Gems for the Week
October 9 - 10
"There was one Anna." (Luke 2:36)
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8)
O Jesus, blest Redeemer, sent from the heart of God,
Hold us who wait before Thee, near to the heart of God. - C. McAfee
Here was a woman whose eyes were not focused on her circumstances. The Roman government in Israel was cruel and oppressive. Corruption was taking place in the Temple. But Anna's eyes were not focused on what was going wrong. Her eyes were focused on the One who would set it right - the One that the Scriptures had promised would come. When the Redeemer of Israel came, she recognized Him for her heart was pure. And her heart was pure because she kept it focused on the Lord and His coming - wondrous circle. Keep your eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus and you will see Him too. (V. Gaynier)
N.J. Hiebert # 3121
"For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns,
that can hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:13)
From these two great truths - the fact that God may be found and that for certain reasons some never find Him - we draw this inference, namely, that we shall never find God to be a living reality until first of all we feel Him to be an absolute necessity. His complaint against His people Israel was that they committed two evils. (Jeremiah 2:13 quoted above). But these broken cisterns only intensify the thirst which they profess to allay; and the child of God who is seeking satisfaction at them is like a man dropping buckets into an empty well and growing old in drawing nothing up. (George Henderson - Heaven's Cure for Earth's Care)
N.J. Hiebert # 3122
