John 15:15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
For myself, after all my years of teaching and helping others, and all my
experiences as a Christian, my whole creed
is summed up into one little sentence, "Christ and I are friends!"
No
friend in all the world is so near to me as He is. I trust Him, I love Him,
I take everything to Him, I lay every burden upon Him.
I go to Him for
wisdom, for help, for the love I need in my own heart.
He is everything
to me as Friend.
Christ is my personal Friend. He is my dearest, truest, strongest and
best Friend!
Then for myself, my whole duty is summed
up in being a friend of Christ's. He says, "You are my friends, if
you do whatever I command you." This includes all Scripture commands.
In telling you this, I want to help you to understand that the essential
thing in the Christian life is knowing Christ, trusting Him, loving Him,
following Him, having Christ for your Friend-and being His friend.
Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved, and this is my
Friend!
~J. R. Miller~
Pro 23:17 Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long.
Pro 23:18 For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.
The Lord is here addressing himself to a soul laboring under temptation, and passing through peculiar exercises;
And
this is the exhortation that he gives it: "Be thou in the fear of the
Lord all the day long;" watching his hand, submitting to his will,
committing everything into his care and keeping;
Not hardening your
heart against him, but looking up to him, and worshipping him with godly
fear; "for surely there is an end."
You may be tempted, exercised, and
surrounded with difficulties, and see no outlet; but "surely there is an
end;"
And, when the end comes, it will make all plain and clear.
This
quiet submission, this watching and waiting, a man can never be brought
to unless he has seen an end to all perfection; an end of his own
strength, wisdom, and righteousness.
To sit still is the hardest thing a
man can do.
To lie passive at God's footstool when all things seem to
be against us;
To have a rough path to walk in, to be surrounded with
difficulties, and yet to be in the fear of the Lord all the day long,
watching his hand, desiring to submit to his will,
Seeking only that
wisdom which cometh from above, and trusting that he will make the way
straight;
Not putting our hand to the work, but leaving it all to the
Lord-how strange, how mysterious a path!
And yet it is the only one
that brings solid peace to a Christian; "for surely there is an end."
Whatever sorrows and troubles a man may have to wade through, there will
surely be an end of them.
If we try to get ourselves out of
perplexities, we are like a person trying to unravel a tangled skein of
silk by pulling it forcibly; the more it is pulled, the more entangled
it gets, and the faster the knots become.
So if we are plunged into any
trial, providential or spiritual, and we attempt to extricate ourselves
by main force, by kicking and rebelling, we only get more entangled.
The
Lord, then, to encourage us to wait patiently upon him till he shall
appear, says, "Surely there is an end."
This is the universal testimony
of the Scripture, that the Lord appears and delivers, when there is none
shut up or left;
And the experience of the saints agrees with the
testimony of the written word: "For I know the thoughts that I think
toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give
you an expected end."
~J. C. Philpot~
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
We should follow our Lord as unhesitatingly as sheep follow their shepherd, for he has a right to lead us wherever he pleases.
We are not our own, we are bought with a price...let us recognize the rights of the redeeming blood.
The soldier follows his captain, the servant obeys his master, much more must we follow our Redeemer, to whom we are a purchased possession.
We are not true to our profession of being Christians, if we question the bidding of our Leader and Commander.
Submission is our duty, caviling is our folly.
Often might our Lord say to us as to Peter, “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.”
Wherever Jesus may lead us, he goes before us.
If we know not where we go, we know with whom we go.
With such a companion, who will dread the perils of the road?
The journey may be long, but his everlasting arms will carry us to the end.
The presence of Jesus is the assurance of eternal salvation, because he lives, we shall live also.
We should follow Christ in simplicity and faith, because the paths in which he leads us all end in glory and immortality.
It is true they may not be smooth paths-they may be covered with sharp flinty trials, but they lead to the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant.
Let us put full trust in our Leader, since we know that, come prosperity or adversity, sickness or health, popularity or contempt, his purpose shall be worked out, and that purpose shall be pure, unmingled good to every heir of mercy.
We shall find it sweet to go up the bleak side of the hill with Christ;
And when rain and snow blow into our faces, his dear love will make us far more blest than those who sit at home and warm their hands at the world’s fire.
To the top of Amana, to the dens of lions, or to the hills of leopards, we will follow our Beloved.
Precious Jesus, draw us, and we will run after thee.
~Charles Spurgeon~
Gen 18:14 Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.
Here
is God's loving challenge to you and to me today.
He wants us to think
of the deepest, highest, worthiest desire and longing of our hearts,
something which perhaps was our desire for ourselves or for someone dear
to us, yet which has been so long unfulfilled that we have looked upon
it as only a lost desire, that which might have been but now cannot be,
and so have given up hope of seeing it fulfilled in this life.
That
thing, if it is in line with what we know to be His expressed will (as a
son to Abraham and Sarah was), God intends to do for us, even if we
know that it is of such utter impossibility that we only laugh at the
absurdity of anyone's supposing it could ever now come to pass.
That
thing God intends to do for us, if we will let Him.
Is
anything too hard for the Lord?
Not when we believe in Him enough to
go forward and do His will, and let Him do the impossible for us.
Even
Abraham and Sarah could have blocked God's plan if they had continued to
disbelieve.
The only thing too hard for Jehovah is
deliberate, continued disbelief in His love and power, and our final
rejection of His plans for us.
Nothing is too hard for Jehovah to do for
them that trust Him.
~Messages for the Morning Watch~
Nahum 1:2 God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer.
Did he choose you?
He cannot bear that you should choose another.
Did he buy you with his own blood?
He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you belong to this world.
He loved you with such a love that he would not stop in heaven without you; he would sooner die than you should perish...
And he cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart’s love and himself.
He is very jealous of your trust.
He will not permit you to trust in an arm of flesh.
He cannot bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the overflowing fountain is always free to you.
When we lean upon him, he is glad...
But when we transfer our dependence to another, when we rely upon our own wisdom, or the wisdom of a friend...
Worst of all, when we trust in any works of our own, he is displeased, and will chasten us that he may bring us to himself.
He is also very jealous of our company.
There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus.
To abide in him only, this is true love;
But to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret communion with him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord.
He would fain have us abide in him, and enjoy constant fellowship with himself;
And many of the trials which he sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the creature, and fixing them more closely upon himself.
Let this jealousy which would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us...
For if he loves us so much as to care thus about our love we may be sure that he will suffer nothing to harm us, and will protect us from all our enemies.
Oh that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!
~Charles Spurgeon~
Hab 3:18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The
secret of joy is not to wait until you feel happy, but to rise, by an
act of faith, out of the depression which is dragging you down, and
begin to praise God as an act of choice.
This is the
meaning of such passages as these: "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again
I say, rejoice"; "I do rejoice; yes, and I will rejoice."
Count it all
joy when ye fall into divers temptations. In all these cases there is
an evident struggle with sadness and then the triumphs of faith and
praise.
Now, this is what is meant in part, at
least by the sacrifice of praise. A sacrifice is that which costs us
something.
And when a man or woman has some cherished grudge or wrong
and is harboring it, nursing it, dwelling on it, rolling it as a sweet
morsel under the tongue, and quite determined to enjoy a miserable time
in selfish morbidness and grumbling,...
It costs us no little sacrifice to
throw off the morbid spell, to refuse the suggestions of injury, neglect
and the remembrance of unkindness, to rise out of the mood of
self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination, and say, "I will
rejoice in the Lord"; I will "count it all joy."
~A. B. Simpson~
Hosea 1:7 But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
Precious Word. Jehovah Himself will deliver His people in the
greatness of His mercy, but He will not do it by the ordinary means...
Men
are slow to render to God the glory due unto His name.
If they go to
battle with sword and bow and win the victory, they ought to praise
their God; yet they do not, but begin to magnify their own right arm and
glory in their horses and horsemen.
For this reason our Jehovah often
determines to save His people without second means, that all the honor
may be to Himself alone.
Look, then, my heart, to the LORD alone and not
to man.
Expect to see God all the more clearly when there is no one
else to look to.
If I have no friend, no adviser, no one at my back, let
me be none the less confident if I can feel that the LORD Himself is on
my side;
Yea, let me be glad if He gives victory without battle, as the
text seems to imply.
Why do I ask for horses and horsemen if Jehovah
Himself has mercy upon me and lifts up His arm for my defense!
Why need I
bow or sword if God will save?
Let me trust and not be afraid from this
day forth and for evermore. Amen.
~Charles Spurgeon~
