simply means that you agree with God about your sin, and the release you experience upon confession comes because you have assumed responsibility for your actions and long to return to an unfettered daily walk.

The only cloud under which God wishes you to live is that of His unfailing, unmerited grace.

Daily Devotions with Dr. Charles Stanlley, InTouch Ministries

Nearest and Dearest Fellowship

 

Nearest and Dearest Fellowship

So shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

While we are here the Lord is with us, and when we are called away we are with Him. There is no dividing the saint from His Savior. They are one, and they always must be one: Jesus cannot be without His own people, for He would be a Head without a body. Whether caught up into the air, or resting in paradise, or sojourning here, we are with Jesus; and who shall separate us from Him?

What a joy is this! Our supreme honor, rest, comfort, delight, is to be with the Lord. We cannot conceive of anything which can surpass or even equal this divine society. By holy fellowship we must be with Him in His humiliation, rejection, and travail, and then we shall be with Him in His glory. Before long we shall be with Him in His rest and in His royalty, in His expectation and in His manifestation. We shall fare as He fares and triumph as He triumphs.

O my Lord, if I am to be forever with Thee, I have a destiny incomparable. I will not envy an archangel. To be forever with the Lord is my idea of heaven at its best. Not the harps of gold, nor the crowns unfading, nor the light unclouded is glory to me; but Jesus, Jesus Himself, and myself forever with Him in nearest and dearest fellowship.

Uncover and Confess Sin

Uncover and Confess Sin

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

Here is the way of mercy for a guilty and repenting sinner. He must cease from the habit of covering sin. This is attempted by falsehood, which denies sin; by hypocrisy, which conceals it; by boasting, which justifies it; and by loud profession, which tries to make amends for it.

The sinner's business is to confess and forsake. The two must go together. Confession must be honestly made to the Lord Himself, and it must include within itself acknowledgment of the wrong, sense of its evil, and abhorrence of it. We must not throw the fault upon others, nor blame circumstances, nor plead natural weakness. We must make a clean breast of it and plead guilty to the indictment. There can be no mercy till this is done.

Furthermore, we must forsake the evil; having owned our fault, we must disown all present and future intent to abide in it. We cannot remain in rebellion and yet dwell with the King's majesty. The habit of evil must be quitted, together with all places, companions, pursuits, and books which might lead us astray. Not for confession, nor for reformation, but in connection with them we find pardon by faith in the blood of Jesus.