Gems worth reading
January 8
". . . Freely ye have received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8)
"Take heed therefore . . . for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have." (Luke 8:18)
As we give our time, our substance, our very lives for others, so shall we be blessed. To receive and take and hold, without an outflowing, is to be as dead and dismal as the Dead Sea. Though watered by the dew of Hermon and the rain of Lebanon, the Dead Sea to this day is so bitter and vile that not a single living thing can be found in it. How loud is its message to us! The Dead Sea has no outlet. The waters of the many rivers would soon purify the Dead Sea did it but have an outlet to the ocean. But all the fresh and sparkling water flowing into it cannot heal its death and vileness while it does not pass on the blessing which comes into its basin. (L.S. - Mountain Trailways for Youths)
Hearken then thou deep, thou Dead Sea,
I have now thy secret learned!
Why in thee the dew of Hermon
Is to gall and wormwood turned.
In an old churchyard cemetery you may read this epitaph and epigram:
"What I gave, that I have;
What I kept, that I lost."
God might have used His sunset gold sparingly;
He might have put but one wee star in all the sky -
He might have doled His blossoms out quite grudgingly;
But since He gave so lavishly, why should not I
(A.C.H.)
N.J. Hiebert # 3580
January 9
"In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
(John 14:2,3)
Very little is said in scripture about the Father's house, save what we find in John 14. One is never weary of those verses, because they tell of the personal love of the Lord Jesus to His church; but locality is not defined, nor the thought of heaven introduced as meaning any particular locality. Jesus lifts up His eyes to heaven. Many found their ideas of heaven on some early association in their mind of a place of glory beyond the clouds, and connect it with all that the word of God has made familiar to them. Breaking down all this, would leave them with this blessed thought of the Son upon the Father's throne, and the Father setting them there together with Him.
Whenever my faith goes up there, what does it find realized? The thought of One there who was once in all my circumstances of sorrow down here; the thought of home up there with Him. Oh, what a warm happy feeling the heart experiences at that thought - not the circumstances of that home, but the being there with Him. A man's heart is in his home, not because of its circumstances, but because the object of his affection is there. The same with regard to heaven; I find uncommonly little of detail as to circumstances there, but I find unfading reality in one of two simple verses, "If ye love Me ye would rejoice, because I go to my Father." What a volume in that! (Gleanings from the Teaching of G.V. Wigram)
N.J. Hiebert # 3581
