Quicken Us!

                

Psalm 71:20  Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.   

God shows us the troubles. 

Sometimes, as this part of our education is being carried forward, we have to Descend into "the lower parts of the earth"...

Pass through subterranean passages...

Lie buried amongst the dead...

But never for a moment is the cord of fellowship and union between God and us strained to breaking...

And from the Depths God will Bring Us Again.

Never doubt God! 

Never say that He has forsaken or forgotten. 

Never think that He is unsympathetic. 

He WILL Quicken Again. 

There is always a smooth piece in every skein, however tangled. 

The longest day at last rings out the evensong. 

The winter snow lies long, But It Goes At Last.

Be Steadfast; Your Labor Is Not In Vain.  

God Turns Again, And Comforts. 

And when He does, the heart which had forgotten its Psalmody breaks out in jubilant song, as does the Psalmist: "I will thank thee, I will harp unto thee, my lips shall sing aloud."

~Selected

Though the rain may fall and the wind be blowing, And old and chill is the wintry blast...

Though the cloudy sky is still cloudier growing, And the dead leaves tell that the summer has passed...

My face I hold to the stormy heaven, My heart is as calm as the summer sea...

Glad to receive what my God has given,Whate'er it be. 

When I feel the cold, I can say, 'He sends it,' And His winds blow blessing, I surely know...

For I've never a want but that He attends it...

And my heart beats warm, though the winds may blow.

Love The Cause Of Redemption

                                                 

 

John 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Everything that God does is done without effort or strain. 

He does all his acts with equal ease and tranquillity. 

We are often tempted to wonder how God could love us, but honest as this feeling is, it is nevertheless the result of a wrong way of looking at things. 

God does not love us because we are hard or easy to love; He loves us because He is God, not because we are good or bad or more attractive or less so. 

God's love is not drawn out of Him by its object; it flows out from God in a steady stream because He is love. 

"God so loved the world," not because the world was lovable but because God is love. 

Christ did not die for us that God might love us; He died for us because God already loved us from everlasting. 

Love is not the result of redemption; it is the cause of it. 

One question may demand to be answered: Does God love some people more than others? 

If not, what was meant by calling John "the disciple Jesus loved," as if to say that He loved John more than the rest? 

The answer is simple. 

John was more responsive to the love of Christ and could receive and enjoy it to a greater fullness. 

The divine love could operate toward this loving man with a joyous freedom not possible with others who had not his simplicity and faith. 

The sunflower that turns its face to the sky all day long gets more sun than the violet that hides among the leaves. 

But the same sun shines in fullness upon both.

God has no favorites, except as some of His children by their loving response make it possible for Him to shower more love upon them.

God loves us because He is God. 

He does not love some of us more or less than others. 

He loves each one. 

Out of His love He has provided redemption. 

Are we running to His love or running from it?

Father, You so love me that You gave Christ for me. 

He so loved me that He paid the penalty of my sin by dying for me. 

In thanks and worship I bow before You.

~A. W. Tozer

The Divine Approval Of Faithfulness

But what is it that brings out this divine approval? 'I am going to make them know that I have loved thee'.

There is a partiality of God - not just for persons, for people, as such; it is not a selectiveness among people which draws out His partiality.

But there is a partiality of the Lord towards faithfulness itself.

It is that which draws out this word, "I have loved thee".

I am sure it must have been very heartening to the saints at Philadelphia to get a message like that.

It must almost have startled them in their difficulties, in everything that seemed to say that the Lord was not with them and was not prospering them.

There is so much that is against them; there are so many difficulties.

Then suddenly a letter arrives, and in it the Lord says: "I have loved thee".

Almost startling! Why?

Here are the oppressed saints at Philadelphia, and the Lord says, "thou hast a little power".

They themselves are more conscious of weakness than of power, seeming to be very much weaker than otherwise, and yet there is that there which speaks of the Lord, something that the Lord can light upon and say...

In all your consciousness of weakness, in the seeming overwhelming insufficiency, there is that there which is My foothold, which speaks of Me'.

Thou hast a little power, and didst keep my word...

You have been faithful to My revealed thoughts and mind...

And didst not deny my name - the Name of absolute supremacy and honour and glory... 

And "didst keep the word of my patience".

~T. Austin Sparks