March 1929
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shine through. Thorns do not prick you, unless you lean against them, and not one touches without His knowledge. The words that hurt you, the letter which gave you pain, the cruel wound of your dear est friend, shortness of money—all are known to Him, who sympathizes as none else can and watches to see if, through all, you will dare to trust Him wholly .—■ L .B .C . —-o— March 7— “Ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord . . . . The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion” (Psa. 134:1-3). If I would know the love of my friend, I must see what it can do in the winter. So with the divine love. It is very easy for me to worship in the summer sun shine, when the melodies of life are in the air and the fruits of life are on the tree. But let the song of the bird cease, and fruit of the tree fall; and will my heart still go on to sing; will I stand in God’s house by night? Will I love Him in His own night? Will I watch with Him even one hour in Gethsemane? Will I help to bear His cross up the Via Dolorosa? My love has come to Him in His humiliation. My faith has found Him in His lowli ness. My heart has recognized His maj esty through mean disguise, and I know at last that I desire not the gift but the Giver. When I can stand in His house by night, I have accepted Him for Himself alone.— George Matheson. —o— March 8— “I will not fail thee, nor for sake thee. Be strong and of a good cour age'’ (Josh. 1 :5, 6). How the Bible fills our hope, even over whelms our hope, by its exceeding great and precious promises! Ought we not to bare our souls more continually to the kindling influences of God’s promises? They never rise nor set, nor are clouded in. It is our privilege to take into the very fibers of our souls their unbounded warmth and hopefulness.— James H.Ecob. —o— March 9— “And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters o f Jordan, that the waters of Jor dan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon a heap” , (Joshua 3 :13). Brave Levites! Who can help ad miring them, to carry the ark right into the stream; for the waters were not di vided until their feet dipped in the water (v. 15). God had not promised aught else. God honors faith—“obstinate faith” that the PROMISE sees, and “looks to that alone.” You can fancy how the peo ple would watch these holy men march on, and some of the bystanders would be saying, “You would not catch me running that risk! Why, man, the ark will be car ried away.” Not so; “the priests stood firm on dry ground.” We must not over look the fact that faith on our part helps God to carry out His plans. “Come up to the help of the Lord.” The ark had staves for the shoulders. Even the ark did not move of itself; it was carried. When God is the architect,
Da ily D evo t iona l R ead ings A Message for Every Day of the Month i ______________ _______ ___________ | _________ _________________ ;__
March 1— “As thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Deut. 33:25). Trouble not thyself regarding an un known and veiled future; but cast all thy cares on God. “Our sandals,” says a saint now in glory, “are proof against the roughest path.” He whose name is “the God of all grace,” is better than His word. He will be found equal to all the emergencies of His people—enough for each moment and each hour as it comes. He never takes us to the bitter Marah streams but He reveals also the hidden branch. Paul was hurled down from the third heaven to endure the smarting of his “thorn,” but he rises like a giant from his fall, exulting in the sustaining grace of an “all-sufficient God.” The beautiful peculiarity in this promise is that God proportions His grace to the nature and the season of trial. He does not forestall or advance'a supply of grace, but when the needed season and exigency comes, then the appropriate strength and sup port are imparted. He does not send the bow before the cloud, but when the cloud appears, the bow is seen in it!—/. R. Macduff, —P— March 2— “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and'he ■ shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord’’ (Psa. 27:14). Time is an important element in all God’s plans : we are not, therefore, to be disappointed when the test of endurance is applied while the blessings we crave tarry long. God took time to frame the world and to fit it for human habitation, time to give the world its necessary expe rience with evil, time to prepare for the advent of Christ as the world’s Redeemer, time for the preparation of the church to share in His glorious reign, and time must be allowed for the shaping and ad justing of the individual affairs of His people. God has not forgotten when the answers to our prayers seem to tarry long. He who heeds the sparrow’s fall and numbers the very hairs of our heads, is not indifferent to the faintest call or the smallest necessity of His humblest child.—S' elected. —o— March 3— “The trial of your faith, be ing much more precious than of gold that perisheth” (1 Pet. 1 :7). It is your faith that is on trial now. In the calmer days, when the sun of favor shone brightly upon you, you were quietly laying the foundation of a knowledge of the Truth and rearing the superstructure of Christian character. Now you are in the furnace to be proved. Summon there fore all your courage ; fortify your pa tience ; nerve yourself to endurance ; hold fast to your hope ; call to mind the prom ises, they are still yours, and “cast not away your confidence, which hath great
recompense of reward.” “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him,” and faith has gained her victory.— Streams in the Desert. —o— March 4— “In all thy ways acknowl edge Him, and He shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:6). “All our ways.” He is willing to be our Guide in the smallest things of life. Before writing an article, answering a letter, having an interview, or dealing with any problem, we need to look up to Him who is the Fountain of all wisdom. Look at the promise annexed: “He shall direct thy paths.” You cannot direct your own path. The Lord promises to guide His people continually. By day and by night He went before His people in the wilderness. He will do no less for those who today acknowledge Him in all their ways.— T. Houghton. —o— March 5— “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). From these upper windows of the soul we obtain the widest view of the horizon, around us, and see glorious glimpses of the land that is very far off. Looking down from that elevation, how small and insignificant do the things that appeared great from their own level appear; how unworthy of the thought we bestowed up on them, or the anxiety with which we regarded them! From these lofty win dows the pleasures, honors, vain pursuits of earth form only a kind of ideal world, a sort of splendid show, a species of cloudland, fleeting and fair as the vapory pageant that gathers around the setting sun, while spiritual things, that seemed below aerial and unsubstantial, appear great and glorious realities.— Hugh Mac millan. , “And aye my murkiest stormcloud Was by a rainbow spanned, Caught from the glory dwelling In Immanuel’s land.” March 6— “Reckon it nothing but joy ................... whenever you find yourself hedged in by the various trials, be assured that the testing of your faith leads to power o f endurance” (James 1:2-3, Wey mouth). God hedges in His own that He may preserve them, but oftentimes they only see the wrong side of the hedge, and so misunderstand His dealings. It was so with Job (Job 3:23). Ah, but Satan knew the value of that hedge! See his testi mony in chapter 1:10. Through the leaves of every trial there are chinks of light to
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