April 10 - 15
"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)
We are so apt to look for deliverance in suffering, but I suspect that God's object with each of us is to teach us to expect a fresh revelation of Christ and to learn His mind in the trial. (Edward Dennett)
N.J. Hiebert # 2578
"There are eleven days journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea." (Deuteronomy 1:2)
Eleven days! And yet it took them (Children of Israel) forty years! How was this? We need not travel far for the answer. It is only too like ourselves. How slowly we get over the ground! What windings and turnings! How often we have to go back and travel over the same ground again and again! We are slow travelers, because we are slow learners. It may be we feel disposed to marvel how Israel could have taken forty years to accomplish a journey of eleven days; but we may, with much greater reason, marvel at ourselves. We, like them, are kept back by our unbelief and slowness of heart; but there is far less excuse for us than for them, inasmuch as our privileges are so very much higher. (C.H. Mackintosh)
N.J. Hiebert # 2579
"And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death, of the cross." (Philippians 2:8)
The whole life of our blessed Lord as man is compressed into the words, "He humbled Himself." (Footprints for Pilgrims)
N.J. Hiebert # 2580
"The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord. . . . Then the channels of waters were seen . . ."
(Psalms 18:2,3,15)
We are but leaden pipes to let the water down from the cistern above - dry till it flows in above and dry if it ceases to flow in. It is good to remember this at all times and to walk humbly in the truth of it. . . . I found it useful (the remembrance of it) in praying before speaking. Often not a word seemed with me to give, and the spreading out before the Lord His estimate of the worthiness of His Son to be spoken about, and His will that He should be announced, has been followed by a full fresh flow of water of the word of life. (G.V. Wigram)
N.J. Hiebert # 2581
"He said, My presence shall go with thee,
and I will give thee rest." (Exodus 33:14)
"In Thy presence is fullness of joy." (Psalm 16:11)
Graham Faulkner, a missionary from New Zealand to Guatemala, was once asked if it was dangerous to serve the Lord in that land. To which he replied, "Safety is not in the absence of danger, but in the presence of the Lord". Wherever we serve the Lord today, how wonderful it is to know His two-fold promise, My presence shall go with thee and in His presence there is fullness of joy. May we know both today! (Arnot McIntee)
N.J. Hiebert # 2582
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)
Men had dared to call the preaching of the cross of Christ foolishness. But who and what were they? Those that perish! Was it wise to follow such? They might vaunt of their wisdom, but this would not save them from perdition.
Need we wonder it was to them foolishness, if they saw not the glory of the person of Christ who was given to die in God's love to sinners? For what could seem less reasonable to the natural mind than for a crucified man to be the only Saviour from sins and the wrath of God? Men naturally despise the cross, men who do not believe either that their sins deserve divine judgment or that He in grace bore that judgment on the cross.
There is nothing a man is so slow to acknowledge as his own badness. When a man is in such a state, religion is only a blind for the soul and a sop for God - of all vanities the greatest and most pernicious. (W. Kelly)
N.J. Hiebert # 2583
