December 8
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." (1 John 4:10,11)
It is easy to love those that love us, but what if someone doesn't love us? Do we still love them? It was this very type of love that Christ walked in. He loved us unto death while we hated Him and desired His death. His was a love that comes only from above. Is there someone today that you are finding it very hard to love? Ask the Lord to give you this love, this selfless love that He "manifested toward us" on the cross (v. 9). (Jason Betchel)
N.J.H. # 3181
December 9
"I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." (Philippians 4:11)
"Be (anxious) about nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made know unto God." (Philippians 4:6)
I once wrote that God always answers us in the deeps, not in the shallows of our prayers. Hasn't it been so with you?
One of the hardest things in our secret prayer life is to accept with joy and not with grief the answers to our deepest prayers. At least I have found it so. It was a long time before I discovered that whatever came was the answer. I had expected something so different that I did not recognize it when it came.
And He doesn't explain. He trusts us not to be offended; that's all. (Amy Carmichael - Candles in the Dark)
N.J.H. # 3182
December 10
"And, hardly passing it, came unto a place which is called The fair havens; nigh whereunto was the city [of] Lasea." (Acts 27:8)
Fair Havens - here was a place of safety. I want you to think of Fair Havens as a little picture of blessings of true Christianity. These blessings and safety will be found in Christian homes, the assembly where you live, and in the example of faith of the believers with whom you associate. Also think of this harbour as a little picture of the Christ of Christianity. The world sees nothing attractive in the Lord Jesus Christ, though it does willingly practice and embrace religion. But Fair Havens was the only place where protection from the coming storms of winter could be found - and it wasn't attractive.
Even if you have not been raised in a "Christian family," if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Saviour, then the grace of God has surely brought you, in Him, to a place of refuge from all you are sure to meet on your voyage. Ask Him - He who loves you with a Divine, eternal love - to make His Word good to you, that you might never stray from the place of safety that He has provided. "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine Heart." (Jeremiah 15:16) Oh! do accept the safe shelter of the Fair Havens.
(D.N. - The Journey of Life)
N.J.H. # 3183
December 11
"Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, saith, 'I thirst.' " (John 19:28)
The Lord one day was seated at Jacob's well (John 4). A woman came to draw water. "Give me to drink," was His request. We don't know if He ever got that drink, but we do know that she got a draught of the Living water and the promise that she would "never thirst again." In order to supply this, He must of necessity endure the agony of Golgotha and the thirst accompanying it. Because of the thirst He endured, we are able to say with David, "My cup runneth over." May we come today with overflowing hearts, ready to worship our wonderful Saviour. (Reg L. Jordan)
N.J.H. # 3184
December 12
"Nevertheless afterward." (Hebrews 12:11)
There is a legend that tells of a German baron who, at his castle on the Rhine, stretched wires from tower to tower, that the winds might convert them into an Aeolian harp. And the soft breezes played about the castle, but no music was born.
But one night there arose a great tempest, and hill and castle were smitten by the fury of the mighty winds. The baron went to the threshold to look out upon the terror of the storm, and the Aeolian harp was filling the air with strains that rang out even above the clamor of the tempest. It needed the tempest to bring out the music!
And have we not known men whose lives have not given out any entrancing music in the day of a calm prosperity, but who, when the tempest drove against them have astonished their fellows by the power and strength of their music?
You can always count on God to make the "afterward" of difficulties, if rightly overcome, a thousand times richer and fairer than the forward. "No chastening . . . seemeth joyous, . . . nevertheless afterward . . ." What a yield! (Streams in the Desert)
N.J.H. # 3185
December 13
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)
If we are really, and always, and equally ready to do whatsoever the King appoints, all the trials and vexations, arising from any change in His appointments, great or small, simply do not exist. If He appoints me to work there, shall I lament that I am not to work here? If He appoints me to wait indoors today, am I to be annoyed because I am not to work out of doors? If I meant to write His messages this morning, shall I grumble because He sends interrupting visitors, rich or poor, to whom I am to speak them, or "show kindness" for His sake, or at least obey His command, "Be Courteous"? If all my members are really at His disposal, why should I be put out if today's appointment is some simple work for my hands or errand for my feet, instead of some seemingly more important doing of head or tongue? (Francis Ridley Havergal - 1902)
N.J.H. # 3186
December 14
"Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall."
(1 Corinthians 10:12)
Had anyone told Peter on the day of his enthusiastic confession of the Master as "the Christ, the Son of the living God" that the moment would come when he would repudiate Him with oaths and curses, he would have been disposed to reply, in the words of another: "What, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" (2 Kings 8:13). But he did!
It was first a simple denial, in answer to the challenge of the maid who kept the High-Priest's door (Matthew 26:69-70). In answer to the questions of several in the porch, he added an oath to his second denial. Then, being identified by a relative of the man whose ear he cut off in the garden (John 18:26), he broke out into a regular volley of oaths and curses. "I know not this man of whom ye speak" (Mark 14:71).
Surely the Spirit of God had His reasons for giving us a fourfold (recorded in all the four gospels) account of Peter's miserable fall. It is an abiding warning against self-sufficiency in any of us. What Peter did yesterday, we may do tomorrow, unless upheld by infinite grace. (W.W. Fereday - Peter The Apostle)
N.J.H. # 3187
