| Devotional | Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
Many a person prays for sanctification but fails to enter into the blessing because he does not intelligently understand and faithfully accept God's appointed means-Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit. Many a prayer for the salvation of others is hindered because the very friend who has prayed takes the wrong course to bring about the an ...read |
| Devotional | Have faith in God
God requires of us a perfect faith, and He tells us that if we believe and doubt not, we shall have whatsoever we ask. The faintest touch of unbelief will neutralize our trust. But how shall we have such perfect faith? Is it possible for human nature? No, but it is possible to the divine nature; it is possible to the Christ within us. It is possibl ...read |
| Devotional | have thou authority over ten cities
It is not our success in service that counts, but our fidelity. Caleb and Joshua were faithful and God remembered their faithfulness when the day of visitation came. For them it was a very difficult and unpopular position. For us, too. We are called in the crises of our lives to stand alone. In the very matter of trusting God for victory over sin a ...read |
| Devotional | Having begun in the Spirit
Grace literally means that which we do not have to earn. It has two great senses always; it comes without charge, and it comes when we are helpless. Grace does not merely help the man who helps himself-that is not the gospel. The gospel is that God helps the man who cannot help himself. In addition, God helps the man to help himself, for everything ...read |
| Devotional | He breathed on them
The beautiful figure suggested by the words "He breathed on them" is full of simple instruction. It is as easy to receive the Holy Spirit as it is to breathe. It almost seems as if the Lord had given His disciples the very impression of breathing, and had said, "Now this is the way to receive the Holy Spirit." It is not necessary for us to go t ...read |
| Devotional | He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you
Do not fail to mark these two stages in Christian life. The one is the Spirit's work in us, the other is the Spirit's personal coming to abide within us. All true Christians know the first, but few, it is to be feared, understand and receive the second. There is a great difference between my building a house and my going to reside in that house a ...read |
| Devotional | he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified
Are you missing what belongs to you? Jesus has promised to sanctify you. He has promised sanctification for you by coming to you Himself and being made of God to you sanctification. Jesus is our sanctification. Having Him, we have obedience, rest, patience and everything we need. He is alive forevermore. If you have Jesus nothing can be against you ...read |
| Devotional | He humbled himself
0ne of the hardest things for those having a lofty and superior nature is to be under authority, to renounce their own will and to take a place of subjection. Christ took upon Him the form of a servant, gave up His independence, His right to please Himself, His liberty of choice. After having had from eternal ages the right to command, He gave Hims ...read |
| Devotional | He humbled himself
The first step to the righteousness of the kingdom is poor in spirit. The next is a little deeper, they that mourn. Because now we must become pliable, we must be broken, we must be like the metal in the fire which the Master can mold. It is not enough to see our unrighteousness, but deeply to feel it, deeply to regret it, deeply to mourn over it, ...read |
| Devotional | He is a new creature
Resurrected, not raised. There is so much in this distinction. The teaching of human philosophy is that we are to raise humanity to a higher plane. But this is not the gospel. On the contrary, the teaching of the cross is that humanity must die and sink out of sight and then be resurrected, not raised. Resurrection is not an improvement, not elevat ...read |
| Devotional | He opened not his mouth
How much grace it requires to bear a misunderstanding rightly and to receive an unkind judgment in holy sweetness! Nothing tests the Christian character more than to have some evil thing said about us. This is the file that soon proves whether we are electroplate or solid gold. If we could only know the blessings that lie hidden in our lives, we wo ...read |
| Devotional | He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit
Recently I passed a garden. The gardener had finished his pruning and the wounds of the knife and saw were just beginning to heal. The warm April sun was gently nourishing the stricken plant into fresh life and energy. As I looked at that plant I thought how cruel it would be were the owner to begin next week to cut it down. The gardener's busines ...read |
| Devotional | He shall baptize you . . . with fire
Fire is strangely intense and intrinsic. It goes into the very substance of things. It somehow blends with every particle of the thing it touches. There are the severe trials that come to minds more sensitive-to minds that have more points of contact with what hurts. The higher the nature, the higher the joy and the greater the avenues of pain that ...read |
| Devotional | He shall dwell on high
It is easier for a consecrated Christian to live a total life for God than to live a mixed life. A soul redeemed and sanctified by Christ is too large for the shoals and sands of a selfish, worldly, sinful life. The great motor vessel can sail in deep waters without an effort, but she can make no progress in the shallow pool. In the crowded harbor ...read |
| Devotional | He that eateth me, even he shall live by me
What the children of God need is not merely a lot of teaching, but the Living Bread. The best wheat is not good food. It must be ground and baked before it can be digested and assimilated to nourish the system. The purest and the highest truth cannot of itself sanctify or satisfy a living soul. Christ breathes the New Testament message from His mou ...read |
| Devotional | He that in these things serveth Christ
God can only use us while we are trusting Him completely. Satan cared far less for Peter's denial of his Master than for the use he made of it afterwards to destroy his faith. So Jesus said to him, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not (Like 22:32). It was Peter's faith Satan attacked, and so it is our faith that he contests. The trial o ...read |
| Devotional | He that is entered into his rest
What a rest it would be to many of us if we could exchange burdens with Christ and so utterly and irreversibly transfer to Him all our cares and needs that we would no longer feel responsible for them. We would have the assurance that He has undertaken all the care, and that He prays, labors and suffers only for us and our interests. In reality, th ...read |
| Devotional | He that ruleth his spirit
Temperance is true self-government. It involves the grace of self-denial and the spirit of a sound mind. It is that poise of spirit that holds us quiet, self-possessed, composed, deliberate and subject to the voice of God and the conviction of duty in every step we take. Many persons do not have that poise and serenity. They are drifting at the imp ...read |
| Devotional | He that triumphed gloriously
God calls us to victory. Have you given up the conflict, have you surrendered? Have you said, "This thing is too much?" Have you said, "I can give up anything else but this?" If you have, you are not in the land of promise. God intends that you accept every difficult thing that comes into your life. He has started with you, knowing every diffic ...read |
| Devotional | He went out, not knowing whither he went
This is true faith. When we can see, it is not faith but reasoning. In crossing the Atlantic by ship, I observed this very principle of faith. We could see no path upon the water or sign of the shore. And yet day by day the helmsman was in a path as exactly as if he had been following a great chalk line upon the sea. And when we came within 20 mile ...read |
A.B. Simpson