Wednesday August 31

Happy "end of Summer"!  End of August, for me, is the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall, beginning of schools, and football.  It is a time of transition no doubt, continuing the cycle of seasons and life.
How are you doing?
God is beyond description by our feeble, poor words.  Seriously, have you accepted God?  The modern youth and many older ones are now too cynical and too smart for God.  Ah, their biggest loss, terrible mistake.  You are smarter than that, right?


Today's meditation:

August 31


Further Along We'll Know More About It
"Why do bad people have it so good?" (Jeremiah 12:1, The Message).
Back up in the hills several years ago the mountain folk pondered a mystery that has vexed mankind from the earliest days. Their musings produced a gospel standard that is sung at camp meetings everywhere. "Tempted and tried, we're oft made to wonder why it should be thus all the day long. While there are others living about us, never molested though in the wrong.”
Indeed, why do the righteous suffer, and the wicked prosper?
Surely you've wondered as much from time to time. The only solution those Tennessee highlanders could come up with, still remains the only answer anyone can give to this very day, "Further along we'll know more about it. Further along we'll understand why. Cheer up my brother; come sing in the sunshine. We'll understand it all by and by.”
Job, in bitterness of soul, pointedly asked, "Why does God let evil people even live? And not only live; but live well. They grow old and prosper! No calamity comes to their homes." (see Job 21). Yet. he wisely concluded, "But who are we to tell God how to run his affairs? He's dealing with matters that are way over our heads" (21:22, The Message).
Jeremiah took a more tactful approach, and appealed directly to the Lord, "You are right, O GOD, and you set things right. I can't argue with that. But I do have some questions: Why do bad people have it so good?" (Jeremiah 12:1, The Message).
The Psalmist Asaph, in the typical self-disclosing style of all poets, put it this way, "When I looked at the prosperity of the wicked I became envious. They aren't troubled like other people or plagued with problems like everyone else. Why then should I even try to be righteous?" (see Psalm 73)
But then Asaph concludes with his sobering discovery of what awaits those who breeze through life without God's correction of their course — "When I thought how to understand this, It was too painful for me — Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors." (Psalm 73:16-19).
Yep, further along we will know more about it!


God bless you today!
.

Monday August 29

August draws to a close.  A most incredible summer.  A second year begins.
Heavenly Father, be with us, bless us, guide us.  Father, Sovereign Lord, forgive me and guide me, guide my thoughts and actions.  Help me to be an instrument of Your peace and Love. 


Today's meditation from James Ryle:



August 29


The Power of Personal Treasures
"Where you keep your treasure is the place you will most want to be — and will end up being." (Luke 2:34, The Message).


Whatever it is that you value will hold a unique power over your life. You will schedule your time, spend your money, organize your plans, and expend your efforts in direct proportion to the esteem and desire you hold for that thing — whatever, or whoever it is.
When you love someone, you want to be with them as mush as possible. When you love something, you want to do it as often as possible.
People who love sports are most often, if not always, found in some sort of sport setting. People who love money are always occupied with money talk. People who love the Arts find their greatest joy in visiting Theaters and Museums.
What do you treasure? Good or bad — it doesn't matter. If you value it; if you treasure it — you will end up with it.
This puts a premium on the choices our hearts make, and highlights the great importance of making sure that the things we most cherish are heavenly, rather than hellish. For the last thing in the world you would want is for your lifelong desires to end up taking you into hell.
To this end Paul writes, "Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse." (Philippians 4:8, The Message).


Make sure your treasure are of such worth, that you prove to be a worthy person once they take you to be with them.

Sunday August 28

I pray that you are well, where ever you are.  Hurricane Irene will be long remembered on the east coast.  


Today's meditation:



August 28


PROPOSALS AND DISPOSALS
"Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." --- Luk_12:15.


MEN ARE often more eager to get God's help in temporalities than in spiritualities. The man in the crowd, who appealed to Christ, was more anxious that He should interpose on his behalf in a family dispute than to give him the life of the ages. But our Lord refused to be Judge and Arbitrator. His ministry went deeper to the springs of action, and He knew that in each brother there was the root of covetousness, which led the one to wrong the other. He struck at the sin which lay at the root of all such disputes about property.
Our Lord insisted that life does not consist in the abundance of things of which we may happen to be possessed. We say: "So and so is worth a million pounds!" Heaven estimates a man's worth by the courage, faith, purity, self-control, and love to God and man, which have grown up in the soul by the careful discipline of the years! Acceptance and rank in the Kingdom of God depends on character, not on possessions.
How often man proposes and God disposes! We say, "We shall yet live for many years, and enjoy the fruit of our labours"; but God says: "'To-night!'" Listen to the Apostle James, speaking to those who said, "To-day or to-morrow we will go to this city or that, and spend a year there, and carry on a successful business! All the while you do not even know what will happen to-morrow. For your life is but a mist, which appears on the hill-side, but vanishes at the touch of dawn. Surely, we ought to say: If it is the Lord's will, we shall live, and do this or that" (Jam_4:13-17).
Many talk of seeing life who see only its most sordid and ugly side. If a man really wishes to see life, and know happy days, the secret is given in 1Pe_3:10-19. This is the message of the Gospel, "That God has given us the Life of the ages, and that this life is in Christ Jesus. He who has the Son has the Life" (Joh_3:36; 1Jo_5:12).


PRAYER
Lord, I know not what is before me, but Thou knowest. Choose Thou my portion for me. Lead me by Thine own hand; and keep me close to Thee, day by day, and night by night. AMEN.

Friday Aug 26

Friday is a neat day for many.  End of the "normal" work week, two days of "freedom" of choice.  What are you going to do with your "free" days?


Sunday, even Saturday, would be a good day to get closer to God!


Consider today's meditation:



August 26


More on the Most Precious Promise of Shared Life


By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.  (2Pe_1:4 and Joh_15:4-5)


This promise of shared life is so "exceedingly great and precious" that we would do well to consider it further. Being "partakers of the divine nature" (without becoming divine ourselves) is a difficult concept to grasp. The scriptures clearly invite us to live day by day through Christ sharing His life in us. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal_2:20). Yet, how to walk in this truth can seem quite elusive. In His teaching on the vine and the branches, Jesus provided a wonderful physical illustration of this tremendous spiritual reality.  
Jesus' visible example involves actual grapevines, grape branches, and the grapes that can potentially result. For grapes to grow, the appropriate life must be available and developing to maturity. The grape branches do not have this life in themselves. "The branch cannot bear fruit of itself." In order to bear grapes, the grape branch must share in the life of the vine. "The branch cannot bear fruit . . . unless it abides in the vine." This can be irrefutably demonstrated by separating a grape branch from its vine. No grapes can ever be produced on the branches, if the life of the vine is not flowing through the branches. The life of the vine is essential.  
The spiritual application concerns Jesus as the vine and us as the branches. "I am the vine, you are the branches." For Christlike fruit to develop in us, the appropriate life must be available to us and maturing in us. We branches do not have this life in us: "neither can you [bear fruit], unless you abide in Me." This truth is lamentably demonstrated daily by Christians who live self-sufficiently, not depending upon the life that is in Jesus, the vine. "Without Me you can do nothing." Day by day Christian living is only possible by the shared life of Jesus at work through us.  
Once again, we are reminded that humility and faith are the practical application for living as God intends. We must humbly depend upon Jesus for true fruitful living, just as grape branches must depend upon their vine for grapes.


Dear Lord Jesus, I thank You that I do not have to produce true life in and of myself. Teach me to live by Your shared life. I want to humbly and dependently abide in You, that You might live in and through me, for Your glory, Amen.

Wednesday August 24

The school year has started.  After just two days, there is much promise, potential and power in the hungry and thirsty minds of young students.  We spend an incredible amount of time and energy on educating our youth.  Is it worth the costs?  
Obviously everyone has an opinion and thought on this topic.  No one argues that it is important and vital to a society's welfare.  Literacy is critical in communicating with one another and our selves.  But in the end what do we learn?  
Today's thoughts by George Morrison states, for me, the ultimate question and then provides the answer:



August 24


The Way, the Truth, the Life
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life"
 John 14:6


Love Prepares a Welcome
No one was more ready than Jesus to detect the anxieties of those He loved. We picture Him, as He taught the twelve, watching intently the expression on their faces to learn how far His words were understood. Jesus had noted, then, tokens of heart distress (Joh_14:1). The disciples felt His departure like a torture. And it was then that He consoled them with such simple and glorious speech that all Christendom is the debtor to their agony. They thought that His death was an unforeseen calamity. Christ taught them it was the path of His own planning. They thought that heaven was very far away. Christ taught them it was but another room in the great home of whose many mansions this beautiful world was one. He was not stepping out into the dark. He was passing from one room to another in the house. But the mightiest encouragement of all came when He told them, "I go to prepare a place for you." This, then, was the purpose of His going, that love might have all things ready when they arrived. When a child is born here, love has all things ready for it. It will be the same when we awaken in eternity. When a boy or girl comes home from the boarding-school, has not some heart at home been busy in preparation? There is someone at the station, and the bedroom is arranged, and the lights are lit, and the table is spread, and all day there has been happy excitement in the home because James or Mary is coming home tonight. So Jesus says, "I go to prepare a place for you. I go to have all things ready for your coming." And though there are depths in these words we cannot fathom and mysteries we cannot understand, they mean at least that love is getting ready to give the children a real welcome home.
For Wanderers in the Night: I Am the Way
Then Jesus utters the Via Veritas Vita: and first of all He says, "I am the way." It was the very word that the disciples wanted, for they all felt like wanderers that night. Do you know what it is like to lose the road? Did you ever, when out walking across the fields, find the track through the heather grow faint and disappear? There was a helplessness like that in the disciples when Jesus announced that He was soon to leave them. So far, they had all walked with Jesus. Now, at the cross, that pathway seemed to cease. We can hardly grasp the depth of comfort in it when they heard that Christ was to be the Way forevermore. It was in Him they were to fight and conquer. It was in Him they were to live and die. It was in Him they were to reach the glory and stand in the presence of the Father at the end. They felt there was a new and living way. Among the wonders of the old Roman people were the roads they made from end to end of Europe. And the Roman cities are in ruins now, and their palaces and their temples are destroyed, but men are still walking on the Roman roads. So Jesus, our Redeemer, is still the Way. A thousand things have gone, but that remains. It is through His death, and His rising from the dead, and through our daily fellowship with Him that we walk heavenward and reach home at last.


He Is the Truth That Sheds Light on Darkness
Then Jesus says, "I am the truth." He does not say, observe, I speak the truth. There was a deeper meaning in His mind than that. I hope that every child will speak the truth; yet every child, as his experience grows, will discover with shame how untrue he is at heart. Christ is the sum and center of all truth. Where Christ is not, there is a false note always. And one of the great joys of knowing Jesus is the sweet assurance that truth is ours at last. Before the discovery of the law of gravitation, there were a thousand facts that no man could explain. There was no key to them. There was no plan in them. They could never be gathered into a worthy system. But when the great truth of gravitation was discovered—so simple, so universal, so sublime—a flood of light fell on the darkness, and disorder became order everywhere. And it is just so when we discover Jesus. That truth sheds light upon a thousand facts. Things that were quite inexplicable once—sorrows and joys and hopes and fears and haunting—become intelligible through this great discovery. Did not some one say that if you would find the truth you must seek for it at the bottom of a deep well? The glory of the truth that is in Jesus is that it is found in no dark well, but on the way. Quid est veritas? asked jesting Pilate. And in one of the best anagrams the world has ever had, the answer is given, Est vir qui adest.


He Is the Source of Life
Then lastly Jesus says, "I am the life." In Thackeray's great story, Vanity Fair, we read of Amelia Osborne and her baby George. And Thackeray, speaking of the baby, says, "How his mother nursed him and dressed him and lived upon him need not be told here. This child was her being." That is a little picture of the way in which one person can be the life of another. It helps us to understand what Jesus meant when He said to the disciples, "I am the life." There is no book in any literature so filled with the message of life as the New Testament. If there is one word that sums up the Gospel, it is life. And here we are taught that that life is in Jesus Christ. He is the source of it. It is treasured in Him. And there is no way to gain it and to keep it but by trusting and by loving Him.


I cannot solve mysterious things,
That fill the schoolmen's thoughts with strife;
But oh! what peace this knowledge brings—
Thou art the Life!
Hid in thy everlasting deeps,
The silent God His secret keeps.
The Way, the Truth, the Life, Thou art!
This, this I know; to this I cleave;
The sweet, new language of my heart—
"Lord, I believe."
I have no doubt to bring to Thee;
My doubt has fled, my faith is free!


I pray that you will be free and joyous in Christ.

Saturday August 20

Wow, summer went by so quickly!
August 20 already.  Many students are already back in school, some will start next week, and nearly all will restart their school journeys by September.  
So much to learn, so much information, data, skills, enhancements... but what is it all for anyways? 
Are we here just to consume, defecate, reproduce, and then die?  I believe that life is is much more than that.  
It is begins with HOPE - an expectation of a positive outcome. 
This will eventually lead to BELIEF in something or someone.
Once you have Belief, FAITH comes alive and you now have a PURPOSE.  
Life moves along and you WILL be hurt in so many ways.  When others hurt you, what do you do?  Ultimately FORGIVENESS becomes a reality or at least a possibility.  
Forgiveness is the ultimate LOVE.  
Now we are back at the beginning, for all life is LOVE.


Today's meditation gives you something to think about on these lines:



August 20


DIGGING WELLS
"He removed from thence, and digged another well... and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." -- Gen_26:22.


ISAAC SEEMS to be rather a disappointing character, and we sometimes wonder that he should be classed with Abraham, the father of all who believe; and Jacob, who prevailed with the Angel and became a Prince! He was passive, quiet, given to thoughtful meditation (Gen_24:63). God's purpose includes all sorts and types of men, and Isaac dug wells of which men have drunk for thousands of years.
He was constantly pursued by enmity, jealousy, and strife, as the names of his wells attest. But each time he consistently retired from the conflict, and yielded his well to dig another. Finally, his enemies had to confess that he was mightier than they (Gen_26:16). Best of all, God appeared to him "the same night," and promised that He would be with Him and bless him.
Let us learn to sublimate our resistance to evil, and lift it from the physical to the moral and spiritual level. "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty" (Pro_16:32). 
Go on digging wells--the wells of Family Prayer, of love for the Bible, of holy exercises and habits! You will find spring water (Gen_26:19). That is God's side of your life. You are called to dig wells, but God's Holy Spirit will rise up in your soul, and in the souls of others, like the geyser-springs in Arctic regions (Joh_4:14). Let us present to Him ourselves---our souls and bodies, to be the wells and channels, along and through which His eternal God-Head and Power, arising from the fathomless depths of His own nature, may reach this thirsty and parched world!
God is Love: Love is Self-Giving: but God depends on the        co-operation of us, the well-diggers, to make outlets for the outflow of His Love and Goodness.


PRAYER
Most Merciful Father, give us grace that we may never be drawn to do anything that may dishonour Thy Name; but may persevere in all good purposes, and in Thy holy service, unto our lives' end. AMEN.


May you have all the "water" you need in your life.  

Saturday August 13

So it is here at last, the last weekend before we go "back to school".  Monday is our first official work day, full of meetings and gatherings... so, another school year begins.  The cycle of life continues to roll forward and we move through time.
What are your plans, how is your life going?  Are you happy, at peace, in love with someone, doing something you really love doing?  


Today's meditation by Bob Hoekstra gives us an insight into how to live our lives in Jesus:



August 13


Coming to the Lord for Grace
Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me... and you will find rest for your souls.  (Mat_11:28-29)
Our previous meditation on Jesus promising spiritual rest provides an excellent opportunity to reflect again upon the relational aspect of living by the grace of God. God's grace does not abound toward us by means of some religious procedure. 
His grace flows into our lives as we walk in a developing relationship with Him. This is essential to understand, since it is "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2Co_8:9) that we are to be experiencing.  
It is in coming to the Lord, in relating to the Lord, that we find His grace at work in our lives. "Come to Me...Take My yoke... learn from Me." When we first come to Jesus in humble dependence, we find His grace to forgive us of our our sin and guilt. When we yoke up with Him, walking intimately with Him each day, we find His grace to rescue us from religious, fleshly striving.  
This pattern of coming to the Lord is prevalent in the scriptures. Isaiah wrote of it concerning salvation. 
"Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other... Surely in the LORD I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come" (Isa_45:22, Isa_45:24). Isaiah also declared that spiritual refreshment and life from God would be available by simply coming to the Lord. "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters... Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live" (Isa_55:1-3). Of course, Jesus restated this profound invitation concerning Himself. "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (Joh_7:37-38).  
The Apostle Peter wrote of another significant issue for which we come to Jesus. "Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1Pe_2:4-5). 
If we are going to access the grace that edifies our lives, we must consistently be coming to Jesus Christ, the Father's chosen and precious cornerstone.


Dear Lord, I praise You for the grace that I find every time I come to You in humble dependence. Coming to You, I am cleansed, sustained, refreshed, and built up. I am so thankful that Your grace is accessed through relationship with You and not through religious performance by me!


Thank you Lord God for Your Grace that grants me access to Your Love and Salvation.  I humbly ask for Your blessings on my children.  Amen.

Friday August 12

Hope - the quintessential component of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Hope - the holding on to the possibility, the probable positive outcome of a desired event.  Hope - why people buy lottery tickets, bet on almost anything, take chances, innovate, move, do, act,  and live lives of quiet desperation.  Hope.  
What is your hope?  What is your faith?  What is your love?  
Christ, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of mankind.


Consider today's meditation:



August 12


Jesus Promising Spiritual Rest
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.  (Mat_11:28-30)


Two of the Lord's "exceedingly great and precious promises" (2Pe_1:4) are found in our present verses: "I will give you rest" and "you will find rest for your souls." These promises supplement well our earlier studies on God's promises and God's rest. The first promise pertains to justification and spiritual birth. The second pertains to sanctification and spiritual growth.  
The first promise is addressed to those who are struggling under the burden of guilt and condemnation related to sin: "all you who labor and are heavy laden." This is where everyone begins their earthly trek. David testified of this common starting point for humanity." Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me" (Psa_51:5).  
In order to enjoy the benefits of this initial promise of rest, a person must bring their sin and guilt to Jesus. "Come to Me." The Lord Jesus can remove this load of guilt, because he carried that burden of sin for us on the cross. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa_53:6). For all who come to Jesus in humble repentance, forgiveness is granted. The promise is fulfilled: "I will give you rest."  


The second promise is addressed to those who have found the initial rest of forgiveness, but their soul is restless. They are struggling under the burden of trying to produce a godly life by their own fleshly resources. "Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal_3:3). They yearn for rescue from the crushing load of walking according to the flesh. "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom_7:24).  
In order to enjoy the benefits of this additional promise of rest, a person must yoke up with Jesus (walk with Him in daily intimacy). "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me." This yoke is not for the purpose of pulling half of the load (like the yoke placed upon two oxen). "My yoke is easy and My burden is light." This is yoke of relationship and communion. "Learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart." Those who walk this path of growing communion with the Lord have this second promise fulfilled. "You will find rest for your souls."


Lord Jesus, I give You praise for granting me rest from the burden of sin's guilt and condemnation. Now, I seek You for that daily rest from a self-striving soul. I want to walk with you intimately, day by day, that I might learn of Your humble ways. I long to walk in humility and faith toward You, my Lord, Amen.

My hope is in my Lord and my God, Jesus.  

I hope you have a solid source of Hope.  

Wednesday August 10

The hardest thing for me is the connecting of the physical and the spiritual.  One is tangible and obvious.  The spiritual takes belief, faith and hope.  It is easy to believe in things our five senses tell us about.  But when we move into the sixth and seventh senses... ah, that's where all the debate begins.  


Well, for me, Praise God, I believe that God IS, that God Loves us, that God sent Jesus His Son to redeem us by a gruesome ritual sacrifice for the remission of my, your, all humankind's sins.  This provides the link, the bridge, the path, the worm hole, the connection, the symbiosis of God and me.  I hope you have been blessed to have God's love in your heart.


Today's mediation turns to the central issue of Christianity - the life, death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus, by George Morrison:



August 10


The Thing Incredible
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life .... No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself— Joh_10:17-18


History Has Come Full Circle
It is strange how often in the course of history the wheel has "come full circle." The impossibilities of yesterday have proved the commonplaces of today. Our Christian faith has always had its elements which powerfully commended it to men, and always there have been aspects of it which were obstacles to its acceptance; but the singular fact which steadily emerges from a growing knowledge of its story is how often the glory of the past becomes the difficulty of the present. One sees that in regard to miracles. Once they were confirmations of the faith. For multitudes the Gospel was authenticated by the signs and wonders of the Lord. And now for multitudes these very miracles are obstacles and stumbling blocks, only making it harder to believe. 
Today it is the divinity of Christ which so many find it difficult to credit; in the early days of Christianity there was far more difficulty over His humanity. Today we have to battle with agnosticism, which is the denial of all certain knowledge; but in the early Church the conflict was with gnosticism, which, of course, is agnosticism's opposite.


The Change in Attitude Towards Christ's Death and Resurrection
Something of the same kind is seen in regard to our Lord's death and resurrection. Nobody today questions that He died, but many question if He rose again. That He incurred the bitter enmity of men by the fearless proclamation of His message, that the passions He inevitably roused finally brought Him to His death—all this seems so natural to us that no one has any trouble with the cross now, viewed, I mean, just as a fact of history. The problem for us is not that Christ should die; the problem is that He should rise again, with the very body which the nails had pierced and which had known the thrusting of the sword. Multitudes of earnest souls have difficulty in crediting that. This is seen in the various attempts of modernism to explain away His resurrection. No one tries to explain away His death now. It is universally accepted that He died. Nobody finds it a thing almost incredible that at last He was hung upon a tree. The thing almost incredible to many is that on the third day He rose again, in all the power of an endless life.


The Mystery of Mysteries for the Early Disciples
And yet, if I do not greatly err, the opposite was true in the first days. For those who stood nearest to the Lord the staggering difficulty was His death. They had seen Him in conflict with all the powers of darkness, and from every conflict He had emerged victorious. He had challenged evil in all its ugly forms, and as a Conqueror driven it from the field. He had marched on in triumph, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and every foe of full abundant life had been forced to acknowledge His supremacy. Blindness had vanished at His word. Leprosy had departed at His touch. Fevers had fled away, and the withered arm had become strong again. Even death itself, that universal conqueror, had been forced to render up its prisoners at the kingly command of the Lord Jesus. All this they had seen with their own eyes. It was the constant experience of comradeship. They had walked with One who had matched Himself with death and compelled death to acknowledge he was beaten. And to them the thing incredible was this, that He, who had triumphed all along the line, should Himself become a prisoner of the tyrant. For us the resurrection is the staggering thing: the death but the inevitable end. For those who had corn-partied with Jesus it was the other way about. That He should die, that death should conquer Him, that over Him the grave should be victorious, was to them the mystery of mysteries.
Almost certainly some such thought as this moves through the disciples' aversion from the cross. It underlies their incredulous astonishment when our Lord began to speak about the end. That they heard with horror of a death of shame is in consonance with human nature. Mingling with that horror was the agony of losing their Beloved. But perhaps we shall never fully understand their wild and incredulous astonishment till we recall the personality of Jesus. Men find it difficult to associate death with powerful and arresting personalities. From Nero to Lord Kitchener we trace the conviction that the dead are living. And for men who had companied with Jesus and seen the energies of His victorious life, it must have been extraordinarily hard to picture Him under the power of the grave. That He who was the life should be overcome by the opposite of life, that He who was continually giving life should be powerless to retain His own, this was what perplexed those earliest followers mingling with their love and sorrow, whenever Jesus turned their thoughts to Calvary. It was easy to think of Him as living; it was impossible to think of Him as dead. How could death, whom He had faced and beaten, overthrow that radiant personality? And now the wheel has "come full circle," and it is not the fact of His death that staggers anybody; it is the assertion that He rose again.


Christ's Death Was a Glorious Act of Service
And it was then, brooding in the darkness, that the word of Jesus came back to them with power. They recalled how He had told them once, "I lay it down of myself."
That death, which was so hard to understand, was not the ghastly token of defeat. It did not mean that He who had raised Lazarus had Himself been beaten by the enemy. It meant that He had given Himself, in the wise and holy purposes of love, into the clutching fingers of the tyrant. His death was not a dark necessity. It was a glorious and crowning act of service. The very love that had conquered death for Lazarus submitted to it for the sake of sinners. So did the death of Jesus for these sorrowing men cease to be an inexplicable problem and become the center of their hope and joy.


I pray that you have accepted Jesus's offer of salvation and blessings.  May God richly bless you today and always.

Tuesday August 9th

God is beyond my puny capacity and capability... I consider all that I am and all that I think I know just a jot of dust compared to the marvels and mysteries of God.  We humans have become so convinced and confused by our supposed intelligence and skills.  In the end, God allows us through His Love and Grace to be silly fools and gives us the freedom to choose our paths.  God gives us life, liberty and the ability to pursue our own happiness.  
So, what are you doing about this most important question, about your eternity?  Consider today's wonderful meditation by George Morrison:



August 9


Eternal Life
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly— Joh_10:10


What Is Life?
Amid all the mysteries which engird us there is none deeper than the mystery of life. We recognize life by a thousand evidences, and yet we know not what it is. When we see the surging crowd upon the streets under the glaring lamps of a great city; when we watch the children in their lighthearted glee come pouring from the school when it is over, we whisper to ourselves, What life is there! And yet, though it looks at us through countless eyes and speaks to us through innumerable voices, what that life is which is so manifested remains one of the hidden things of God. We probe for it with the lancet, and it flees us. We have our hand on it, and it escapes. It meets us in the surging of the city and in the quietness of nature's solitude. And yet this life, familiar as the sunshine and common as the sand upon the shore—what is it?
  We know not what it is.
If Life Is a Mystery, Much More Is This True of Life Eternal
Now if that be true of all life, as we encounter it in common days, much more may we expect it to be true of what the Scripture calls eternal life. That may be something which we can perceive. It may be something which we can enjoy. It may have qualities which flash upon us and tell us that eternal life is there. But if the life in any tiniest weed is something unfathomable and untouchable, eternal life must be a secret too. If a child's storybook in a foreign tongue is given you and you cannot understand a word of it, it is scarcely likely that you will comprehend a poem by a genius in that language. Nor is it likely that we will ever fathom the profound mystery of life eternal when we are baffled daily by life's rudiments. What do you mean by life eternal, is perhaps a question you may ask of me. Well then, in our Scottish fashion, I shall ask you a question or two in return. What is that life which waves in the green grass? What is that life which dances in the butterfly? What is that life which looks as from the depths through the eager eyes of little children? There is an agnosticism which is the child of pride. There is another which is the child of wisdom. It is a great step upon the road to light when a man will bow the head and say, I do not know. Even our Lord, though He was the Son of God, was not above that honoring humility, for of that day and hour, He said, knoweth no man, not even the Son, only the Father.
One Word Sums up the Gospel: "Life"
And yet though all life be a mystery and though the springs of it be wrapped in darkness, I want you to remember that it was this mystery which was the great message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sum up His Gospel in a single word, and that one word is life. Get to the heart of all He had to teach, and life is nestling against that heart. One thought determines every other thought; one face interprets and arranges everything, and that one fact, so dominant and regal, is the deep fact of life. Deeper than faith, for faith is but a name unless it issue from a heart that lives; deeper than love though God Himself be love, for without life love would be impossible. Life is the rich compendium of the Gospel and the sweet epitome of its good news and the word that gathers into its embrace the music and the ministry of Christ. Of course, like the perfect preacher that He was, Christ was ever varying His message. He did not always harp on the same string. He did not always knock with the same summons. He cast His message in a hundred forms in His consuming earnestness to save, for every heart has its own tender spot and will not open to any other call. No words could be more occasional than Christ's. No life could be less trammeled by routine. No word that He spoke, no deed He ever did, but fitted the moment with a perfect niceness. 
Yet always, underneath that large variety which is the freedom of the Son of God, there was the undertone of life eternal. "The words that I speak unto you," He said, "they are spirit, and they are life." "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." "I am the way," He said, "the truth, the life." "I am the resurrection and the life." All that He came to teach—all that He was—is summed up and centered in that little word.
Life Is a Good Thing
Now the very fact that Jesus spoke of life so is our assurance that life is a good thing. Whatever it be, in its unfathomed depth, it must be good since Christ has spoken so. When I recall the life of Jesus, I sometimes wonder that He did not weary of it. Baffled on every hand and disappointed, was there anything in that life to make it sweet? He was no dreamer in a shady solitude where all the voices of the world were calling peace. "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Always, upon His sunniest hour, there was the shadow of the cross of Calvary. Always beside Him, in His frankest moment, were the suspicious eyes of His betrayer. And yet that Christ whose life was so environed—who could not move without the serpents hissing—held to it that life was a good thing. This was the human life that He had known; yet "I am come that they might have life," He said. Baffled and bruised, He never longed for death. He never preached the solace of the grave. He preached that life is good, not in its trappings, but in that secret which we can never fathom: "I am the resurrection and the life." 
It is just there that Jesus Christ our Lord stands separated by all the world from Buddha. For Buddha was so touched by human pain that he wanted to have done with life forever. But Christ, who knew a sorrow far more terrible than had ever fallen on the heart of Buddha, tells of a life that is to be eternal. He was not manifested to take life away: He was manifested to take death away. Buddhists believe that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is life. But Jesus Christ has never spoken so, nor has the Gospel which conveys His spirit. It is our hope—it is our trust—that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death.
Eternal Life Is Something Different from Immortality
Along that line, then, we come to understand what is the meaning of eternal life. We see, for instance, that eternal life is something different from immortality. Christ did not come that we might have immortality. We should have had immortality without Him. We are not immortal because Christ was born and because He died for our sins upon the tree. We are immortal by the touch of God who in His sovereign pleasure has created us and in whose gift there is the stamp and seal of an existence that shall never cease. Immortality is the Creator's heritage—eternal life the gift of Jesus Christ. 
We are immortal whether we will or no. We cannot stamp out life by any suicide. But eternal life we can refuse. It is a gift, and we can spurn the gift: "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." "This day," said Jesus to the dying thief, "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." Brought into living touch with Jesus Christ, he had won the secret of eternal life. 
Both malefactors had immortal souls, and both would live forever although crucified, but only for the one was there a paradise with the Lord walking there among the lilies.
Now perhaps we shall understand that deep distinction best by touching on what we notice every day. It is the difference between mere existence and living in the true sense of the world. I take it that for all of us there are periods when we just exist. We rise and sleep; we eat and do our work, but we are dull and heavy and inert. There is no gladness when the morning comes; there is no swift response to our environment, and it is always upon that response that the wealth or poverty of life is based. And then what happens? Something like this happens. There comes to us an hour when all is changed. Sorrow may do it—some great call may do it—the mystical touch of a great love may do it. And everyone we meet is different now, and every sound has got a different music, and yesterday we existed like the beasts, and today, in that deepening, we live. Something like that, as I conceive it, is the difference between immortality and life eternal. I mean they are not different in kind. I mean they are different in degree. Eternal life is but our immortality quickened into its fullness by the Christ, touched by His love, wakened by His call, into a glory that is life indeed. You must exist or you could never live. It is the one that makes the other possible. The one is the harp of life—and then comes love, and with its masterhand draws out the music. So up and down the chords of immortality there moves the hand that was once pierced for us, and then, and only then, there sounds the music which is eternal life. Deep down below the special gift of Christ there is the universal gift of God. He is the God of Abraham and of Isaac. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And then comes Christ, and by His love and passion, and by the breathing of the Holy Ghost, He deepens—heightens—brightens immortality into the splendor of eternal life.
Eternal Life Means a Different Quality of Life, Not Quantity
Put in another way that just means this, that Christ is thinking of quality, not quantity. Life is eternal in virtue of its quality, rather than in virtue of duration.   You can never measure life by its duration. The two are not commensurate at all. We take the equal hours that the clock gives, and we mould them in the matrix of the heart. And one shall seem to us to be unending, it is so weighted with a leaden sorrow; and another shall have but flashed upon us when it has passed away, and that forever. There have been hours for you when you have lived more than in the passage of a hundred days. There have been moments when you have seen more deeply than in the groupings of all a heavy winter. Life mocks at time. Life will not recognize it. Life tramples in disdain upon the calendar. Life's truest measurement is never quantity. Life's truest measurement is quality. Do you think that because two men have lived till seventy, the one life must be equal to the other? Do you think that Christ, who died at thirty-three, had not lived more than many a man of seventy? It is not length of years that makes the different. It is the depth of it. It is the quality. The question is not how long a man may live; the question is how much. It was of that, that Christ was thinking when He spoke of life eternal. Not even He could lengthen out its span, for God had made it immortal at the start. He was not thinking of the flight of years. He was thinking of the depth of being. He was thinking of a life so full and deep that the very thought of time has passed away. When a river is dry and shallow in the summertime, you see the rocks that rise within its bed. And they obstruct the stream and make it chafe and fret it as it journeys to the ocean. But when the rains have come and the river is in flood, it covers up the rocks in its great volume, and in the silence of a mighty tide flows to its last home within the sea. It is not longer than it was before. It is only deeper than it was before. Measure it by miles, it is unchanged. Measure it by volume and how different! So with the life that is the gift of Jesus. It is not longer than God's immortality. It is only that same river deepened gloriously, till death itself is hidden in the deeps. Knowledge is perfected in open vision; love is crowned in an unbroken fellowship; service at least shall be a thing of beauty, fired by the vision of the God we serve. That is eternal life, and that alone. That is its difference from immortality. That is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ to the immortal spirit of mankind.
Eternal Life Is Continuous—It Begins Here and Never Ends
In closing, I should like you to observe that in the eyes of Jesus all that life was one. There was no break in it. It was continuous. It carried over the first into the last. He that believeth hath everlasting life—it is not something we are still to get. "He that believeth in me shall never die"—death is an incident in continuity. Wonderful as life beyond shall be and exquisite beyond our wildest dream, remember that at the heart of it, it will not differ from the life we know. Take the parable of the talents. Do you remember what the Master promised? "Because thou hast been faithful over few things, I will make thee ruler over many things." That was the joy and that was the reward; not singing praises in a heaven of idleness, but carrying on in an unbroken service with all the capacity that earth had shaped. Nothing that we have fought for will be lost. Nothing that we have striven for ignored. Every battle we have fought in secret will make the life beyond a grander thing. Every task that we have quietly done, when there were none to see and none to praise, will give us a heaven which is a sweeter place and a service nearer the feet of the Eternal. I don't know how it is with you, but I know certainly how it is with me. No other thought of the beyond appeals to me. No other thought inspires me as does that. And of this I am sure, if I am sure of anything, that that is what Christ meant by life eternal. God grant us faith in Him that we may have it!


Thank you God for your Grace, Thank you Jesus my Redeemer and Savior, Thank you Holy Spirit for Your love and gifts.  Let me live each moment as you would have me to, to fulfill Your will and get closer to You.  

Monday August 1

God is Good, God is Love, God IS.
These are the truths I must believe in, that I must live by, that I must confess.  We are now in August, the bitter sweet month of summer.  The days are still long, hot, and languid.  Children are still enjoying their vacation days but now begin to turn to school and school friends.  So, August arrives with its heat, fruits and vegetables, heat, and nostalgia.  
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Today's meditation is from Charles Spurgeon:



August 1


Morning
“Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn.” - Rth_2:2
Downcast and troubled Christian, come and glean to-day in the broad field of promise. Here are abundance of precious promises, which exactly meet thy wants. 
Take this one: “He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.” Doth not that suit thy case? A reed, helpless, insignificant, and weak, a bruised reed, out of which no music can come; weaker than weakness itself; a reed, and that reed bruised, yet, he will not break thee; but on the contrary, will restore and strengthen thee. Thou art like the smoking flax: no light, no warmth, can come from thee; but he will not quench thee; he will blow with his sweet breath of mercy till he fans thee to a flame. 
Wouldst thou glean another ear? “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” What soft words! Thy heart is tender, and the Master knows it, and therefore he speaketh so gently to thee. Wilt thou not obey him, and come to him even now? 
Take another ear of corn: “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, I will help thee, saith the Lord and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” How canst thou fear with such a wonderful assurance as this? Thou mayest gather ten thousand such golden ears as these! “I have blotted out thy sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud thy transgressions.” Or this, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Or this, “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.” 
Our Master’s field is very rich; behold the handfuls. See, there they lie before thee, poor timid believer! Gather them up, make them thine own, for Jesus bids thee take them. Be not afraid, only believe! Grasp these sweet promises, thresh them out by meditation and feed on them with joy.


Evening
“Thou crownest the year with thy goodness.” - Psa_65:11
All the year round, every hour of every day, God is richly blessing us; both when we sleep and when we wake his mercy waits upon us. The sun may leave us a legacy of darkness, but our God never ceases to shine upon his children with beams of love. Like a river, his lovingkindness is always flowing, with a fulness inexhaustible as his own nature. Like the atmosphere which constantly surrounds the earth, and is always ready to support the life of man, the benevolence of God surrounds all his creatures; in it, as in their element, they live, and move, and have their being. Yet as the sun on summer days gladdens us with beams more warm and bright than at other times, and as rivers are at certain seasons swollen by the rain, and as the atmosphere itself is sometimes fraught with more fresh, more bracing, or more balmy influences than heretofore, so is it with the mercy of God; it hath its golden hours; its days of overflow, when the Lord magnifieth his grace before the sons of men. 
Amongst the blessings of the nether springs, the joyous days of harvest are a special season of excessive favour. It is the glory of autumn that the ripe gifts of providence are then abundantly bestowed; it is the mellow season of realization, whereas all before was but hope and expectation. Great is the joy of harvest. Happy are the reapers who fill their arms with the liberality of heaven. The Psalmist tells us that the harvest is the crowning of the year. Surely these crowning mercies call for crowning thanksgiving! Let us render it by the inward emotions of gratitude. Let our hearts be warmed; let our spirits remember, meditate, and think upon this goodness of the Lord. Then let us praise him with our lips, and laud and magnify his name from whose bounty all this goodness flows.


Let us glorify God by yielding our gifts to his cause. A practical proof of our gratitude is a special thank-offering to the Lord of the harvest.