January 1
The Lord will Provide
Write deep in your heart this New-Year's day, this word of
sublime confidence, JEHOVAH-JIREH.
It tells you that you can trust God always; that no promise of
his ever fails; that he does all things well; that out of all
seeming loss and destruction of human hopes—he brings blessing.
You have not passed this way before. There will be sorrows and
joys, failures and successes, this year, just as there were last
year. You cannot forecast individual experiences. You cannot see
a step before your feet. Yet Jehovah-Jireh calls
you to enter the new year with calm trust. It bids you put away
all anxieties and forebodings—"The Lord will provide."
Christ Our Biographer
We need not trouble to keep diaries of
our good deeds or sacrifices, or to write autobiographies with
pages of record for the good things we have done. We may safely
let our life write its own record, or let Christ be our
biographer. He will never forget anything we do, and the
judgment-day will reveal everything. The lowliest services and
the obscurest deeds will then be manifested.
January 2
True Living
Life means far
more than many of us ever dream of. It is not merely passing
through the world with a fair measure of comforts, with enough
bread for our hunger, with enough clothing to keep us warm. Life
means growth into the image of Christ himself, into strength of
virtue, into well-rounded character, into disciplined manhood
and womanhood, into the blessed peace of God. The peace into
which he guides us—is victory over all the trials, a quietness
and confidence which no external circumstances can break.
January 3
Scripture Truth
Character never can be strong, noble, and beautiful; nor can
conduct be worthy of intelligent beings bearing God's image—if
Scripture truth is not wrought into the very soul by personal
search and meditation. Let us not stay forever in the primer of
religious knowledge, amid the easy things that we learned at our
mother's knee. There are glorious things beyond these—let us go
on to learn them. The word of Christ can get into your heart to
dwell in you and transform you—only through intelligent
meditation and pondering of Scriptural truth.
January 4
Finding our Mission
We need never be anxious about our mission. We need never
perplex ourselves in the least in trying to know what God wants
us to do—what place he wants us to fill. Our whole duty is to do
well, the work of the present hour. There are some people who
waste entire years wondering what God would have them do—and
expecting to have their life-work pointed out to them. But that
is not the divine way. If you want to know God's plan for you—do
God's will each day; that is God's plan for you today. If he has
a wider sphere—a larger place for you—he will bring you to it at
the right time, and then that will be God's plan for you and
your mission.
"Our lives we cut on a curious plan,
Shaping them, as it were, for man;
But God, with better art than we,
Shapes them for eternity."
January 5
Prayer in Busy
Days
It is in prayer that God shows his face to his children, that
they have visions of his beauty and glory, that the sweet things
of his love come down as gifts into their hearts, and that they
are transformed into his likeness. If you would be blessed, get
many seasons of prayer into your busy, harassed, tempted,
struggling life. It is in these quiet moments, that you really
grow. Somewhere in every vexed, feverish day—get a little
"silent time" for prayer. It will bring heaven down into your
heart, and make you strong for service.
January 6
The Sympathy of
Christ
Unless words mean nothing, unless the Scriptures cheat us with
poetical images and illusions, Christ feels our every grief and
every struggle, and sympathizes with us in each one. Remember
how his heart responded when he was on earth to all human need.
Sorrow stirred his compassion. Every cry of distress went to the
depths of his soul. That heart is still the same. When angels
are thronging about him, and a poor weary sufferer in some lowly
home on earth, or a stricken penitent crouching in some
darkness, reaches out a trembling finger-tip of faith and
touches the hem of his garment—he turns about with loving look
and asks, "Who touched me?"
January 7
Yes and No
There is tremendous power in the little monosyllable "No!" when
it is spoken resolutely and courageously. It has often been like
a giant rock by the sea as it has encountered and hurled back
the mighty waves of temptation. It is a majestic power the power
to say "No" to everything that is not right. But it is just as
important to learn to say "Yes." There come to us offers and
solicitations we must not reject, and opportunities we must not
thrust away. Life is not all resistance and defense. Whatever is
wrong we must meet with a firm, strong uncompromising "No!" but
whatever is right we should welcome into our life with a hearty,
cheerful "Yes!"
January 8
The Discipline of Drudgery
There is nothing like life's drudgery to make men and women of
us. You chafe under it. You sigh for leisure, to be freed from
bondage to hours, to duties, to tasks, to appointments, to
rules, to the treadmill round. Yet this is God's school for you.
It may be a cross. Yes—but all true blessing comes to us hidden
under the ruggedness and the heaviness of a cross. We do not
grow most in the easiest life.
Accept your treadmill round, your plodding, your dull task-work,
and do all well—do always your best—and you will grow into
strong, noble character.
January 9
God's Giving
God does not dole out help by little grains. He pours out
blessings until there is no more room to receive. He gives until
our emptiness is altogether filled. He is never done giving when
you cease receiving—he could give far more. Nothing limits the
supplies we get from God—but our capacity to take. He would give
infinitely if we had room to receive infinitely, and the only
reason we are not supplied in this glorious way, according to
God's riches, is because we will not take all that God would
give. The only thing which stands in the way of our being
blessed to the full—is the smallness of our faith.
January 10
Our Clumsy Hands
Most of us are awkward in doing even our most loving deeds. We
must learn to be patient, therefore, with people's awkwardness
and clumsiness. Their hearts may
be gentler than their hands.
Do not misinterpret their actions, finding enmity where purest
love is; or indifference where affection is warmest; or slights
where honor was meant. Away with your petty suspicions! Be
patient even with people's faults. Let us train ourselves to
find the best we can in every act of others, to believe the best
always of people and their actions, and to find some beauty in
everything.
January 11
God's Better Answers
God many times answers our prayers—not by bringing down his will
to ours—but by lifting us up to himself. We grow strong, so as
to need no longer to cry for relief. We can bear the heavy load
without asking to have it lightened. We can keep the sorrow now
and endure it. We can go on in quiet peace without the new
blessing which we thought so necessary. We have not been saved
from the battle we shrank so from entering—but we have fought it
through and have gained the victory. Is not victoriousness in
conflict, better than beingfreed from
the conflict? Is not peace in the midst of
the storm and the strife—better than to be lifted altogether over the
strife?
January 12
Touching Others
There are some good people who seem to want to be your friends
and to do you good—but they stay at a distance, and never come
near you. Then there are others who draw close to you, and look
into your eyes and touch you with their hands. You know the
difference between these two ways of helping. The former people
give you only cold help, with no part of themselves, no tender
sympathy; the latter may give you really less of material
help—but they pour a portion of their own warm life into your
soul. Christ never withheld his touch; he always gave part of
himself. We should be the touch
of Christ to
others. His love should tingle in our very fingers when they
touch others.
January 13
Fidelity to Duty
Too often we want to know how duty is going to come out, before we
are ready to accept it and do it. But that is wrong, for we have
nothing whatever to do with the cost or with the outcome of
duty; we have to know only that it is duty—and then go right on
and do it. The true way to live—is to bring to each duty that
comes to our hand—our wisest thought and our best skill, doing
what appears to us at the time to be the right thing to do, and
then leaving it, never regretting nor fretting about results.
God has promised to guide us, and if we are living in true
relations to him, we may expect guidance moment by moment as we
go on.
January 14
Having - Giving
It is not having which
makes men great. A man may have the largest abundance of God's
gifts—of money, of mental acquirements, of power, of
heart-possessions and qualities—yet if he only holds and hoards
what he has for himself, he is not great. Men are great, only in
the measure in which they use what they have to bless others. We
are God's stewards,
and the gifts that come to us are his, not ours—and are to be
used for him as he would use them. When we come to Christ's feet
in consecration, we lay all we have before him. He accepts our
gifts; and then putting them back into our hands he says, "Go
now and use them in my name among the people."
January 15
An Eye for Motes
We ought not to expend all our keen-sightedness in discovering
our neighbor's little faults. By some strange perverseness in
human nature, we have far keener eyes for flaws and blemishes in
others—than for the lovely things that are in them. Few of us go
about talking to everyone we meet about our neighbor's good
points, and praising the lovely things in him. Many of us,
however, can tell of the faults in our neighbors. Would it not
be well to change this, and begin gossiping about the good and
beautiful things in others?
January 16
Silence That is Not Golden
Is any miserliness so base, as that which holds loving and
gentle words in the heart unspoken, when dear lives are starving
close beside us which our words would save and feed? Use your
gift of speech to give comfort, joy, cheer, and hope to all
about you. Use it to encourage the weary and disheartened, to
warn those who are treading in paths of danger, to inspire the
lethargic and indolent with high and holy motives, to kindle the
fires of heavenly aspiration on cold heart-altars.
January 17
Christ in Us
We should not be satisfied with any small measures of
attainment. If Christ dwells in each Christian, we should all be
new incarnations. Christ himself was the incarnation of God. He
said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." If we are
Christians, we are new incarnations of Christ. We should be able
to say to men: "Look at me, and see what Christ is like." The
beauties of Christ should be seen in us. This will become true
just in the measure in which the Christ in us is allowed to rule
us and transform our lives. It should be our aim and prayer,
that the divine abiding in us may be without hindrance, and that
no part of our life shall remain unfilled.
January 18
Practical Kindness
Kindness must be practical, not merely emotional and
sentimental. It should not be satisfied with good wishes,
sympathetic words, or even with prayers; it should put itself
into some form which will do good. There are times when even
prayer is a mockery. It is sometimes our duty to answer our own
requests, to be ourselves the messengers, which we ask God to
send to help others. We are God's angels when we find ourselves
in the presence of human needs and sorrows which we can supply
or comfort. Expressions of pity or sympathy are mockeries—when
we do nothing to relieve the distress.
January 19
Being—Doing
There is a silent
personal influence, like a shadow, which goes out from
everyone, and this influence is always leaving results and
impressions wherever it touches. You cannot live a day—and not
touch some other life. Wherever you go your shadow falls on
others, and they are either better or worse for your presence.
Our influence depends upon what we are—more
than upon what we do. It
is by living a beautiful life that we bless the world. I do not
under-estimate holy activities. Good deeds must characterize
every true life. Our hands must do mighty works. But if the life
itself is noble, beautiful, holy, Christ-like, one that is
itself a blessing, an inspiration, the worth of the influence is
many times multiplied.
January 20
Preaching by Shining
Every Christian can preach sermons every day, at home and among
neighbors and friends—by the beauty of holiness in his own
common life. Wherever a true Christian goes, his life ought to
be an inspiration. Our silent influence ought to touch other
lives with blessing. People ought to feel stronger, happier,
more earnest after meeting us. Our very faces ought to shed
light, shining like holy lamps into sad and weary hearts. Our
lives ought to be blessings to human sorrow and need all about
us.
January 21
Too Late After-Thoughts
There is a time for the doing of the duties which are assigned
to us. If we will do them in their own time, there will be a
blessing in them. If, however, we do not perform them at the
right moment, we need scarcely trouble ourselves to do them at
all. The time to show interest and affection to any sufferer—is
while the suffering is being endured, not next day, when it is
all over, when the person is well again or—dead. Oh, there are
so many of us whose best and truest thoughts are always
after-thoughts, too late to be of any use! We see when all is
over, what noble things we might have done—if we had only
thought.
January 22
Serving in Love
Work in Christ's vineyard, gifts to missions, charities
dispensed to the poor, money given to good causes, ministries
among the sick and the needy—these things please Christ, only
when there is in them all—love for him, when they are done truly
for him, in his name. We need to look honestly into our hearts
while we crowd our days with Christian activity, to know what
the spirit is which prompts it all. "Do you love me?" is the
Master's question as each piece of service is rendered, as each
piece of work is done. There is no other true motive.
January 23
The Hiding Away of Self
"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men,
to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your
Father in heaven." Matthew 6:1. No grace shines more brightly in
a Christian, than humility. Wherever SELF comes in—it mars the
beauty of the work we are doing. Seek to do your work
noiselessly. Do not try to draw attention to yourself, to make
men know that you did this beautiful thing. Be content to pour
your rich life into other wasted, weary lives, and see them
blessed and made more beautiful, and then hide away and let
Christ have the honor. Work for God's eye—and even then, do not
think much about reward. Seek to be a blessing, and never think
of self-advancement. Do not worry about credit for your work, or
about monuments; be content to do good in Christ's name. "Then
Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
Matthew 6:4
January 24
Not as I Will
We may pray earnestly, pressing our very heart into the
heavens—but it is for the doing of our own will that we ask, not
for the doing of God's will. Is it the true child-like spirit
for us—to insist on having our way with God, to press our will
without regard to his? Are we not God's children? Is it not ours
to learn obedience and submission in all things to him? No
prayer is acceptable to God which, after all its intensity and
importunity, is not still referred to God, and left to his
superior wisdom. Who but he—knows what is best for us?
January 25
Spiritual Greatness
Spiritual greatness—sanctified character, beauty of soul, the
likeness of God upon the life, heart-qualities — shall endure
forever. Into this true spiritual greatness, God wants to train
every one of us. Many Christians grow sadly disheartened,
because they seem never to become any better. Year after year
the struggle goes on with the old tempers and ugly dispositions,
the old selfishness, pride, and hatefulness, and they appear
never to be growing victorious. Yet Christ is a most patient
teacher. He never wearies of our slowness and dullness as
scholars. He will teach the same lesson over and over until we
have learned it. If we only persevere, he will never tire of us,
and his gentleness will make us great.
January 26
Patient Love
"As I have loved you" means love that is sweet, fragrant, and
gentle to those who have many rudenesses and crudenesses, who
are selfish and faulty, with sharp corners and but partially
sanctified lives and very vexing ways. If all Christian people
were angelic, and you were too—it would not be hard to love all.
But as many other people are not yet angelic—you will still have
need of patience, even if you are angelic yourself, which
probably you are not.
January 27
Control of Temper
The worst-tempered people may be made gentle and loving in all
speech, actions, and disposition—by the renewing and
transforming power of divine grace. God can take the jangled
keys and put them in tune—if we will but put them into his hand.
But we must strive ourselves to be sweet-tempered. We must watch
the rising anger and quickly choke it back. We must keep down
the ugly dispositions. We must learn to control ourselves, our
tempers, our feelings, our passions, our tongues. We must seek
to develop the gentle things—and
crowd out the nettles.
The discipline is not easy—but the lesson can be mastered.
January 28
"As we forgive others"
In the model prayer which Christ gave to his disciples, he
linked together the divine and the human forgiveness. While we
pray to God to forgive our countless and enormous sins—we are
taught to extend to others who harm us in little ways—the same
forgiveness which we ask for ourselves. Let us keep no
bitterness in our hearts for a moment. Let us put away all
grudges and all ill-feelings. Let us remember the good things
others do to us—and forget the evil things.
Then we can pray sincerely, "Forgive us—as we forgive others."
If we cannot do this, I do not know how we are going to pray at
all for forgiveness.
January 29
The Test of Love
There is a great difference between love for people you never
saw and never shall see—and for those with whom you mingle in
close relations. There are some people whose souls glow with
compassionate affection for the Chinese, the Hindus, the
Japanese, who yet utterly fail in loving their nearest
neighbors, those who jostle against them every day in business,
in pew, in church-aisle, in society. The test of Christian love,
is that it does not fail even when brought into closest contact,
and into the severest frictions of actual living.
January 30
Winning Souls
We must love those whom we seek to save—but we must love Christ
more; we must love them because we love Christ, because he loves
them, because he gave himself for them. We must strive to win
souls, not for ourselves—but for Christ. It is not enough to get
people to love us; we must get them to love our Savior, to trust
in him, and to commit their lives to him. We must hide ourselves
away out of sight. He who is thinking of his own honor as he
engages in any Christian service, is not a vessel ready to be
used by Christ. We need to take care that no shadows of
ourselves, of our pride, our ambition, our self-seeking, fall
upon our work for Christ
January 31
Blessings of Tribulation
When you have passed through a season of suffering and stand
beyond it—there ought to be a new light in
your eye, a new glow in
your face, a new gentleness in
your touch, a new sweetness in
your voice, a new hope in
your heart, and a new consecration in
your life. You ought not to stay in the shadows of the
sorrow—but to come again out of them, radiant with the light of
victory and peace, into the place of service and duty. The
comfort which God gives, puts deep new joy into the heart, and
anoints the mourner or the sufferer with a new baptism of love
and power.
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