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July 1929
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July 21— “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:4). “Be filled with the Spirit.” Oh, for this 1 It is the one thing the parched, weary, longing Church of Christ stands most in need of. It is the one thing that will respond to the yearnings of individ ual hearts for deeper peace, more uniform gladness, stronger confidence, truer sanc tity and greater power in service. Oh, for this! We pay great attention to other points, insist upon rules and regulations, forms and ceremonies, system and organ ization; but how few of these “other points” preceded the great ingathering of the Pentecost, long ago; yea, what an absence of merely human arrangements we perceive. But, there was the humble, earnest, believing, expectant waiting upon God for this very thing. All else lost sight of. This one desire filled the heart. This one cry filled the lips. This one longing expectation absorbed the atten tion. We know the sequel. Let us be, similarly, shut up with God. We need power. So many yearn for it. We in tensely desire to see far greater results than heretofore. Well, we must be “filled with the Spirit.” This is God’s prescrip tion for us. We must think and feel and speak and work and live in the Holy Ghost. Then there will be power. No more defeats. No more beating the air. No more mournful laments over dead ness, or bitter tears over pitiful failures. The Word will be in power, and the life will be in power, and the work will be crowned with success. God grant us all this. God fill us with the Holy Ghost, and keep us filled. Amen and amen!— J. T. W. —o— July 22— “That thou mightest still the . . . . avenger” (Psa. 8:2). I would not lose Thy fire, O Christ of Calvary; I would be calmed through the fire—through the very burning of my love. Beautifully was it written that the meekest man started from the burning bush. I need great strength to make me gentle. Any clod of the valley can be still, but only the sight of the mountain can make still. The sea of my life is not calmed by diminishing the waters, but by the print of Thy footsteps treading there on. I shall reach Thy patience when I have possessed my soul.— George Mathe- son. —o— July 23— "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). The flowers smell sweetest after a shower; vines bear the better for bleed ing ; the walnut-tree is most fruitful when most beaten; saints spring and thrive most internally when they are most externally afflicted. Afflictions are the mother of virtue. Manasseh’s chain was more profitable to him than his crown. Luther could not understand some Scrip tures till he was in affliction. The Christ- cross is no letter, and yet that taught him more than all the letters in a row. God’s house of correction is His school of instruction. All the stones that came about Stephen’s ears did but knock him closer to Christ, the Cornerstone. The waves did but lift Noah’s ark nearer to heaven; and the higher the waters grew,
vanished, and all the song-birds of the spring are silent in the winter of the soul. “Blessed are the poor . . . . for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Now the king dom of heaven is a state in which the will of God -is absolutely and perfectly obeyed. It is capable of partial realization here, and is sure of complete fulfillment hereafter. That poverty - of spirit is blessed because.it is an indispensable con dition of becoming Christ’s men and sub jects. I believe, dear friends, for my part, that the main reason why so many of us are not out-and-out Christian men and women, having entered really into that kingdom which is obedience to God in Christ, is because we have a superficial knowledge, or no knowledge at all, of our own sinful condition, and of the gravity of the fact. There is only one way into the true and full possession of Christ’s salvation, and that is poverty of spirit. It is blessed because it invites the riches of God to come and make us wealthy. It draws towards itself communication of God’s infinite self, with all His quicken ing, cleansing and humbling powers.— Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D. —o— July 19—“ According to the eternal pur pose” (Ephesians 3:11). God has a purpose for everyone of us. God’s eternal purpose is to do the best for you that He can. God has put you just where you are because there you have the best chance of realizing His pur pose. His purpose is contained in prom ise. Hence, if you get the promises of God, you get the purposes of God. Get, then, back to God’s purpose. Deal with Him about the things that He Himself has purposed and pledged. Do not pray for them as if He were unwilling to grant them, but go into His presence with boldness and confidence. And when you have definitely asked, believe that God will be as good as His promise; arise from your knees, and go down to your daily warfare or work, and as you go down, keep saying to yourself, “Glory be to God. I do not feel; I have no rap ture; I have no consciousness of recep tion ; but I know that God has done what I claimed because He has said that He would, and I am going along my path reckoning that He is faithful.” You will find that at that moment when you claimed, you took in a cargo which will stand you in good stead on your voyage, and that when you come to your duties, your difficulties, or your trials, there will be a consciousness of power, of contentment, and of wealth which you had not known before. Thus believe in the eternal pur pose of God, and go into His presence with boldness and confidence by faith in Jesus Christ.— F. B. Meyer. Prayer is the strategical point which Satan watches. If he can succeed in caus ing us to neglect prayer, he has won; for where communion between God and His people is broken, the true source of life and power is cut off. In how large a measure he has succeeded in causing the Church of Christ to neglect prayer, faith ful, constant, prevailing prayer! Prayer- lessness shows that we do not value com munion with God. “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”— Andrew Mur ray. July 20 —“I set my face . . . to seek by prayer and supplication” (Dan. 9:3).
the feet. When God is mine, strength is mine. Jacob heaved the huge boulder from the place and watered his cousin’s flock. There were human reasons for the sudden access of vigor, but there were di vine reasons, too. Jacob has been a new man ever since the Lord and he entered into covenant. God draws near me, He lives within me, He makes mine the power of His Spirit, and in Him I can do all things, and “my strength is as the strength of ten.” When God is mine, love is mine. While Jacob spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep; and one of the most beautiful love stories in the world had its birth and be ginning. And love, the love of man and maid, is at its best when behind and above its tenderness is God’s affection, seen, received, rejoiced in, responded to. I would uplift and refine and hallow the dear earthly relationship by that divine union and communion which is holier still. —Alexander Smellie. —o— July 16— “The Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified Himself in Israel” (Isa. 44:23). When the miner finds at great cost a rugged mass of golden ore, he does not get discouraged because there is so much of the rugged quartz and the miry clay about.it still, and only here and there a little seam of shining metal. But he goes to work and first crushes it in the stamp mill until it is ground to powder, and then lets in the floods of water to wash away the sand and rock and leave the heavier gold behind. Then he puts it into the cru cible and melts it, and at last it comes forth unalloyed and molten gold. So each of us at first, like Jacob, is just a lump of rugged, unattractive ore. But God has redeemed us and is not going to cast us away. And He, too, puts us under the pressure of trial and the weight of His mighty hand. He, too, brings us through the floods and the fires, and for us the day comes at last when He cannot only say, “I have redeemed Jacob,” but “I have glorified myself in Israel.”— Dr. A. B. Simpson. — o— July 1 7—“But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Luke 22:32). It is a poor faith which can only trust God when friends are. true, the body full of health, and the business profitable. But that is true faith which holds up the Lord’s faithfulness when friends are gone, when the body is sick, when the spirits are depressed, and the light of our Father’s countenance is hidden. The faith which can say in direct trouble, “Though he slay me, yet will J trust him,” is heaven-born faith. “Lord, give me such a faith as this!” —o— July 18— "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of hea/uen” (Matthew 5:3). Christ does not say “joyful,” “mirth ful,” “glad.” These are poor vulgar words by the side of the depth and calm ness and permanence which are involved in that great word “blessed.” It is far more than joy, which may be turbulent and is often impure. It is far deeper than any gladness which has its sources in the outer world, and it abides when joys have
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