by Oswald Chambers
. . . that you may know what is the hope of His calling . . . —Ephesians 1:18
Remember that you have been saved so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in your body (see 2 Corinthians 4:10). Direct the total energy of your powers so that you may achieve everything your election as a child of God provides; rise every time to whatever occasion may come your way.
You did not do anything to achieve your salvation, but you must do something to exhibit it. You must “work out your own salvation” which God has worked in you already (Philippians 2:12). Are your speech, your thinking, and your emotions evidence that you are working it “out”? If you are still the same miserable, grouchy person, set on having your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.
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by Paris Reidhead
Years ago I asked a congregation of about a hundred people, "How many of you have ever been lost? Really lost? Aware of the fact you were lost. If you died as you were would you surely have gone to hell? How many of you were in a conscious state of lostness?"
Four hands went up.
"How many of you are saved?" All hands went up.
"Isn’t that amazing. Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. The only kind of people He can save are lost people."
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by Vance Havner
He was a burning and a shining light. John 5:35
So spake our Lord of John the Baptist. The Forerunner had both heat and light. It is a combination not always found in one personality. Some saints have heat aplenty, but they need light, wisdom, guidance. Some have light, but it is cold; there is no fire, no warmth. Someone has said, “Youth has fire without light and age has light without fire.”
It is hard to tell which has done most harm, hotheaded ignorance or cold-hearted knowledge. The wild street preacher, screaming and tearing his hair, needs to burn less and shine more. The cold, intellectual preacher in stiff Sunday-morning formalism needs to shine less and burn more.
John the Baptist burned and shone. “Stir up the gift of God…” “Let your light so shine…” Give us more witnesses with both heat and light!
by Vance Havner
by J.C. Ryle
Let us read our Bibles in private more, and with more pains and diligence. Ignorance of Scripture is the root of all error, and makes a person helpless in the hand of the devil. There is less private Bible reading, I suspect, than there was fifty years ago. I never can believe that so many men and women would have been “tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine,” some falling into skepticism, some rushing into the wildest and narrowest fanaticism, and some going over to Rome, if there had not grown up a habit of lazy, superficial, careless, perfunctory reading of God’s Word. “You do err not knowing the Scriptures” (Matt. 22:29). The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.
by J.C. Ryle
by A.B. Simpson
I press toward the mark—Philippians 3:14
We have thought much about what we have received. Let us think of the things we have not received, of some of the vessels that have not yet been filled, of some of the places in our lives that the Holy Spirit has not yet possessed for God and signalized by His glory and His presence.
Shall the coming months be marked by a diligent, heart-searching application of the rest of the oil (see Leviticus 14:17-20) to the yet unoccupied possibilities of our life and service?
Have we known His fullness of grace in our spiritual lives? Have we tasted a little of His glory? Have we believed His promise for the mind, the soul, the spirit? Have we known all His possibilities for the body? Have we tested Him in His power to control the events of nature and to move the hearts of men and nations? Has He opened to us the treasure house of God and met our financial needs as He might? Have we begun to understand the ministry of prayer, as God would have us exercise it? God give us the rest of the oil!
by A.B. Simpson
by George Whitten
1 Corinthians 15:55-58 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Every day roughly 150,000 around the world die. Death has a way of raising our spiritual temperature and quickening us to re-evaluate life…especially to ask, "Am I doing all that I can do?"
Have you ever heard of how the Nobel Peace Prize originated?
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by Vance Havner
The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. 1 Corinthians 1:18
It was foolishness to the world then and it still is. Religion is very popular today and some are misled by that fact. A scared and desperate generation, having tried all else, is considering religion. But they do not want the preaching of the cross. Jesus the Example and Teacher maybe, Christianity as a lovely philosophy, but not a crucified Saviour. That is still “foolishness” to this age and ever will be.
And to most church members the counterpart of Christ’s death for our sin, our death with Him and resurrection to walk with Him in newness of life, is just as unpopular. Call upon the average congregation to live out Romans 6, with its “reckon,” “yield,” and “obey,” and you will hear few “amens.”
The preaching of the cross in its meaning for sinner and saint is still “foolishness” to sinners and distasteful to not a few saints.
by Vance Havner
