| Devotional | Bread corn is bruised
The farmer does not gather timothy and bluegrass and break it with a heavy machine. But he takes severe measures to separate the kernals of wheat. So God takes great pains with those who are to be of much use to Him. There is a nature in them that needs this discipline. Do not wonder at God's wise, discriminating care that will fit them to be food ...read |
| Devotional | Bring them hither to me
Why have you not received all the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Do you not long to be anointed with the rest of the oil? (Leviticus 14:17-18). Look around you at your situation. Are you not conscious of many needs at this very moment and almost overwhelmed with difficulties, trials and emergencies? These are all divinely provided vessels for the Hol ...read |
| Devotional | But God
What else do we really need? What else is He trying to make us understand? The religion of the Bible is wholly supernatural. The one resource of faith has always been the living God, and Him alone. The children of Israel were utterly dependent upon Jehovah as they marched through the wilderness. The one reason their foes feared them and hastened to ...read |
| Devotional | But prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him
But prayer is the link that connects us with God. it is the bridge that spans every gulf and bears us over every abyss of danger or of need. How significant the picture of the apostolic church: Peter in prison, the Jews triumphant, Herod supreme, the arena of martyrdom awaiting the dawning of the morning to drink up the apostle's blood-everything ...read |
| Devotional | But seek ye first the kingdom of God
For every heart that is seeking anything from the Lord this is a good watchword. That very thing, or the desire for it, may unconsciously separate us from the Lord or at least from the singleness of our purpose toward Him. The thing we desire may be a right thing, but we may desire it in a distrustful and selfish spirit. Let us commit to Him and b ...read |
| Devotional | But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister
The first word here used for service is diakanos, which means minister to others in any usual way or work. The word doulos, however, means a bondservant, and the Lord here plainly teaches us that this is the highest form of service. Christ made himself the servant of all, and he who would come nearest to Him and stand closest to Him at last must li ...read |
| Devotional | But ye are a chosen generation
Have you ever thought about the strange way in which God is calling a people out of a people already called? The word ecclesia, or church, means called out, but God is calling out a still more select body from the church to be His bride-those especially prepared for His coming. We see an illustration of this in the story of Gideon. When first he so ...read |
| Devotional | Call not thou common
We can bring Christ into common things as fully as into what we call religious services. It would seem that the highest application of divine grace is to bring it down to the ordinary matters of life. God is, therefore, far more honored in this than even in things that are more especially sacred. In Romans 12, which is the manual of practical conse ...read |
| Devotional | Cast down, but not destroyed
How did God bring about the miracle of the Red Sea? By shutting His people in on every side so that there was no way out but the divine way. The Egyptians were behind them, the sea was in front of them, the mountains were on both sides of them. There was no escape but from above. Someone has said that the devil can wall us in, but he cannot roof us ...read |
| Devotional | Cast out the beam out of thine own eye
Greater than the fault we condemn and criticize is the sin of criticism and condemnation. There is no time that demands such grace as when we deal with an erring one. A lady once called on me on her way to give an erring sister a piece of her mind. I advised her to wait until she could love the woman a little more. Only Jesus, who loved sinners wel ...read |
| Devotional | Cast thy burden on the Lord
Sometimes when we bring a burden to God, we do so much groaning over it that it seems as though God is having a dreadful time, too. In reality it does not burden Him at all. God says in effect, "It is a light thing for Me to do this for you." Our load, though heavy for us, is not heavy for Him. Christ carries the whole on one shoulder, not two sh ...read |
| Devotional | Casting all your care upon him
There are some things that God will not tolerate in us. We must leave them. Nehemiah would not talk with Sanballat about his charges and fears. He simply refused to have anything to do with the matter-even to take refuge in the temple to pray about it. How very few things we really have to do with in life. If we would only drop all the needless thi ...read |
| Devotional | Charity . . . doth not behave itself unseemly
The graceful dress of the Hindu woman is fastened upon her person by means of a single knot. The long strip of cloth is wound around her so that it falls in soft folds like a ready-made garment. The end, however, is fastened by a little knot, and the whole thing hangs by that single fastening. So it is in the spiritual life; our habits of grace can ...read |
| Devotional | Christ in you
How great the difference between the old and the new way of deliverance! One touch of Christ is worth a lifetime of struggling. A sufferer in a hospital was in danger of losing his sight from a small piece of broken needle that had entered his eye. Operation after operation had only irritated it and driven the foreign substance farther still into t ...read |
| Devotional | Christ is the head
Often we want people to pray for us and help us, but we always defeat our object when we look too much to them and lean upon them. The true secret of union is for both to look upon God, and in the act of looking past themselves to Him they are unconsciously united. The sailor was right when he saw the little boy fall overboard and waited a minute b ...read |
| Devotional | Clouds and darkness are round about him
The presence of clouds upon your sky and trials in your path are the very best evidence that you are following the pillar of cloud and walking in the presence of God. The disciples had to enter the cloud before they could behold the glory of the transfiguration. A little later that same cloud became the chariot to receive the ascending Lord, and it ...read |
| Sermon | Co-operating With The Holy Ghost
"Receive ye the Holy Ghost" John xx: 22.
"Be filled with the Spirit." Eph. v: 18.
While we recognize the sovereign power of the Holy Ghost, visiting the heart at His pleasure, and working according to His will upon the objects of His grace, yet God has ordained certain laws of operation and co-operation in connection with the application of re ...read |
| Devotional | Come ye yourselves apart
0ne of the greatest hindrances to spirituality is the lack of waiting upon God. We cannot go through 24 hours with just the breaths of air we inhale as we sip our morning coffee. We must, rather, live in the atmosphere and breathe it all day long. Christians do not wait upon God enough. It requires hours and hours daily of spiritual communion with ...read |
| Devotional | Commit thy way unto the Lord
Rarely have I heard a better definition of faith than one given by a dear old woman, as she answered the question of a young man on how to take the Lord for needed help. In her characteristic way, pointing her finger toward him, she said with great emphasis, "You've just got to believe that He's done it, and it's done." The great danger with m ...read |
| Devotional | confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel
As any evil comes up and the consciousness of any unholy thing touches our inner senses, it is our privilege at once to hand it over to the Holy Spirit and to lay it upon Jesus as something already crucified with Him. Then, as was done with the sin offering, it will be carried outside the camp and burned to ashes. There may be deep suffering, ther ...read |
A.B. Simpson