Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895

[nChrist]

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From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        March 31.

        "Having loved His own who were in the world—He loved them to the end." John 13:1

        Follower of Jesus—you may write your own name into this verse, and it will be as true as it was of the company at the table that night! Having loved you—Jesus loves you unto the end!

        It was the night before Jesus died. He was with His disciples at the Passover. Holy memories filled His mind. But amid these, His love for His own people lost none of its warmth. His "hour" of sorrow and shame was come. But with all this before Him, He did not forget "His own." He gathered them about Him, and spent the last evening with them. He had no thought for Himself; He thought only of "His own." His personal grief and bitterness were kept in His own heart, while He gave them joy. His love over-mastered His sorrow.

        Then there was something else. The words read: "His hour had come to leave this world and return to His Father." So there was glory for him beyond His cross! There were a few hours of darkness, woe, and anguish—and then He would leave this world and be at home again! His heart must have been full of rapture and expectancy as He looked forward, knowing that He would shortly be home with His Father. Yet even this blessed consciousness did not make him forget His friends. "Having loved His own who were in the world—He loved them to the end."

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        APRIL

        April 1.

        "She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial." Mark 14:8

        Many people would have kept the jar of perfume until Jesus was dead, and would then have broken it to anoint his cold body. At least, that is the way too many of us do in these days. We wait until our friend dies—and then send our flowers and speak our words of appreciation. Should we not learn a lesson from Mary? The kind words we mean to speak when our friends are dead—let us speak while they can hear them! The flowers we mean to send for their coffin—let us send to brighten the rough paths for their feet. The epitaphs we mean to put upon white marble—let us carve in deeds of gentle love while our friends are with us. Words of cheer today—are what people crave.

        "Withhold all eulogies when I am dead,
        All noisy sorrow;
        Give me the tender word today
        Instead of tears tomorrow."

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 2.

        "Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Isaiah 53:4

        Whatever the cause of grief may be, there is rich comfort in the remembrance of the sorrows of Christ. It assures us that Christ understands our pain. In the garden he went a stone's cast farther than any of his disciples went. The picture is a parable to us. It is always so. Wherever you bow in the deep shadows of grief, you have but to lift up your eyes, and you will see Jesus in still deeper shadows—a stone's cast beyond you. His sorrow was sorer than yours.

        There is comfort also in the remembrance that blessing comes out of suffering patiently endured. All the world's peace and hope, and all heaven's joy and glory—are fruits of a great sorrow—the sorrow of Christ. Blessing will come always out of sorrow, if we but accept it submissively and reverently.

        While we think of the sufferings of Christ, we must remember also that he came from them all unharmed, his life shining in divine radiance, lifted to glory, too, as a fruit of his suffering. This reminds sorrowing believers, that they too shall pass through their time of tribulation, that no scars and no manner of hurt shall be upon their souls because of their sufferings—but that they shall shine in fairer beauty and diviner glory, and shall be lifted up to higher honor, because of what they have suffered with Christ.

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 3.

        "Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." I Corinthians 15:3

        There have been great days in the history of the human race, days of triumph whose victories have enriched the world; days of honor whose brightness has made the world lighter; days of great deeds which have lifted man to loftier, diviner heights; days of heroic, self-forgetful love which has made the air sweeter with its odorous perfumes. But the day of all days in fruit of blessing and good in the world's story, was that holy Friday when the Son of man gave his life on the cross to save men!

        There could have been no rising again, without the dying on the cross. Christ must die—before he could offer deathless life to every man. The touch of the cross is on every hope of Christian faith. The light that shines in soft luster throughout all the world—streams from the cross. The sorrow of Calvary is that which is softening all human hearts, and making all life gentler and sweeter. The power that is drawing all men upward—is the Christ lifted up.

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

     

        April 4.

        "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!" Matthew 27:46

        There is a picture which represents the after-scenes on that day of the crucifixion. It is all over. The crowds have gone away. The evening sun is shining out again on Calvary. The body of the Savior has been borne to the sepulcher. The cross has been taken down, and lies on the ground. A company of little children, bright with the glow of childhood's innocence, led to the place by accident or curiosity, are seen bending over the signs of the day's terrible work. One of the children holds in his hand a nail which a little time before, had pierced a hand or a foot of the patient Sufferer, and stands spellbound with horror as he gazes at it. His gentle heart is shocked at sin's dreadful work! On all the children's faces, the same expression of horror is depicted.

        No one with pure and gentle heart, can ever look at the death of Christ on the cross—with any but feelings of amazement and horror at sin's awfulness!

        It was sin that nailed Jesus on the cross!

        It was sin that wreathed the circlet of thorns for his brow!

        We say the Jews crucified Christ; yes—but WE helped to do it!

        Our sins drove the nails!

        Would you see what sin is? Stand by the cross and ponder its terrible work, there in the death of the Redeemer. See what it cost the Lamb of God, to take away sin!

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 5.

        "He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" 1 Corinthians 15:4

        If your faith stops at the cross—it misses the blessing of the fullest revealing of Christ!

        You need a Savior who not merely two thousand years ago went to death to redeem you—but one who also is alive to walk by your side in loving companionship.

        You need a Savior who can hear your prayers, to whose feet you can creep in penitence when you have sinned, to whom you can call for help when the battle is going against you.

        You need a Savior who is interested in all the affairs of your common life, and who can assist you in every time of need.

        You need a Christ who can be a real friend—loving you, keeping close beside you, able to sympathize with your weaknesses.

        You need a Savior who will come into your life, and will save you, not by one great act of centuries past—but by a life warm and throbbing with love today, and living again in you.

        It is for love that our hearts hunger. The bread that will satisfy us, is not the bread of memorial merely—the memory of a great devotion of love long, long since—but the bread of love—living, present, warm and throbbing! Nothing less than a LIVING Christ will do for us!

        And that is the Christ the gospel brings to us: one who was dead—and is now alive for evermore!

        "I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!" Revelation 1:18

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 6.

        "Why do you seek the living—among the dead?" Luke 24:5

        A DYING Christ alone, will not satisfy your heart. While you praise the love that was crucified for you—you crave love from a Savior who lives. Memories of a friend who has died, may be very sweet. The fragrance of 'departed love' stays in a home, like the perfume of sweet flowers, when the flowers have been borne away. But how unsatisfying are the mere memories of your friend—when your heart hungers for love's real presence, and touch and tenderness! No more will the mere memories of the Love that died on the cross for you—satisfy your cravings for Christ. You must have the living One for your friend!

        "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God!" cried the psalmist, and cries every redeemed soul. It is only as we realize the truth of a living Christ—that our hearts are satisfied. We crave love—a bosom to lean upon, a hand to touch ours, a heart whose beatings we can feel, a personal friendship that will come into our life with its sympathy, its inspiration, its companionship, its shelter, its life, its comfort. All this, the living Christ is to us, if we but learn the blessed truth of his resurrection. "I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!" Revelation 1:18

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

        April 7.

        "Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb" Mark 16:2

        The women did not find the body of Jesus in the grave. Suppose they had found it there, still held in the power of death; suppose that Jesus had never risen; what would have been the consequences? It would have been as if the sun and moon and stars were all to be blotted from the sky, or as if they had all set one day and never risen again.

        Paul tells us in his immortal chapter on the resurrection, what our loss would be, should it be found that Christ did not rise. "If Christ has not been raised, then is our preaching vain; your faith also is vain. ... You are yet in your sins!" Paul had preached of a Savior who died for men's sins—and then rose for their justification; but if Christ yet lay in the power of death, his sacrifice for sin had not availed.

        If you were imprisoned in some great fortress, and one who loved you went forth to try to rescue you, and fell and died fighting upon the walls, you would cherish the memory of your friend's valiant effort on your behalf—but you would still remain undelivered. So would it have been with those whom Christ came to save, if he had perished in death and had not risen. He would have been defeated in his great effort, and those for whom he died would have remained without deliverance!

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
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        April 8.

        "But go, tell his disciples and Peter" Mark 16:7

        The joyful news must not be kept—but must be carried to the other sorrowing friends of Jesus, and must be carried 'quickly'. There must not be a moment lost. The happy women must not sit down together in mere personal enjoyment of the blessed news; there were others in the darkness of sorrow—and to these they must hasten with the gladness. We must not forget in our joy of Christian faith, that there are others who have none of this joy; our mission is to carry the good news, and to rejoice as we go on our way.

        "Tell his disciples and Peter." Why was Peter specially named? It was because he was the saddest of all, the one who most needed the comfort. He had sinned, and was weeping in penitence. This showed the tenderness of the heart of Christ toward all penitents. It must have given Peter unspeakable joy to get this message. Jesus then had not cast him off. He would now have an opportunity to weep on his Lord's bosom, confess his sin, and crave and obtain pardon.

        "And Peter" has its gracious message for every penitent soul. Have you grieved Christ by sin, by denial, by any unfaithfulness, and are you weeping in sorrow over your sin? Those who have fallen are the very ones that lie most heavily on the heart of Jesus, just because they have fallen. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Luke 5:31-32

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

        April 9.

        "Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him, but He disappeared from their sight!" Luke 24:31

        Anniversary days always bring back the memories of those who have died. Out of what home, has not some beloved face vanished? You are thinking of these departed ones. If they died in Christ—the gospel of these Easter days lifts the veil, and shows them to you away beyond death, unhurt by death, living still, the same gentle friends they were when you knew them here and clasped them in your arms.

        I had a letter the other day from Rome, written by a dear friend who is journeying abroad in search of health. The letter was full of bright words which reminded me of my friend's beautiful life. There was the same old warmth, the same eager interest in things and people, the same kindly thoughtfulness. "Just like my friend!" I said, as I read the letter. Being in Rome has made no change in his gentle spirit.

        It is just so with our friends in heaven. My father and mother are there. If I were to go to my 'long home' today, I know I would see them unchanged. Of course the marks of care are gone, or have become transfigured, and are now marks of beauty. They have not their earthly bodies—but then, those worn and weary bodies were not my real father and mother. Death ended nothing beautiful in them. I would see them living in new and richer life, engaged, as they used to be on earth, in loving ministries.

[nChrist]

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From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 10.

        "Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, 'Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?' But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away!" Mark 16:2-4

        This stone had worried the women, as they hurried toward the grave. They knew it was there, that it was too heavy for them with their frail hands to roll away, and they wondered how they could get it removed. But now, when they came in sight of the tomb—they looked up and saw that the stone was rolled away!

        This incident illustrates many experiences in our common life. We worry about difficulties and obstacles which lie in our path—and seem to block our progress. But when we move on obediently, and come to the place of the supposed hindrance or obstacle—it is gone, or it was never there, except in our imagination! We all know that very many of our anxieties prove to be really groundless in the end.

        Here, we ought to learn the lesson once for all—when God sends us anywhere, that He also makes it possible for us to go. Duty's paths always open for us, as we go on—not before we start—but as we obey and move forward. Yet we must not expect there will never be any difficulties to meet, or obstacles to surmount. God never has promised that! Too easy a path is often a bane in life—not a blessing! The difficulties and obstacles that remain, may be made stepping-stones by which we shall rise to nobler and higher Christian character!

[nChrist]

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From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 11.

        "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go." Matthew 28:16

        We should always keep the appointments Jesus makes with us. If we fail—we shall surely be the losers. Suppose some of our Lord's disciples had stayed away, for some cause, from this meeting in Galilee. Think what they would have missed! They might have said: "It is such a long distance;" or, "The mountain is steep, and I will have difficulty climbing it;" or, "I fear it will rain or be stormy;" or, "Perhaps Jesus will not be there; I cannot understand how he can be risen from the dead."

        For any of these, or for other similar reasons, some might have been absent that wonderful day. But they would have missed a glorious sight of the risen Jesus, and would not have heard his words of commission and promise. To the end of their life, they would have regretted that they had not kept their Lord's appointment that day.

        Christ makes many appointments for us. Sometimes we do not think them very important, and are easily hindered from keeping them. But we never can know what we lose by these neglects. Jesus always comes where he asks us to meet him, and gives blessings there to those who have been faithful in gathering to wait for him. We do not know what we may miss, any common Sunday—by staying away from the services appointed by Christ.

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From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 12.

        "I have the same hope in God as these men—that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked!" Acts 24:15

        A hope of resurrection to a believer in Christ—ought to be a wonderful inspiration in the earthly life. The grave is not the end; we shall come again from it in new beauty, and shall live on forever. Not only did Christ teach that the dead shall rise again—but he himself went down into the grave and then came out again, after three days, alive! Thus he showed the reality of resurrection; one man died and rose again, and may not all? But his resurrection meant more than that. He was the head of his people, and as such—his victory was for them. He met and conquered death for them.

        Now death is a vanquished foe. Paul puts it very strongly, and says that Christ abolished death. Jesus himself put it no less strongly when he said, "I am the resurrection and the life . . . whoever lives and believes in me—shall never die!" There is no break, no interruption, in a Christian's life, in what we call dying. The spirit lives more really, fully, gloriously, a moment after death—than ever it lived before. Then the body which goes down into the grave, 'sleeps'—that is the Christian word—sleeps in Jesus, until the resurrection, when Christ will come and call it up; not the old earthly, worn-out, sin-corrupted, mortal flesh and blood—but a new, strong, glorious, incorruptible, immortal, spiritual body, to live with Christ forever!

[nChrist]

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From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

         

        April 13.

        "I do not practice what I want to do—but I do what I hate!" Romans 7:15

        Think of the brokenness, the incompleteness, the littleness, of these lives of ours! We get glimpses of beauty in character, which we are not able to attain! We have longings which seem to us too great ever to come true. We dream of things we want to do; but when we try to work them out, our clumsy hands cannot put them into realizations! We have glimmerings of a love that is very rich and tender, without a trace of selfishness, without envy or jealousy, without resentment—a love that seeks not its own, is not provoked, and bears all things. We get the vision from the life of Christ Himself. We say, "I will learn that lesson of love; I will be like that!" But we fail.

        We strive to be sweet-spirited, unselfish, thoughtful, kind—but we must wet our pillow with tears at the close of our marred days, because we cannot be what we strive to be! We have glimpses of a peace which is very beautiful. We strive after it strive with intense effort—but do not reach it!

        So it is in all our living. Life is ever something too large for us. We attain only fragments of living. Yet take heart, "The desire of the righteous shall be granted!" Proverbs 10:24

        "We know that when He appears—we shall be like Him!" 1 John 3:2

[nChrist]

__________________________________________
From Grace Gems - Free and Public Domain:
Devotionals By J.R. Miller, 1895
http://www.gracegems.org/19/literature.htm
___________________________________________

        April 14.

        "Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain!" 1 Corinthians 15:58

        Jesus walks no more among men, doing his deeds of love—but he sends his followers forth to do the works in his name. We ought to abound in all loving ministry just as he did. It is not enough to be good, gentle, sweet, amiable, kindly, patient. It is beautiful to live such a life; and its influence is far-reaching, like the fragrance of Mary's ointment. But we must also be full of good works. We must be winners of souls. We must live to do good to men, to comfort sorrow, to feed hunger, to relieve distress, to cheer the disheartened, to break chains and liberate sin's captives, to stand up for the truth, to do battle for the right. We are to be like Christ, and we begin to be like Christ—only when we begin to be useful.

        It ought to be a wondrous inspiration to us, in our work for Christ—to read that our labor for God is not in vain. No word of truth spoken in this world is ever lost. On the rocks we find the impressions left ages since by leaves that fell on the soft clay and seemed to perish. So somewhere every word we speak for God, and every smallest deed we do for the love of Christ, leave their immortal record.