Gems for the Week
February 18 - 22
"And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength
is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Has Christ ever touched the quick of your soul in solitude? Do you know the exquisite tenderness of His touch? He does not tear and lacerate. The necessities and trials of saints down here are created by God in order to show them what Christ is for them.
If I have taken Him as Lord, I do not expect an easy way. God never meant us to have ease as disciples. He takes us into a rough path to show what Christ is, and that in it His grace may be able to vent itself. There is a yearning in His heart up there to let this grace be displayed in a poor, needy people down here - a longing that His strength should be made perfect in their weakness.
Do you know for yourself the grace of that living Christ? Do you know what Christ has to do with you, and you with Him? Do you know yourself as one of a flock that belongs to Him, and that He is tending and guarding through the wilderness, and carrying on to glory to be forever with Himself? (G.V. Wigram)
N.J. Hiebert # 2527
"Spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise
up strife and contention." (Habakkuk 1:3)
"Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence,
even of your lusts that war in your members?" (James 4:1)
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Contention is uncomfortable, with whomsoever we fall out: neighbors or friends, wife or husband, children or servants; but worst of all with God.
Consider the unhappy contentions and divisions that are found among the people of God. Contentions ever portend ill. Christ sets up the light of His gospel to walk and work by, not to fight and wrangle; and therefore, it were no wonder at all if He should put it out, and so end the dispute. If these storms which have been of late years upon us, and are not yet off, had but made Christians, as that did the disciples (Mark 6:48), ply their oars, and lovingly row all one way, it had been happy. We might then have expected Christ to come walking toward us in mercy, and help us safe to land. But when we throw away the oar, and fall to strife in the ship, while the wind continues loud about us, truly we are more likely to drive Christ from us, than to invite Him to us. We are in a more probable way of sinking than saving of the ship and ourselves in it.
There is nothing (next to Christ and heaven) that the devil grudges believers more than their peace and mutual love. If he cannot rend them from Christ, stop them from getting to heaven, yet he takes some pleasure to see them go thither in a storm, like a shattered fleet severed from one another, that they may have no assistance from, nor comfort of each other's company all the way. One ship is easier taken than a squadron.
(W. Gurnall - 1665)
N.J. Hiebert # 2528
"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." (Proverbs 28:13)
To attempt to cover sin and transgression is the greatest mistake a soul can be guilty of. Yet men invariably shrink from coming out frankly with a confession of their true state and actions. It seems to be natural to fallen man (ever since the day that our first parents, by fig-leaf aprons, sought to hide their nakedness) to endeavor to cover his shame, hoping thereby to avoid the just consequences of his sin. But God's Word clearly makes known the fact that he who justifies himself can only be condemned at last. It is the one who sides with God, and condemns himself, who is justified from all things.
Of course, by confession, is not meant a general acknowledgment of sinfulness and wickedness of life, uttered as a kind of soul-ease. True confession involves genuine repentance and self-judgment. Therefore we are here told, "Whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy." The repentant person no longer hugs the chains that bind him, but longs for full deliverance from them. He comes to God with real concern about his unholy ways and thoughts and words, earnestly seeking grace to cease from them, and to walk uprightly before the Lord. But this he cannot do in himself. It is only when he rests in simple faith in the finished work of Christ, and yields himself unto God as one now alive from the dead, that he is able to rise above the sins that have blighted his life and almost damned his soul.
N.J. Hiebert # 2529
"Ask, and it shall be given you.
Seek, and ye shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened to you."
(Matthew 7:7)
Watching unto prayer is the need of the day in which we live - the need to live in the spirit and habit of prayer. If only Christ's Church could be impelled to prayer, there would be an end of barrenness and failure. The lack of prayer lies at the root of all our troubles, and there is no remedy but in prayer.
The spirit of worldliness will never be broken by strong and fiery words of censure. Spiritual destitution and moral laxity are the order of the day, but they will never be better till prayer is restored to its true place in the individual believer's life. Why do we not set ourselves to prayer? The remedy is sure and simple, the need is urgent and acknowledged. (Anon)
N.J. Hiebert # 2530
"I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them . . . I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world,
but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. . . .
Sanctify them through Thy truth:
Thy word is truth.
(John 17:14,15,17)
The Bible. This majestic Book, well named, The Book of Books, is not an ordinary book. It is the one, outstanding, unique Book in possession of the entire human race, read by increasing millions in hundreds of languages. It is the Book of glory; for it has a glory which no other book in the wide world has, nor ever can have. It is the Book of eternity, for it reveals what man by searching could never know, the decrees of a Sovereign God made before the foundation of the world. It lifts the veil of eternity to come and reveals the destiny of mankind, and the future manifestation of God as Creator in producing a new heaven and a new earth. It is the Book in which God comes down to man, even down into the deepest misery, sin and human helplessness, to meet his need, and to bring him back, not into an earthly Eden, but as a member of the family of God, into the Father's House above. It is the Book of power. If what Jeremiah said is done, "Thy words were found and I did eat them," if that blessed bread come down from heaven is taken and absorbed, it will give strength and power to live, to serve, to suffer, and to die. It will guide and direct; it will wipe our tears away. (A.C. Gaebelein)
N.J. Hiebert # 2531
