Author: BTP

Comfort

While going through an extreme trial or sorrow, we often wonder where God is and question whether He could have prevented our suffering. Martha was like that. “Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” (John 11:21). She must have thought, If only the Lord had come earlier things would have been different. We wouldn’t have had to have a funeral and all this weeping. Where was He when we really needed Him?

Whatever you are experiencing in your life, be assured of God’s love. He is not unaware of your pain. He desires to comfort you, and then to use you to comfort others who are going through similar circumstances. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

To experience God’s love and comfort in a trial is to learn and know His heart in a very real way.

Start Your Day Right — Part 2

“Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in Thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk” (Psalm 143:8).

Here is another essential element to starting our day right. Listening to the voice of the Lord, so that we can know His mind and the way He would have us go, what He would have us do, and how we can please Him and live for His glory and as a testimony to the world. How then do we hear His voice? We open our Bibles, the Word of God, and we read a few verses or a chapter or two if we have time. David not only spoke to the Lord in the morning as we learned yesterday, but he listened for the Lord’s voice speaking to Him.

This again, will spare us many a mistake and frustration in our Christian pathway. If we speak to the Lord, asking for His help and guidance, then we need to listen to His voice as He seeks to direct our footsteps in the right way.

If we start our day right by reading and listening to the word of the Lord, then we will be able to say, like Ezekiel, “And in the morning came the word of the Lord unto me” (Ezekiel 12:8). Then, we will have a good day, in spite of what difficult circumstance or problems may cross our path.

Start Your Day Right — Part 1

People have different opinions as to how to start their day right. Some will tell you it is a good stiff cup of coffee. Others need a hot shower, while still others take a jog around the neighbourhood or head to the gym for an early morning workout.

Prayer was an important part of King David’s life, and an important element to starting his day right. He said, “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up” (Psalm 5:3). What a good lesson and pattern this is for us. Many a problem, frustration, and headache, could perhaps be avoided, or at least lessened if we would start the day right by spending a little time talking to the Lord in prayer, and asking for His help and direction.

David didn’t just limit himself to prayer in the morning. He also stated, “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:17). He was like Daniel who, “Kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime” (Daniel 6:10).

Dear Young Christian:

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are expected to “serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2). Some are called to preach, as Paul said: “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Others may not be called to preach, but in one way or another, every believer is to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5).

There is a place of service and a work for each Christian. None can look to the Master and say, “I do not have the privilege of doing something for You.” We may not all have five talents — or even two — but we are all responsible for putting to good use what He has given us. God has beautifully arranged spheres of labor, so as to meet all the diversity of capacity and talent among His people. To each believer He has given power and opportunity to do something.

What are you doing for Christ? What are you doing for the salvation of souls? What are you doing for the help of other believers? This week, let’s say, with the Apostle Paul, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6).

Your Christian Friend,

Jim Hyland

We would love to hear from you.
Send your comments or questions to jhyland@primus.ca

Agony

“And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Only once does God use this word agony in all the Scriptures, and He reserves it to express the terrible suffering of His beloved Son in the garden of Gethsemane, as the Lord Jesus anticipated the horrors of being “made … sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Lord faced the cross alone and as the time drew near when He would pass through those three hours of anguish, when forsaken of God, He would bear the punishment for sin, this terrible agony swept over His holy soul. Yet, wonder of wonders, that out of this agony Peter, James, and John heard Him pray, “Nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

Today, as we look back and remember the sufferings of Christ and the work of Calvary, we rejoice that all that agony is forever past, and the Lord Jesus will never experience the forsaking of God, or the anguish of being made sin again. At the end of the three hours of darkness He cried, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Hallelujah!

Reaching Heaven

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4).

God wants us to trust Him for salvation. But society is obsessed with self. It began in the garden with a temptation to be independent of God. It was not long after the flood that men and women attempted to build this tower, “whose top may reach unto heaven.” God stopped their egotistical attempt. Human effort will not bring us to God. We must depend solely on Him for salvation. The Lord Jesus is the only ladder that reaches to Heaven. “And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51).

Let us die to self today and trust wholly that the work of reaching God is finished in Jesus Christ. There is nothing we can do. It is “not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:9).We can never reach heaven apart from God’s salvation through His Son, and the work of Calvary.

Dedication

“And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?” (Nehemiah 6:3).

Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem under the direction of His God, when his enemies requested that he pause and meet with them. He was so exercised about the great work going on that he refused to stop. He was extremely dedicated. He was in great earnest. Nothing would come between him and his work for the Lord. I wonder if we are that dedicated. There are so many attempts by Satan and his angels to stop the Lord’s work.

There is still a great work going on in this world today. God is still working by His Spirit and using His people as instruments and channels of blessing. This He will continue to do until the Spirit and the believer are called home to heaven at the Lord’s coming.

He has a great work for you. Don’t be distracted, young believer. Continue on in the work that the Lord has given you to do and let nothing stop you until it’s done.

Service

“He that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:20-21).

No service done for the Lord will lose its reward. Here, in a story that the Lord told (Matthew 25:14-30), a servant had been given five talents (pieces of money) which he had traded and doubled in value. His reward was to be ruler over many things. We too have been given something from the Lord to use in His service. If we use what He has given in quiet, faithful, service for Him, He will say to us, as in our verse today, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” It will be wonderful to hear His “Well done!” That will mean more than any reward we can get for things we do in this world.

Paul valued the Lord’s approval. “Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). Is that what we really desire? Serve — and wait for the Lord’s “Well done!”

Speak for Christ

“I believed, therefore have I spoken” (Psalm 116:10).

Not only do we have in this verse the principle that those who believe ought not to keep silent about their faith but also a delightful bit of instruction about witnessing for the Lord, and that is, speak from your heart! “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).

Eloquence or scriptural knowledge may be helpful when speaking for the Lord but they are not essential. It is true that we need to present things in a way that makes the truth clear and simple, and in a way that the Spirit of God can effectively take our words and apply them to the hearer for blessing, like those we read of in the early days of Christianity. “And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed” (Acts 14:1).

However, when it is all said and done, the most powerful testimony is that which comes from the heart. Let’s speak for Christ from the heart. “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so” (Psalm 107:2).

For Jesus

What will youdo for Jesus today,

What actions of kindness and grace to display?

Some service of love, is waiting for you,

Are you willing, for Jesus, that service to do?

“Do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

What will you speak for Jesus today,

What words of encouragement, friend, will you say?

There is much to discourage, dishearten, and fear,

We need to speak words of refreshment and cheer!

“I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things” (Proverbs 8:6).

Where will you go for Jesus today,

As you hurry along, and you rush on your way?

Will it be in the places He wants you to be,

That you might be a blessing to each one you see?

“Go in the way of understanding” (Proverb 9:6).