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August 1929
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
which he regards the request of his child, the love and joy with which he grants every reasonable desire; we must, then, as we think in adoring worship of the in finite Love and Fatherliness of God, con sider with how much more tenderness and joy He sees us come to Him, and gives us what we ask aright. And then, when we see how much this divine arithmetic is beyorid our comprehension, and feel how impossible it is for us to apprehend God’s readiness to hear us, then He would have us come and open our heart for the Holy Spirit to shed abroad God’s Father-love there. Let us do this, not only when we want to pray, but let us yield heart and life to dwell in that love. The child who only wants to know the love of the Fa ther when he has something to ask, will be disappointed. But he who .lets God be Father always and in everything, who would fain live his whole life in the Fa ther’s presence and love, who allows God in all the greatness of His love to be a Father to him, oh! he will experience most gloriously that a life in God’s infi nite Fatherliness, and continual answers to prayer are inseparable.— Dr. Andrew Murray. September 2— “They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint" (Isa. 40:31). This, my, soul, is the triumph of thy being—to be able to walk with God! Flight belongs to the young soul; it is the romance of religion. To run without weariness belongs to the lofty soul; it is the beauty of religion. But to walk and not faint belongs to the perfect soul; it is the power of religion. Canst thou walk in white through the stained thoroughfares of men? Canst thou touch the vile and polluted ones of earth and retain thy gar ments pure? Canst thou meet in contact with the sinful and be thyself undefiled? Then thou hast surpassed the flight of the eagle !•— George Matheson. —o— September 3— “And it came to pass in these days, that he went out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12). I wonder if we have sufficiently ob served our Lord’s love of the heights, and of the ministry' of the heights upon His spirit. Have we all experienced the subtle ministry of hill and mountain? There is something even in physical alti tude which helps the elevation of the soul. There is something in wide spaces which aids, the expansiveness of prayer, and re deems it from narrowness and meanness. And then a mountain by night! There we have height and depth, with the al lied ministry-of mysterious silence. There is an absence of glare and glamour, and in the deep hush the primary voice be comes audible. And then, again, “all night in prayer to God” ! Think of it—the night, the ceaseless communion! Let us not suppose that the Master spent the night in speech. There would be seasons of quiet listening, perhaps seasons when familiar psalms were sung, and seasons when He just comfortably realized the enwrapping presence of the Father in heaven. Now and again there would be the cry of a sheep or a lamb, and the lone plaint would make His own pur-
earth, let us have our conversation in heaven. Before you go out, if you would feed the world, if you would be a bless ing in- the midst of spiritual dearth and famine, lift up your head to heaven. Then your very face will shine, your very gar ments will smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces where you have been with your God and Saviour. There will be stamped upon you the dig nity and power of the service of the Most High God. —o— August 28— -“Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not re ceive evil?” (Job 2:10). The roses of life, as well as of the gar den, the sweet-scented flowers of charac ter, whose savor is precious incense be fore God,—these, though they climb up to such a height as to overrun the jasper walls, and bloom fairest among the plants in the garden of God, do yet start from the root of some death or loss, and grow strong as they are shaken by the sharp winds of sorrow. The old Hebrew poem tells us that it was Satan who hurled down upon Job the thick-falling stofm of his troubles; but, as ever falls out with malice, he was fooled for his pains. He was doing the sufferer the greatest favor of his life. For what was the end? It lifted him out of his uncertainty and weakness, and made him a strong, firm- principled man. It taught him the mean ing of life. It was the means of God’s re vealing Himself, and setting in clearer light the relations of earth and heaven. Blessed Job while sitting in ashes! How often is it that sackcloth and dust are found at the gateway of moral advance ment, and even on the threshold of heaven!— M. J. Savage. —o— August 29— “They came unto the iron gate . . . . which opened to them” (Acts 12 : 10 ) . There are iron gates before most of us. We are not specially anxious about the first or second ward, but ah, that iron gate! The iron gate of supreme difficulty; of a parent’s prohibition against entering the mission field; of some obstinate circum stance which seems to forbid the execu tion of our plans; of some barred and locked prohibition; of death at the end of all. It may be that in his strange be wilderment, between waking and sleeping, Peter anticipated this iron gate with a good deal of dread. That at least would bar his progress ; but lo, it opened of its own accord! So shall it be with many of the evils that we anticipate. Not before we come to them, but at the moment of reaching them; when heart and flesh threaten to fail-—in the dim light we shall find them standing open, set back for us to pass. The tram-line is not cleared from end to end before the tram starts. Were the driver to wait for this, he would never start at all. But as he comes to each van, or drag, or carriage, it moves, and allows him a free course; or, if it seems dilatory, his whistle hastens it. Thus, when we arise to follow the angel of God’s purpose, who has suddenly en tered the dark cell of our life, we shall discover that apparently insuperable dif ficulties, which we have long dreaded, shall open to us, and allow us to pass; when we come to the object we have
A Minnesota reader writes: “We use the daily meditations for our morning reading and find them full of many helpful encouraging thoughts as well as many admonitions."
dreaded most, we shall find it gone. Let there be prompt obedience to the angel’s touch arid summons; the willingness to gird the relaxed loins, and follow; and as you go through life, you will find your self escorted by an invisible Companion, who holds the key to all doors.— Streams in the Desert. —o— August 30— “Sufficient unto the day" (Matt. -6:34). Let us not meddle with the future, and matters which are too high for us, but refrain our souls, and keep them low like little children, content with the day’s food, and the day’s schooling, and the day’s play-hours, sure that the divine Master knows that all is right, and how to train us, and whither to lead u s; though we know not and need not know, save this, that the path by which He is lead ing each of qs, if we will but obey and follow step by step, leads up to ever lasting life.— Selected. —o— August 31 —“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure zvater" (Heb. 10:19-22). Here .is a fourfold qualification: A true heart— there must be no insincerity or want of transparency about i t ; a heart without guile and unreality; o believ ing heart —a heart that believes God means what He says when He bids us enter, that regards entrance into the Holiest not as an' act of presumption but as an act of obedience . . . the child of the King enters boldly into the King’s presence; a pure heart —a heart cleansed from the stains and poison of sin; the lit tle child has no inclination to run into the Father’s arms so long as some unfor given sin disturbs the conscience; o pure body —the putting away of all sinful and doubtful habits, of everything, in short, that would prevent our being at home in the presence of God, for it is in the body that we are to glorify H im : “The body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body” ; and “The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”—/. G. M. “A heart in every thought renewed, And full of love divine; Perfect, and right, and pure and good; A copy, Lord, of Thine.” —o— September 1— “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him” (Matt. 6:8). It is not enough for us to know that God is a Father; He would have us take time to come under the full impression of what that name implies. We must take the best earthly father we know; we must think of the tenderness and love with
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