Gems for the Week
August 27 - Sept. 2
"Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." (2 Corinthians 4:17)
How merciful it is in the ways of God that it is only gradually we approach our sorrows, and that we find when they come upon us that they are "lustred with His love"!
He alone who has made the blank in your life can fill it, and He will. When all the blanks of earth are filled with His presence we gain infinitely more than we have lost.
When the Lord returns we shall lose all bodily weakness, so that it will take a little time, as it often seems to me, before we find ourselves at home in our new circumstances. How we shall rejoice when "In soul and body perfect." For this deliverance we have still to wait, but the blessed hope of it cheers us in the midst of our pilgrimage. (Edward Dennett)
N.J. Hiebert # 2353
"Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry."
(Hebrews 10:37)
The soul is tested by afflictions as to how far self-will is active. . . . God searches us. By this means we learn on the one hand what we are, and on the other what God is for us in His faithfulness and daily care. We are weaned from the world, and our eyes become better able to discern and appreciate what is heavenly. (J.N. Darby)
N.J. Hiebert # 2354
"They looked unto Him, and were lightened." (Psalm 34:5)
You may have gone through deep waters, and many a furrow grief may have left on your forehead, but as you passed through the trouble which did you find most - the trial or Christ who passed through it with you? (G.V. Wigram)
N.J. Hiebert # 2355
"Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?"
(Song of Solomon 8:5)
It is not wickedness to be harassed by bad thoughts if you resist them. It is Satan's effort to get you to adopt them, and thus you are sifted. You will find, if you keep near the Lord, that you are more established after an assault of the kind than you were before; and the only way to combat Satan's attacks is by the Word. . . . If Satan can lead you to become indifferent to these assaults, then they will lead you to great damage; but if, on the contrary, they urge you to be more dependent on the Lord Himself and on His word . . . you will be "settled." "After you have suffered awhile make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." (1 Peter 5:10) (Footprints for Pilgrims)
N.J. Hiebert # 2356
"Him whom my soul loveth." (Song of Solomon 3:4)
It is one thing to render to Jesus the tribute of admiration, or even tears, and another to join one's self with Him for better or for worse, through good and evil. . . . One thing to speak well of Him, another to give up all for Him. (J.G. Bellett)
N.J. Hiebert # 2357
"My soul thirsteth for God." (Psalm 42:2)
We must remember that the presence of God is always open to us, and that in that presence is fullness of joy. . . . We never get on, never make headway in divine blessing unless we start from the presence of God. There, as the result of divine light shining in, you learn as you never can learn elsewhere, the truth about yourself. The first thing we learn as Christians is that there is no room for self there - for self in any form. (E.P. Corrin)
N.J. Hiebert # 2358
"He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away." (Luke 1:53)
- Our unceasing cry to God should be for power, power, power, spiritual power - without this all is thorough vanity.
- Faith must pass through the furnace - it will not do to say that we trust in the Lord, we must prove that we do, and that too when everything is against us. (C.H. Mackintosh)
N.J. Hiebert # 2359
