February 1
Contentment—Not Satisfaction
We must distinguish between contentment and satisfaction.
We are to strive to be content in any state; we are never to be
satisfied in this world, whether our circumstances are
prosperous or adverse. Satisfaction can come only when we awake
in Christ's likeness, in the world of eternal blessedness. We
are not to seek contentment by restraining or crushing the
infinite cravings and longings of our souls. Yet we are meant as
Christians, to live amid all circumstances, in quiet calmness
and unbroken peace, in sweet restfulness of soul, wholly
independent of the strifes and storms about us, and undisturbed
by them. Content in whatever state—yet never satisfied—that is
the ideal life for every Christian.
February 2
Serving Christ at Home
Many people think that work for Christ must be something
outside, something great or public. They imagine that to
minister to Christ, they must teach a Sunday-school class or
join a missionary society, or go out to visit sick people, or go
into hospitals or prisons on missions of mercy. These are all
beautiful and important ministries, and Christ wants some of you
to do just these things too; but the very first place you are to
serve him is in your own home. Let the blessed light of your
life, first be shed abroad in that most sacred of all spots.
Brightening that little place, you will be the more ready to be
a blessing outside. Those who are the best Christians at
home—are the best everywhere else.
February 3
Keeping our Promises
Many people promise anything you ask of them—but make a small
matter of keeping their promises. They enter into engagements
with you to do this or that, to meet you or call on you at a
certain time or to do some favor for you—but utterly fail to
fulfill their engagements. This is a very serious matter—this
lack of fidelity to promises and engagements. Surely we ought to
keep sedulous watch over ourselves in this regard. We ought to
be faithful to the promises we make—cost what it may. It is a
noble thing when we find one whose promises we are as sure of,
as of the rising of the sun; whose simplest word is as good as
his oath; who does just what he says he will do—at the moment he
says he will do it. That is the kind of faithfulness God wants.
February 4
Love—as Well as Service
We may carry too far, our idea that all our service of Christ,
our acts of love for him, must be also in some way acts of
practical beneficence and help to our fellow-men. We may not
call all deeds and gifts wasted, which do not feed the hungry or
clothe the naked. In secret we may pour our broken heart's love
upon Christ, bathing his feet with penitential tears, even
though we do nothing in these acts for any human life. In our
worship we may adore him and love him, though we comfort no sad
heart and help no weary one. Nothing is so grateful to the heart
of Christ, as love; and surely we ought sometimes just to love
Christ, forgetting every other being in the ecstasy of our
heart's adoring.
February 5
God's Plan for our Lives
God does not merely make souls and send them into this world to
take bodies and grow up amid crowds of other souls with bodies,
to take their chances and make what they can of their destinies.
He plans specifically for each life. He deals with us as
individuals. He knows us by name, and loves us each one with a
love as distinct and personal, as if each was the only child he
had on this earth. He has a definite plan for each life. It is
always a beautiful plan too, for he never designs marring and
ruin for a life. He never made a human soul for the express
purpose of being lost. God's design for each life is that it
shall reach a holy character, do good work in the world, fill a
worthy place, however humble, and fill it well, so as to honor
God and bless the world.
February 6
The Habit of Sympathy
The gentle
ministries of love, which you take time to perform as you
hurry from task to task in your busy days, will give you the
sweetest joy as you remember them in the after-days. What these
ministries are to those who receive them—you never can know
until your own heart is sad and lonely and one comes to you in
turn with the true comfort of love. Train yourself to the habit
of sympathy. Be ready any hour to speak the full rich
word of love which
shall lighten the burden of the one you meet. Everywhere are
hearts that need and hunger for what you have to give—and God
has given love to you, for the very purpose of blessing those
whom he sends to you day by day.
February 7
Use Your One Talent
Use your one talent for God's glory, and he will give you more
to use. Do the little duties faithfully, and you will grow in
skill and ability and be able for greater. No duties are small
or unimportant. There are many who grow discouraged, because
they are kept all their life at little tasks. Men praise grand
and heroic deeds, and little notice is taken of the common
heroisms of daily duty. But you remember what one said—that if
God sent two angels to earth, one to rule an empire and the
other to clean a street, they would each regard their employment
as equally distinguished. True faithfulness regards nothing as
small or unimportant.
February 8
The Cost of
Being Good
We can never bless the world by merely having a good time in it.
We must suffer, give, and sacrifice, if we would do good to
others. It costs, even to be good. Some of us know what
self-repression, what self-restraint, what self-crucifixion, and
what long, severe discipline lie behind calmness, peacefulness,
sweetness of disposition, good-temper, kindly feelings, and
habitual thoughtfulness. Most of us have lived long enough, to
know that these qualities do not come naturally. We have to learn to
be good-tempered, thoughtful, gentle, even to be courteous, and
the learning is always hard. Indeed we attain nothing good or
beautiful in spiritual life—without cost.
February 9
As I have Loved You
"Love one another—as I have loved you." How did Christ love his
disciples? How did he manifest his love to them? Was it not,
among other ways—in wondrous patience with them, with their
faults, their ignorance, their unfaithfulness? Was it not in
considerate kindness, in ever-watchful thoughtfulness, in
compassionate gentleness? Was it not in ministering to them in
all possible ways? What is it, then, to love one another—as he
loves us? Is it not to take his example for our pattern? But how
slowly we learn it! How hard it is to be gentle; patient,
kindly, thoughtful, even perfectly true and just, one to
another! Still, there the lesson stands and waits for us, and we
must never falter in learning it.
February
10
Soul-Hunger
A religion which is satisfied with any ordinary
attainments—indeed, that is ever satisfied at all—is not a living religion.
The Master's blessing is upon those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness. It is the longing
soul which grows.
There are better things before you, than what you have attained.
Strive to reach them. It is not easy to rise Christward,
heavenward, to advance in the Christian life, to grow godly. It
is hard, costly, and painful. Many people are discouraged
because they do not appear to themselves, to be any better, to
be any more like Christ today, than they were yesterday. But
even true longing is
growth. It is the soul's reaching Godward.
"The thing we long for--that we are,
For one transcendent moment."
February 11
God and Nature
We talk about laws
of nature, and we say they are fixed and unchanging. Yes—but
God is behind the laws of nature. They are merely his ways of
working. They do not work and grind, like a great heartless
machine; there is a heart of love, a Father's heart, at the
center of all this vast mechanism which we call nature.
All things work together for good—to everyone who loves God. You
are the center of the universe, in a sense that is wondrously
true. All things revolve around you; all things minister to your
good. If only you keep your trust fixed upon God, and are
obedient and submissive, even nature's tremendous energies will
never harm your true life.
February 12
The Splendor of Common Duty
Every common walk of life, is glorious with God's presence—if we
could but see the glory. We are always under commission from
Christ. We have sealed orders from him every morning, which are
opened as the day's events come. Every opportunity for duty or
for heroism, is a divine call. Be loyal to duty, no matter where
you may hear its call, nor to what service it may bid you. Duty
is duty, however humble it may be; and duty is always noble,
because it is what God himself allots. The work which the day
brings to us is always his will—and the sweetest thing in all
this world to a loving loyal heart, always is God's will. The
service of angels in heaven's brightness is no more radiant than
the faithful duty-doing of the lowliest saint on earth.
February 13
The Losing that is Saving
The way to make nothing of our life, is to be very careful of
it, to hold it back from perilous duty, from costly service, to
save it from the waste of self-denial and sacrifice. The way
make our life an eternal success, is to do with it what Jesus
did with his—present it a living sacrifice to God, to be used
wholly for him. Men said he threw his life away, and so it
certainly seemed—up to the morning of his resurrection. But no
one would say that now of Christ. His was the throwing away of
life which led to its glorifying. In no other way can we make
anything worthy and eternal of our life. Saving is losing. It is
losing it in devotion to Christ and his service—which saves a
life for heavenly honor and glory.
February 14
The Value of the Reserve
There is a wide difference between worrying about
a possible future of trial—and being ready for
it, if it should come. The former we should never be; the latter
we should always seek to be. It is he who is always prepared for
emergencies, for the hard pinches, the steep climbing, the sore
struggle—who gets through life victoriously. In moral and
spiritual things, it is the same. It is the reserve which
saves us in all final tests—the strength which lies behind what
we need in ordinary experiences. Those who daily commune with
God, breathing his life into their souls, become strong with
that secret, hidden strength, which preserves them from falling
in the day of trial. They have a "vessel" from which to refill
the lamp, when its little cup of oil is exhausted.
February 15
Finding Your Mission
To find your mission, you have but to be faithful wherever God
puts you for the present. The humbler things he gives in the
earlier years are for your training, that you may be ready at
length for the larger and particular service for which you were
born. Do these smaller, humbler things well, and they will prove
steps in the stairs up to the loftier height where your
"mission" waits. To spurn these plainer duties and tasks, and to
neglect them, is to miss your mission itself in the end, for
there is no way to get to it, but by these ladder-rounds of
commonplace things which you disdain. You must build your own
ladder day by day, in the common fidelities.
February 16
Sorrow's Compensation
Beyond the river
of sorrow, there
is a promised land. No grief for the present seems joyous—yet
afterward it leads to blessing. There is a rich possible good,
beyond every pain and trial. There are green fields beyond
sorrow's Jordans. God never means harm to our lives, when he
sends afflictions to us. Our disappointments are God's
appointments, and bring rich compensation. Our losses are
designed to become gains to us—as God plans for us. There is
nothing really evil in the experiences of a Christian, if only
God is allowed to work out the outcome. Our Father sends us
nothing—but good. No matter about the drapery, be it somber or
mirthful—it enfolds a gift of love.
February 17
A Time to be Deaf
In gossip or slander, the listener is
almost, if not quite, as bad as the speaker.
The only true thing is to shut your ears, the moment you begin
to hear from anyone an evil report of another. The person has no
right to tell it to you—and you have no right to hear it. If you
refuse to listen, he will not be able to go on with his
narration. Ears are made to hear with—but on occasion it is well
to be deaf. We all aim at courtesy, and courtesy requires that
we be patient listeners, even to dull and prosy talkers; but
even courtesy may not require us to listen to evil reports about
a neighbor. Ear-gate should be trained to shut instinctively,
when the breath of aspersion touches it, just as eye-gate shuts
at slightest approach of harm.
February 18
Personal Influence
Every human life, is a force in this world. On every side—our
influence pours perpetually. If our lives are true and good,
this influence is a blessing to other lives. Let us never set
agoing, any influence which we shall ever want to have gathered
up and buried with us. When we think of our personal influence,
unconscious, perpetual, pervading, and immortal, can we but cry
out, "Who is sufficient for these things?" How can we command
this outflow from our lives—that it shall always be blessed? Let
us be faithful in all duties, in all obligations and
responsibilities, in all obediences, in act, word, and
disposition, all the days, in whatever makes influence. In no
other way can we meet the responsibility of living.
February 19
The Human Part
Work of seeking, winning, and gathering perishing souls, Christ
has committed to his disciples. The redemption is divine—but the
mediation of it is human. So far as we know, no lost sinner is
brought to repentance and faith—but through one who already
believes. It is the Holy Spirit who draws souls to Christ—yet
the Spirit works through believers on unbelievers. We see thus a
hint of our responsibility for the saving of lost souls. There
are those who will never be saved, unless we do our part to save
them. Our responsibility is commensurate with our opportunity.
Christ wants daily to pour his grace through us to other lives,
and we are ready for this most sacred of all ministries, only
when we are content to be nothing that Christ may be all in all;
vessels emptied that he may fill them; channels through which
his grace may flow.
February 20
The True Ministry of Pain
There is a Christian art of enduring pain, which we should seek
to learn. The real goal is not just to endure the suffering
which falls into our life, to bear it bravely, without wincing,
to pass through it patiently, even rejoicingly. Pain has a
higher mission to us, than to teach us heroism. We should endure
it in such a way as to get something of blessing out
of it. It brings to us some message from God, which we should
not fail to hear. It lifts for us the veil which hides God's
face, and we should get some new glimpses of his beauty, every
time we are called to suffer. Pain is furnace-fire, and we
should come out of it always with the gold of our character
gleaming a little more brightly. Every
experience of suffering ought in some way to lift us nearer God,
to make us more gentle and loving, and to leave the image of
Christ shining a little clearer in our lives.
February 21
Fault-Finding
It is strange how oblivious we
can be of our own faults and of the blemishes in our own
character—and how clearly we can see the faults and blemishes of
other people. Finding so much wrong in others, is not a
flattering indication of what our hearts contain. We ought to be
very quiet and modest in criticizing others, for in most cases
we are just telling the world what our own faults are. Before we
turn our microscopes on others, to search out the unlovely
things in them—we had better look in our mirrors to see whether
or not we are free ourselves from the blemishes we would reprove
in our neighbor. There is a wise bit of Scripture which bids us
get clear of the beams in
our own eyes, that we may see well to pick the motes out
of the eyes of others.
February 22
Making Sweet Memories
We are all making memories in our todays for our tomorrows. The
back log in the old-fashioned fireplace sings as it burns, and
one with poetic fancy says that the music is the bird-songs of
past years—that when the tree was growing in the forest the
birds sang in its branches, and the music sank into the tree and
was held there, until now in the winter
fire it is set
free. This is only a beautiful imagination—but there is an
analogy in life which is actual. Along the days of childhood and
youth, the bird-notes of gladness sing about us. They sink away
into the heart and hide there. In the busy days of toil and care
which follow, they ofttimes seem to be lost and forgotten. Then,
in still later days, the fires
of trial come and
kindle about the life, and in the flames the long-imprisoned
music is set free and flows out. Many an old age is brightened
and sweetened, by the memories of early years. They are wise who
in their happy youth-time fill their hearts with pure, pleasant
things; they are laying up blessings for old age.
February 23
In All Your Ways
Do we make much of God in our lives? Is God really much to us in
conscious personal experience? Do we not go on making plans and
carrying them out, without once consulting him? We talk to him
about our souls and about our spiritual affairs; but we do not
speak to him about our daily work, our trials, our perplexities,
our week-day, work-day life. We are to shut God out of no part
of our life. We must have his assistance, if we would be ready
for all that lies before us. We must get our little lives so
attached to God's life, that we can draw from his fullness in
every time of need.
February 24
The Blessing of Temptation
We sometimes wish there were no temptation, no sore trial in
life, nothing to make it hard to be good, to be true, to be
noble, to be pure. But did you ever think that these great
qualities can never be gotten easily, without struggle, without
self-denial, without toil? Every promised
land in life lies
beyond a deep, turbulent river, which must be crossed before the
beautiful land can be entered. Not to be able to cross the
stream is not to enter the blessed country. Every temptation is
therefore a path which leads to something noble and good. If we
endure the temptation and are victorious, we shall find
ourselves within the gates of a new paradise. "Blessed is the
man who endures temptation: for when he has been approved, he
shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to
those who love him."
February 25
Fidelity in Trifles
There will be eternal honors for those who have filled important
places of trust and responsibility in this world and have proved
faithful in great things. There will be crowns of glory for the
martyrs who, along the ages, have died rather than deny Christ.
But there will be rewards just as brilliant and diadems just as
splendid for those who, in lives of lowly service and
self-denial and in patient endurance and humble devotion, have
been faithful in the things that are least. God does not
overlook the lowly, nor does he forget the little things. If
only we are faithful in the place to which he assigns us and in
the duties he gives us—we shall have our reward, whether the
world praises, or whether our lives and our deeds are unknown
and unpraised among men. Faithful! that is the approval which
brings glory.
February 26
Power and responsibility
Power makes responsibility. You are not responsible merely for
what you are trying to do—but for what God has given you power
to do. Wake up those slumbering possibilities in your soul; you
are responsible for all these. Stir up the unused, inactive
gifts that are in you; you are responsible for these. The things
you can do, or can learn to do, are the things which Christ is
calling you to do, and the things he will require at your hand
when he comes again. It is time we were understanding life's
meaning. God gives us seeds—but he will require more than seeds
at our hand; he will require all the harvest of beauty and
blessing that the best tillage can bring out of the seeds.
February 27
The
Ministry of Sympathy
No ministry in this world is more beautiful or more helpful,
than that of those who have become familiar with life's paths,
and have learned life's secrets in the school of experience, and
then go about inspiring, strengthening, and guiding younger
souls who come after them. Nothing in Christ is more precious
than this knowledge of life's ways, gained by his own actual
experience in human paths. He has not forgotten what life was to
him. He remembers how he felt when he was hungry, or weary, or
in struggle with the tempter, or forsaken by his friends. And it
is because he passed through all these experiences, that now in
heaven he can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
and can give us sympathy, help, and guidance.
February 28
Growing Through Habits
One whose daily life is careless, is always weak; but one who
habitually walks in the paths of uprightness and obedience,
grows strong in character. Exercise develops all the powers of
his being. Doing good, continually adds to one's capacity for
doing good. Victoriousness in trial or trouble, puts ever new
strength into the heart. The habit of faith in the darkness,
prepares for stronger faith. Habits
of obedience make
one immovable in one's loyalty to duty. We can never
over-estimate the importance of life's habits; they lead our
growth of character in whatever way they tend.
February 29
Your Will be Done
God's will for us leads on earth to the noblest, truest, most
Christ-like character, and then beyond this world to glory and
eternal life. For you, whatever your experiences, however hard
and painful life may seem to you—God's will is the very hand of
divine love to lead you on toward all that is good and beautiful
and blessed. Never doubt it, even in the darkest hour, or when
the pain is sorest, or when the cross is heaviest. God's will
holds you ever close to God, and leads you ever toward and into
God's sweetest rest. It brings peace to the heart—a peace that
never can come in any way of our own choosing—to be able always
to say, "Your will be done."
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