Gems worth pondering
May 24
"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight . . . Thou desirest truth in the inward parts . . . wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. . . . Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities."
(Psalm 51:4,7,9)
This world hates the God of David, because it hates grace. The world rather likes David's taking Uriah's wife (for that is the world's manner of life!). But for Jehovah not to reckon this sin as damning guilt, and freely to forgive David - and that so fully as to give "her that had been the wife of Uriah" another son, and bestow His special love on him (Solomon) to the extent of giving him a personal name, Jedidiah "for Jehovah's sake" (2 Samuel 12:24,25) and placing this woman Bathsheba in the official genealogy of Christ (Matthew 1:6); and above all, for God to call David a man "after His own heart" - all this rouses the ire of a vile, self-righteous, neighbour-judging, blind, grace-ignorant, impenitent world - a world that has neither repented, nor means to repent, of the very sins into which David fell, and of which he repented most deeply. (TCN - W.B.N.)
N.J. Hiebert # 3714
May 25
"I am the way the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me."
(John 14:6)
The headline of the National Post read, "Trouble at the Border." It then outlined a number of security gaps which permitted the unwanted to slip undetected into the country. There may be trouble at earthly borders, but there are none at heaven's. No one enters that holy place of purity and joy unless they have confessed to being a sinner and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. Only then will they be assured of an entrance. (Arnot P. McIntee)
Only a step to Jesus!
Believe and thou shalt live,
Lovingly now He's waiting,
And ready to forgive.
(D.W. Whittle)
N.J. Hiebert # 3715
May 26
"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
(2 Corinthians 4:6)
When a cloud comes between us and the sun, it robs us for the time of the enjoyment of his beams. It does not prevent Him from shining, it merely hinders our enjoyment of Him. Exactly so is it when we allow trials and sorrows, difficulties and perplexities, to hide from our souls the bright beams of our Father's countenance, which ever shine, with changeless lustre, in the face of Jesus Christ. (Food for the Desert)
N.J. Hiebert # 3716
May 27
"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith."
(Hebrews 12:2)
- How easily we stray whenever we get on the line of expediency. The Lord must have the first place, or we shall soon drift on the rocks.
- Two lessons we need to learn - first to be brought to an end of ourselves and also to be brought to the end of man, and we then expect nothing from self, and nothing from man.
- If our hearts are set on one single thing on which the heart of God is not set, in so far we are out of communion.
(Edward Dennett - Footprints for Pilgrims)
N.J. Hiebert # 3717
