Circumcision Is The Sign Of Separation

The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, to love the Lord thy God.

Deu 30:6  And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

Circumcision is the sign of separation.

It was enjoined on Abraham and his children that they might be God's peculiar people, chosen from all the nations of the earth.

Similarly, the circumcision of Christ, which is made without hands, of which the Apostle speaks, is a putting off, a separation from the sins of the flesh, a participation in the grave and burial of Christ 

Col 2:12  Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

We must be separated from the spirit and temper of the world. Between us and its sins, ambitions, methods, there must be not only an outward, but a heart severance.

We were separated in the purpose of God when Jesus was cast without the camp to die.

But we must be separate in our personal behavior.

Wouldst thou have this?

Then claim that this promise should be fulfilled, and ask that God would circumcise thine heart-the seat of thine affections, the hearth of thy soul-life.

Then thou wilt love the Lord with all thine, heart.

This is why we love God so little. The force of our love is spread over too wide a sur-face...it is like the river Orinoco, which is lost in swamps as it approaches the sea.

If only we were really separated from all that is alien to God, and given up to Him wholly, we should find all the capacity of our hearts becoming filled with His love.

We should love all things and people with a tenderness and glow which were steeped in colors obtained from His.

You will never succeed in overthrowing the strongholds of Satan, Christian worker, till God has taken away your self-reliance, and has brought you down into the dust of death: 

Then, when the sentence of death is in yourself you will begin to experience the energy of the Divine life, the glory of the Divine victory.

~F. B. Myer~

He That Hath An Ear, Let Him Hear

Rev 3:22  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

The man or woman who has no inner ear, no inner silence, no inner place for hearing the Lord is never going to be of much use in the service of the Lord, and mark you, it must be the Lord, and we must be very careful that we do not give even good men and good writers the place that the Lord ought to have.

There is a time when we must sweep our books aside, when we must shut ourselves up from the voices of men, when we must get quiet with the Lord and listen, and more, we must seek to cultivate, by the grace of God, the ear that is always open to the Lord even when all the other sounds are around us.

It is difficult, yet not impossible, that in the raging of the street and the rush of business life the Lord should say something; but He will only speak to those who recognize the value of listening to the Lord and who are giving Him His place of silence to speak when possible.

The ear to hear the Lord when all other sounds and voices are around us is prepared and trained in these times of detachment which the Lord demands, and against which the devil is eternally active to capture the ear again.

You and I know, never mind how spiritually mature we are–the one object of the devil is to capture our ear from God, to make it impossible for us to have the silent hour and the silent ear for God.

The pressing in, and all the things which happen just when you have decided to have a little quiet time; then it is you have to fight for the ear – you know it is true.

Do you see there is something bound up with that; the undoing of the work of the devil, the registration of God's mind upon this universe, everything which is meant by priestly ministry, which is bringing God in, is bound up with this: God having the ear. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

The First Lesson In The School Of Tribulation!

Job 5:6  Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;

Why has this trial come? How ought I to regard affliction?

These questions are natural in seasons of suffering. Pain and sorrow make us ask in earnest, the why and the wherefore of what befalls us. And so the soul finds a time of trial, to be a time of education.

The first lesson in the school of tribulation, is that affliction is the visitation of God. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21

Nothing in any man's life comes to him by "chance." All things, both small and great, are under the control of God. He foresees, and limits, and disposes.

What is sometimes called "good fortune"--comes not by accident; neither does trouble spring out of the ground.

Am I healthy and prosperous? It is the will of God. Am I suffering in body or in mind? It is the Lord-let Him do what seems good unto Him.

This is the only answer that can be given to the weak and sorely tempted ones, whom one trial after another afflict with increasing sorrows, "So it pleases God! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!"

To the believer, Providence is not merely general and universal, but particular and personal. "Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered!" Matthew 10:30.

The believer looks to his own particular afflictions, as the dispensations of Divine Providence.

To myself, affliction comes as the special visitation of God; and, looking above second causes, the word of trust from my soul should go forth, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

Affliction must not therefore be received as a burden, laid on by a blind and cruel fate-it is given by my wise and loving Father!

Nor must I regard it as a "misfortune"-as an unmixed evil, which comes by chance, and is to be received with unconcern.

Affliction does not come forth from the dust-it is from God. It is sent in mercy and wisdom-yes, and in power. "For He bruises, but He binds up; He wounds, but His hands make whole." Job 5:18.

His visitation is rich in lessons of comfort, of strength and of peace-for all things work together for good to His obedient children. Yes, ALL things!

O Lord my God, bless this trial which You have sent. Teach me to feel that Your hand is laid upon me. Help me to know that You are speaking unto my soul. 

May I look on affliction as Your Fatherly visitation-a token of Your love, and wisdom, and power.

Almighty Father, You have told me that all things are under Your control-not a sparrow falls to the ground unnoticed.

Lord, teach me to believe in Your love for me. Oh, help me to feel Your wise guidance and control!

Aid me to see that this affliction is sent for my good.

O my God, increase my faith. Remove from me doubts and carnal-mindedness. 

May Your Spirit cleanse and sanctify my soul. Teach me to humbly submit to Your will.

By patience and faith may I please You, submitting to sufferings because You send them for my good.

Teach me that pain and sorrow are Your heavenly messengers.

Enlighten my eyes, that so I may say of affliction-it is Your doing. To me, have You sent this. Not by chance, but in wisdom, and with loving purpose it has come.

Oh, Lord, do with me what seems good to You. Help me to feel that my lot is wisely ordained.

If it is in accordance with Your holy and blessed will-then remove this trial. But if You see fit still to afflict me-then teach me truly to pray, "May Your will be done!" 

Hear me, O God, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

~Walter Purton~

Pride Breaks Our Heart Fellowship

Paul was dependent, and self-emptied. 

There is a wonderful glory about emptiness when the LORD does it.

It is not always a glorious feeling to feel empty, but it is marvelous how the LORD gets glory through emptying us, and keeping us emptied, until He wants us full.

One of the things that the apostle said to the Corinthians in a kind of irony was: “Ye are full… ye have reigned as kings without us.” 

That was no compliment. They are not to be admired for that. It was pride.

We are accounted as the offscouring of all things. “Ye are full… ye have reigned as kings without us.”

Yes, but after all, what was it the LORD said to the church at Laodicea?

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

There is an emptiness which brings much glory to GOD, and humility is being poor in spirit.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  
GOD dwells with such as are of a broken and contrite spirit. 

GOD-centeredness is the opposite of self-centeredness, that all our wellsprings, all our resources, our everything is in the LORD, and all our interests are in the LORD.

As for self-exaltation, the LORD made Himself of no reputation, He humbled Himself.

If pride, with these various aspects, led to death, then humility after this kind, that which Paul calls “the meekness of Christ”, leads to life;

Life by humility, life by meekness; death by pride.

GOD beholdeth the proud afar off”; “Pride is an abomination unto the Lord”.

If pride puts us away back there, there is not much hope of life. 

When pride is out of the way, GOD draws near, and there is life.
If, again, the result of pride was darkness, then humility, meekness, is the way of light.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.

You will learn by that spirit. It is enlightening.

We said that the great law which governed everything was that of heart fellowship with the LORD, and we saw that that heart fellowship was broken by pride in the heart, the heart lifted up in pride.

Now, says the apostle, “the eyes of your heart being enlightened”.

This is heart fellowship with the LORD, bringing about enlightenment, leading to enlightenment, or making possible enlightenment.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Mark Of Humility: Dependence

What is one of the great features of dependence upon the Lord? 

It is prayerfulness.

A prayerless life is a life which has not recognized its dependence upon the LORD.

A life of prayer is a life which has come to see that it cannot go on far without the LORD.

That is why I believe the LORD has ordained prayer as His way of working and meeting the need.

He has said, in effect, You have to live by Me.

If you can go on without Me...all right, go on; but for My purpose you have to live by Me.

Prayer is our way of showing that we are dependent upon the LORD, and it is the way by which, therefore, the LORD comes in and manifests Himself.

If you look again at Paul’s revelation of the church, the Body of Christ, you will see how he lays down the principle of dependence, interdependence, mutual dependence, and how he strikes strong blows against anything in the nature of independence, separateness.

The Body is one, and no member in the Body can say to another, I have no need of you.

Every member must say, I am dependent upon you.

The hand cannot take the place of the foot. The whole body is constituted to demonstrate the law of dependence.

That is humility.

The opposite of that is striking out on your own, being a freelance and snapping your fingers at anybody and everybody else, and doing without them.

That is pride, and it is deception.

Pride is shown in possession or possessiveness; that is, taking hold of things to govern them ourselves, to be in possession of them.

It is the work in Adam, and it is in all of us.

It is shown in the desire to have in our own possession, to have in our own power, to have under our own hand, under our own influence, and it is a terrible thing.

It is in us all by nature more or less, and the ruin of the church has come along this line of men wanting to take charge, men wanting to possess, men wanting to bring their influence to bear upon things, so that the thing comes into their hold.

It is the ruin of the church. It was the ruin of the race. It was the ruin of Satan.

There is nothing like that about the LORD Jesus.

His was a letting go to the LORD, a letting go to the Father all the time.

~T. Austin Sparks~

God Himself Shall Work

When the spoilers had made the land as waste as if devoured by locusts, and the warriors who had defended the country sat down and wept like women, then the LORD came to the rescue.

 

When travelers ceased from the roads to Zion, and Bashan and Carmel were as vineyards from which the fruit has failed, then the LORD arose.

 

GOD is exalted in the midst of an afflicted people, for they seek His face and trust Him.

 

He is still more exalted when in answer to their cries He lifts up Himself to deliver them and overthrow their enemies. 

 

Is it a day of sorrow with us?

Let us expect to see the LORD glorified in our deliverance.

Are we drawn out in fervent prayer?

Do we cry day and night unto Him?

Then the set time for His grace is near.

GOD will lift up Himself at the right season. He will arise when it will be most for the display of His glory.

We wish for His glory more than we long for our own deliverance.

Let the LORD be exalted, and our chief desire is obtained.

LORD, help us in such a way that we may see that Thou Thyself art working.

May we magnify Thee in our inmost souls.

Make all around us to see how good and great a GOD Thou art.

~Charles Spurgeon~

GOD'S Wind

Isa 58:14  Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Those who fly through the air in airships tell us that one of the first rules they learn is to turn their ship toward the wind, and fly against it. 

The wind lifts the ship up to higher heights. Where did they learn that? They learned it from the birds. 

If a bird is flying for pleasure, it goes with the wind. But if the bird meets danger, it turns right around and faces the wind, in order that it may rise higher; and it flies away towards the very sun.

Sufferings are GOD'S winds, His contrary winds, sometimes His strong winds.

They are GOD'S hurricanes, but, they take human life and lift it to higher levels and toward GOD'S heavens.

You have seen in the summer time a day when the atmosphere was so oppressive that you could hardly breathe?

But a cloud appeared on the western horizon and that cloud grew larger and threw out rich blessing for the world.

The storm rose, lightning flashed and thunder pealed. The storm covered the world, and the atmosphere was cleansed; new life was in the air, and the world was changed.

Human life is worked out according to exactly the same principle.

When the storm breaks the atmosphere is changed, clarified, filled with new life; and a part of heaven is brought down to earth.

 ~Selected~

Obstacles ought to set us singing.

The wind finds voice, not when rushing across the open sea, but when hindered by the outstretched arms of the pine trees, or broken by the fine strings of an Aeolian harp.

Then it has songs of power and beauty.

Set your freed soul sweeping across the obstacles of life, through grim forests of pain, against even the tiny hindrances and frets that love uses, and it, too, will find its singing voice.


~Selected~

Be like a bird that, halting in its flight, Rests on a bough too slight. And feeling it give way beneath him sings, Knowing he hath wings.

A Shepherd Secures Them

Zep 3:13  The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

Yesterday we thought of the afflicted and poor people whom the LORD left to be a living seed in a dead world.

The prophet says of such that they shall not work iniquity nor speak lies.

So that while they had neither rank nor riches to guard them, they were also quite unable to use those weapons in which the wicked place so much reliance: they could neither defend themselves by sin nor by subtlety.

What then? Would they be destroyed? By no means!

They should both feed and rest and be not merely free from danger but even quiet from fear of evil.

Sheep are very feeble creatures, and wolves are terrible enemies; yet at this hour sheep are more numerous than wolves, and the cause of the sheep is always winning, while the cause of the wolves is always declining.

One day flocks of sheep will cover the plains, and not a wolf will be left.

The fact is that sheep have a Shepherd, and this gives them provender, protection, and peace. 

None - which means not one, whether in human or diabolical form "shall make them afraid."

Who shall terrify the LORD's Rock when He is near?

We lie down in green pastures, for Jesus Himself is food and rest to our souls. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Dwell Upon What GOD Has Done For You

Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to dwell more upon what they have gone through than upon what God has done for them.

Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and help which God has granted them.

But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state, will come forward joyously, and say, “I will speak, not about myself, but to the honor of my God.

He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings:

And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.

The Lord hath done great things for me, whereof I am glad. Such an abstract of experience as this is the very best that any child of God can present.

It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them.
 
It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully do we know this, but it is quite as true that we have an all-sufficient Saviour, who overcomes these corruptions, and delivers us from their dominion.

In looking back, it would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond, and have crept along the Valley of Humiliation, but it would be equally wicked to forget that we have been through them safely and profitably;

We have not remained in them, thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has brought us “out into a wealthy place.”

The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, who has led us through all, and preserved us until now.

Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life’s song, He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.

~Charles Spurgeon~

To The Sufferer GOD Seems To Move So Slowly!

Luke 8:41  And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would come into his house:

Luke 8:42  For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him.

It was not far from the shore to Jairus house, but it never seemed so long to Jairus as that morning.

The news soon spread up the street that Jesus was back: at every turning the crowd gathered and grew, until at last, the way was almost blocked, and Jairus almost in despair.

Then came an unexpected interruption.

A poor sick woman had touched the tassel of Jesus' robe and had been healed, and Jesus had to halt and call her forth, and teach her that there was no magic in the tassel, but that her faith had healed her.

And all this took so long-or seemed to Jairus to take so long that when he saw a movement in the crowd, and caught sight of his servant forcing his way through, he knew in a moment that his daughter was dead.

How slow GOD often seems!

How hard it often is to wait with Christ!

I saw a little girl once playing on the seashore at building castles.

She built her fort and dug her trenches, and then waited for the waves to fill them.

But the waves were so long in coming that the little girl lost patience, and in a fit stamped down her battlements and went away.

And all the time, ceaseless and irresistible, the ocean was creeping up.

Invisible fingers were drawing the whole sea up to her moat.

I think she would have waited had she been sure of that.

So Jairus and you and I must wait.

Things seem all wrong sometimes. We cannot understand why Christ delays.

 Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole.


~George H. Morrison~
     

The Evil Tongue Is The Lying Tongue

Lie not to one another: Col 3:9  Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 

The Cretians were noted for liars: Tit 1:12  One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

It becomes not Christians to be Cretians.

Nothing is more contrary to GOD than a lie; it shows much irreligion; lying is a sin that does not go alone, it ushers in other sins.

Absalom told his father a lie, that he was going to pay his vow at Hebron: 2Sa 15:7 and this lie was a preface to his treason.

Lying is such a sin, as takes away all society and converse with men; how can you have converse with him, that you cannot trust a word he says?

It is a sin so sordid, that when the liar is convicted, he is ashamed.

God's children have this character, they are children that will not lie" (Isaiah 63:8), the new nature in them will not suffer them. 

The liar is near akin to the devil, and the devil will shortly claim kindred with him, "The devil is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).

He seduced our first parents by a lie (Genesis 3:4).

How does this sin incense God?

He struck Ananias dead for telling a lie (Acts 5:5). 

The furnace of hell is heated to throw liars into,  For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Rev. 22:15
 
~Thomas Watson~

Immediate Freedom

The Assyrian was allowed for a season to oppress the Lord's people, but there came a time for his power to be broken.

So, many a heart is held in bondage by Satan and frets sorely under the yoke.

Oh, that to such prisoners of hope the word of the Lord may come at once, according to the text, "Now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder!"

See! The Lord promises a present deliverance. "Now will I break his yoke from off thee."

Believe for immediate freedom, and according to thy faith so shall it be unto thee at this very hour.

When God saith "now," let no man say "tomorrow."

See how complete the rescue is to be; for the yoke is not to be removed but broken; and the bonds are not to be untied but burst asunder.

Here is a display of divine force which guarantees that the oppressor shall not return.

His yoke is broken, we cannot again be bowed down by its weight.

His bonds, are burst asunder, they can no longer hold us.

Oh, to believe in Jesus for complete and everlasting emancipation!

If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Come, Lord, and set free Thy captives, according to Thy Word. 

~Charles Spurgeon~