Bible Gems

May 5, 2007 at 19:22 o\clock

Gems for the Week

by: soundwords

May 1 - 5

"Sirs, be of GOOD CHEER: for I believe God,
that it shall be even as it was told me."  (Acts 27:25)
    It really is just that simple.  Do you want to be happy and comforted in the midst of the difficulties that surround you?  The answer is obvious!
    The key is to say I believe God (not circumstances, feelings, or what others think or say).  And how can you know what to believe - how can you know for sure  what God is telling you?  By reading, meditating on and obeying His precious Word in faith.  Remember what the little child said one time about faith? "God said it, that settles it, I believe it"!
    Believe the goodness of God.  Believe the infinite power of God.  Believe the unfathomable love of God.  Believe that He is eagerly waiting for one of His erring children to turn around saying "I have sinned against heaven . . . ." Believe that, "if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse from all unrighteousness." Believe and turn in true repentance back to God.  You will be met by your Father who waits now, longing to bring blessing to you.
    Whatever the seemingly hopeless condition of your life which has resulted from sin and self-will, He can and will bring about peace and joy.  Our God is the God of all comfort and hope - the One and the only One who can and will bring light into a dark scene of misery and ruin.  Oh! Do run to Him - do come back to Him - right now!  (The Journey of Life - D.N.)
N.J. Hiebert # 2963
"I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses, for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." 
(2 Corinthians 12:10) 
Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.  God hath many sharp-cutting instruments, and rough files for the polishing of His jewels; and those He especially loves, and means to make resplendent, He hath often set His tools upon.  (Submitted by a reader of the "Gems.") 
N.J. Hiebert # 2964
"And when he had come to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 
I will arise and go to my father. . . "  (Luke 15:17,18) 
The prodigal found a higher place, and tasted higher communion than ever he had know before.  "The fatted calf" had never been slain for him before.  "The best robe" had never been on him before.  And how was this?  Was it a question of the prodigal's merit?  Oh! no; it was simply a question of the Father's love.  (Food for the Desert)
N.J. Hiebert # 2965
"Then Jesus beholding him (young man) loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come take 
up thy cross and follow Me.  And he was sad at that saying,
and went away grieved: for he had great possessions" 
(Mark 10:21)
"Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise:
why shoudest thou destroy thyself."  (Ecclesiastes 7:16) 
Self-righteousness. Take heed uprightness proves not a snare to thee.  The young man in the gospel might have been better, had he not been so good.  His honesty and moral uprightness was his undoing, or rather his conceit of them.  Better he had been a publican, driven to Christ in the sense of his sin, than a Pharisee, kept from Him with an opinion of his integrity.  May be thou art honest and upright in thy course.  Bless God for it, but take heed of blessing thyself in it: there is the danger; this is one way of being "righteous over much."  There is undoing in this over-doing, as well as in any under-doing.  (William Gurnall - The Christian in Complete Armour - Gleanings from the compete work published in 1665) 
N.J. Hiebert # 2966
"For there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few." 
(1 Samuel 14:6)
By many or by few - Jonathan affirms nothing can restrain Jehovah's salvation.  But how about by one?  Consider our Saviour "who when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down."  Nothing could restrain God's Son from going to Calvary.  But in those dark hours at Calvary, as His visage was marred, and the thorn-crowned Son cried in His loneliness, what restrained Jehovah from redirecting judgment to us, the deserving recipients?  Bands of love (Hosea 11)!  By many, by few, or by One, may nothing restrain us from praising that wonderful Man of Calvary.  (David J. Reed)
N.J. Hiebert # 2967 

May 5, 2007 at 19:19 o\clock

Gems for the Week

by: soundwords

April 26 - 30

"If we love one another, God dwelleth in us,
and His love is perfected in us."  (1 John 4:12) 
You are writing a Gospel, a chapter a day,
By deeds that you do, by words that you say.
Men read what you write, whether faithless or true;
Say, what is the Gospel according to you?"
A great many men never read the Gospel according to Matthew, they never put in any time on the Gospel according to Luke, they never look into the Gospel according to Mark, never weigh the Gospel according to John, but they are reading the gospel according to you, and weighing you; they are watching you, listening to what you say, observing what you do, and getting their ideas of Christ and their ideas of God from what they see in you.  (Selected)
N.J. Hiebert # 2958
"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."  (Hebrews 13:5) 
    There is a legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of passage.
    His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone.
    He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it.  He cannot cry out for help to anyone.  Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.
    He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.  The boy is naturally terrified.  He can hear all kinds of noises.  Wild beasts must surely be all around him.  Maybe even
some human might do him harm.  The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold.  it would be the only way he could become a man!
    Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold.
It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.  He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.
    We, too, are never alone.  Even when we don't know it, God,  our Father is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us.  When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to HIM.  (Submitted by a reader of the "Gems")
N.J. Hiebert # 2959
"And he (prodigal son) arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.  And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.  But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.  And they began to be merry."  (Luke 15:20-24)      
The extent of Christ's love for those given Him by the Father, the Father alone can understand.  Look at the prodigal - what a pitiable object! and yet there he is in the father's arms, all the expression of the father's love put on him, all the joy of the house flowing out in response to the gladness of the father's heart.  What did the prodigal bring?  Nothing save the marks of misery.  Starvation and rags.  The angels did not understand God's mercy till then.  They could not know it till Christ became man.  When they saw the Babe lying in the manger, they knew that Babe to be the eternal God from off the throne.  And it was only by the church that they learnt the manifold wisdom of God.  (Gleanings - G.V.Wigram) 
N.J. Hiebert # 2960
"A merry hear doeth good like a medicine."  (Proverbs 17:22)
"A time to weep and a time to laugh."  (Ecclesiastes 3:4)
God means us to be happy; His fills the short-lived years
With loving, tender mercies - With smiles as well as tears. 
A close friend of mine, who is now with the Lord, was endowed with a great sense of humor.  We know that humor used ill-advisedly can hurt and be counter-productive.  However, my friend used it to alleviate many a problem between the Lord's people, often at the expense of himself.  A little smile and laugh can be such a blessing, an uplift to the heart, not to mention the testimony of joy it witnesses to the world.  How many of the saints miss that God-given medicine?  Try to pass on a smile today.  (Brian Russell)
N.J. Hiebert # 2961
"To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.  Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth."
(Isaiah 40:25,26)
A businessman with a keen mind once wrote, "It takes a girl in our factory about two days to learn to put the seventeen parts of a meat chopper together.  There may be those who say that these millions of worlds, each with its separate orbit, all balanced so wonderfully in space, just happened - that by a billion years of tumbling about they finally arranged themselves. I am merely a manufacturer of cutlery,  but this I know, that you can shake the seventeen parts of a meat chopper around in a washtub for the next seventeen billion years, and you will never have a meat chopper."  (Dr. J.M. - TCN - July/ August 1990)
N.J. Hiebert # 2962