Month: June 2017

God’s Love

“Does God really love me?”

So questioned a young man at the inner-city mission. A young lady, who had been beaten and abused, raised the same question at a gospel meeting one Sunday night.

Yes, many have made the same inquiry! Thankfully the answer to this question is a resounding and definite, YES!

The Bible, over and over again confirms that God loves the sinner and desires their eternal blessing. The following are just two of many Scriptures that confirm this wonderful truth:

“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” (John 3:16).

“God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:8-9).

There was a young man who came to the Lord when He was here on earth, and we read, “Jesus beholding him loved him” (Mark 10:21). As far as we read he never received the blessing the Lord had for him. Don’t be like that young man!

As Soon As Possible

ASAP! Most of us have heard and used this expression many times. Perhaps even today we have had someone tell us that they need something done ASAP.

“That assignment needs to be completed and turned in, ASAP … I need a reply, ASAP … Call back, ASAP,” and so on.

Yes, life is hurried, and seems to be getting faster and faster. But while we usually think of this abbreviation in terms of even more hurry and stress in our lives, maybe if we think of it a different way, we will find strength and help in dealing with the difficulties of life and the fast pace of society.

Always

Say

A

Prayer

What a lot of frustration we could save ourselves if we took time to pray about everything. Let’s remember the exhortation, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18).

How?

From the desk in the room I am staying in this weekend I can read a text on the wall, with a rather interesting and perhaps unusual quotation from the Bible. It is only part of a verse and perhaps applied slightly out of context, yet it has really spoken to me. Here is what it says:

“THE LORD KNOWETH HOW … ” (2 Peter 2:9).

Sometimes I wonder “how” things are going to work out, and “how” this or that can really be the best and for blessing and good in the end. But thankfully I don’t need to know, because My Lord knows. He knows “how!”

Even Solomon with all his God-given wisdom had to acknowledge, “Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way” (Proverbs 20:24).So often we question God’s ways with us, but how good it is to simply submit, even when we don’t fully understand it. I am reminded of the chorus of a hymn we often sing:

“Farther along we’ll know all about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why.”

Reading You

“Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men … written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).

The following story is related of a striking experience of a missionary to the islands of the Inland Sea near Japan. One evening a sailor came to ask him to call on a man on another island who was under a deep sense of spiritual need. The missionary, very tired, turned to a recent convert and said, “I am so tired! Won’t you take the man a Bible?”

“No,” the friend replied , “It is not time to take the man a Bible. That book is yours and mine by God’s grace. But it is not the Bible that man is reading. That man is reading you.”

The missionary could not sleep that night. He kept hearing those words over and over again: “That man is reading you.” Before daybreak he set out to see the man.

The Christian is the only Bible the great majority of people ever look at. It was said of another missionary: “There is no difference between him and the Book.”

What does the world read in you? Do they see something of Christ, and does it cause them to want to read more?

The Mission Field

“In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good” (Ecclesiastes 11:6).

Open your door, there is a mission field,

The Master calls you, to His call then yield:

There is a work for each of us to share,

A service and a burden each can bear.

Some travel far, and some from home just walk!

Around the world, or just around the block;

Where He has placed us, work for Him today,

There will be open doors that come your way.

And when at setting sun you finally rest,

There will be fruit, and souls will have been blest.

Your heart will with His own “Well done” rejoice,

Because you yielded to the Master’s voice.

Dear Young Christian:

Some years ago at the end of a school term my youngest daughter came home with a brochure and a bookmark that was intended to promote reading during the summer vacation. I was struck by a question on the back of the bookmark;

The best book I read this summer was

________________________________

At the end of the season they were to fill in the blank space provided, naming their favorite read. I wonder what you would write? Can you say, “O how love I thy law” (Psalm 119:97)!

It made me think of a song I have often sung:

The best book to read is the Bible!

The best book to read is the Bible!

If you read it every day,

It will help you on your way,

The best book to read is the Bible!

Your Christian Friend,

Jim Hyland

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

First Day of the Week

This is the day the New Testament refers to eight times as “the first day of the week” (Matthew 8:21; Mark 16:2; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1; John 20:19; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). It is also called “the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10).

The references listed from the gospels show that it was on this day the Lord rose from the dead. In other words it was a day of victory and triumph over sin, death, and Satan.

Read Acts 10:7-12, and you will see that this day was very special to the early believers. It was a day when they met to remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread, and a day when they enjoyed the ministry of the Apostle Paul, as well as happy fellowship with their fellow-believers.

It is also to be a day when money is set aside and a collection taken for various needs among the Lord’s people as indicated by the verse in 1 Corinthians 16.

From Revelation chapter 1 we learn that the Apostle John was “In the Spirit on the Lord’s day,” and as a result heard the voice of the Lord and was given a wonderful revelation.

What does this day mean to you, and what will you do today?

Not to Condemn

“For God sent not His Son into the world
to condemn the world; but that the world
through Him might be saved” (John 3:17).

“For the Son of Man is not come to destroy
men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:56).

Jesus Christ came not to condemn you but to save you, knowing your name, knowing all about you, knowing your weight right now, knowing your age, knowing what you do, knowing where you live, knowing what you ate for supper and what you will eat for breakfast, where you will sleep tonight, how much your clothing cost, who your parents were. He knows you individually as though there were not another person in the entire world. He died for you as certainly as if you had been the only lost one. He knows the worst about you and is the One who loves you the most.

Most people, if they knew all about you, probably wouldn’t want to be around you very long. But the Lord Jesus loves the sinner, desires to remove all their guilt and erase all their sin through the work of Calvary, and invites the vilest of humanity, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).

Priorities

“Seek those things which are above” (Colossians 3:1).

Everyone is in a hurry; time is so short, and there is so much to do. Our day is so full that Christians often run the risk of neglecting reading the Bible and praying. In the morning we mustn’t be late, and in the evening we are so tired! In this way weeks can pass without our having regular contact with the Lord.

If the start of the day is devoted to Him, the hours that follow will probably be as well. But if we allow these privileged moments to pass by, the whole day might be lost for the Lord. Let’s stop making excuses and rather put our priorities right: then we can face the day peacefully while experiencing fellowship with the Lord.

By neglecting reading the Word of God we lose out. Perhaps we try to make up for it with what the world has to offer in the way of pleasure, but that doesn’t meet the need.

Prayer is more an attitude than an activity. It expresses our relationship with God — a relationship of faith and love. A Christian once said: “A moment spent with God in prayer eclipses by far the pleasures that this earth offers.”

Is that your experience?

Stand Alone — Part 3

Here is what the New Testament has to say about Enoch’s life and walk of faith. “Enoch … had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5). Better than all the world has to offer, is the knowledge of pleasing God. Enoch had to bear witness against a wicked world. In a day when men lived to between eight and nine hundred years old, his life was a relatively short one. “And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). However, short his life was, his record stands, “that he pleased God.”

If the Christian tries to make the best of both worlds … in other words, to stand for truth and yet to cultivate the approval of the ungodly … he will find that his testimony has lost its power and the world itself does not respect him.

A wall poster I once saw, expressed it this way:

WANTED TODAY:

Men and women who will obey their convictions

of truth and duty at the cost of fortunes and friends

and life itself!

“The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:17).