Bible Gems

January 20

"...ye are dull of hearing..." (Hebrews 5:11)

There is a great deal of love in the heart when first converted.  And there is another thing.  When first converted, all these things are easier to understand than when more used to hearing them, and the world comes in.  When there is freshness in the heart, the understanding goes with it. ...Freshness of affection and intelligence go together.  When it is bright sunshine, things at a distance are easily seen.  If it is dark, there is more difficulty.  In the day one may walk through the streets without thinking about the way - one knows it; but at night one has to look and think which way.  Just so with spiritual things; there is less spring, less apprehension, less clearness when our hearts are not happy.  My judgment is clear when my affections are warm.  Motives that acted before cease to be motives when my heart is right.  I can count all dross and dung, when force is given to my affections.  "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  (J.N.D.)

N.J. Hiebert # 2135

January 21

"Acquaint now thyself with HIM, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee."  (Job 22:21) 

    Often people ask me, "Why do I not hear God's answer?  When I ask for guidance, it is as if the Lord is not willing to answer."   My answer then can only be a question:  "Do you honestly expect an answer?"  And they admit they don't.  (Corrie Ten Boom - This Day is the Lord's)

N.J. Hiebert # 2136

January 22

"For with God nothing shall be impossible."  (Luke 1:37)

    Far up in the Alpine hollows, year by year God works one of His marvels.  The snow patches lie there, frozen with ice at their edge from the strife of sunny days and frosty nights, and through that ice crust come, unscathed, flowers that bloom.

    Back in the days of the bygone summer the little soldanel plant spread its leaves wide and flat on the ground to drink in the sun's rays, and it kept them stored in the root through the winter.  Then spring came and stirred the pulses even below the snow shroud, and as it sprouted, warmth was given out in such strange measure that it thawed a little dome in the snow above its head.

    Higher and higher it grew, and always above it rose the bell of air till the flower bud formed safely within it; and at last the icy covering of the air-bell gave way and let the blossom through into the sunshine, the crystalline texture of its mauve petals sparkling like snow itself as if it bore the traces of the flight through which it had come.

    The fragile thing rings an echo in our hearts that none of the jewel-like flowers nestled in the warm turf on the slopes below could waken.  We love to see the impossible done; and so does God!

    Face it out to the end, cast away every shadow of hope on the human side as an absolute hindrance to the Divine, heap up all the difficulties together recklessly and pile as many more on as you can find; you cannot get beyond the blessed climax of impossibility.  Let faith swing out to Him.  He is the God of the impossible.  (Selected - Mountain Trailways for Youth)

N.J. Hiebert # 2137