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
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        June 29.

        "O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way." 1 Kings 8:23

        Prayer is not all request and supplication. We ought not to speak to God merely and only—when we want some favor from his hand. Much of all true prayer is adoration and praise. A loving child-heart always seeks to express its love and confidence.

        "There is no God like you." The heathen have their idols—but our God is not like them. They see not, hear not, love not, care not for those who worship them. Our God loves and keeps covenant. What he promises he performs. His Word never fails, is never broken. What a strong confidence it gives us—to be sure that the God in whom we trust always keeps his Word! Not a promise of his ever has been broken.

        There is something else here which we must not overlook. We should never cut Bible sentences in two in the middle, for if we do we shall get only half truths. God keeps covenant; but to every covenant there are two sides, and we have something to do to secure what he has promised. He keeps covenant with those who "continue wholeheartedly in your way." That is our part, and it should be our continual care to be faithful to God in all our ways. There is no danger that he will fail us; let us take heed that we do not fail in our part.

[nChrist]

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

        June 30.

        "Listen as wisdom calls out! Hear as understanding raises her voice! My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness. All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse." Proverbs 8:1, 7-8

        In this world's counsels—there is a great deal of guessing and speculating. Friends advise us, and intend to speak only what is true; yet by reason of the limitation of their knowledge, they may often give wrong counsel. Bad advice, though well meant and honestly given, has wrecked many a life. But here is counsel that is always absolutely true. The words that this divine Wisdom speaks to us—are always infallibly right words. Here is a Guide, in whose leading we may put implicit confidence. Here is a Counselor, whose counsel is always safe, because always right and true.

        Those who abandon themselves utterly to the Word of God, follow its counsels and obey its every precept, are sure of blessedness in two worlds. It never has been heard that the Bible took any person on a course which ended in disaster, or in any loss or dishonor. It always leads in right paths; and these right paths are safe throughout, and have their unvarying destination in the highest good and blessedness of those who pass over them.

[nChrist]

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

        July 1.

        The LORD says, "I will restore what you lost to the stripping locusts, the cutting locusts, the swarming locusts, and the hopping locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you!" Joel 2:25

        It is God who says, "I will restore." Only the divine hand can do it. Christ is the restorer, for he has made atonement for us.

        Wherever there is a Christian who is hurt by sin or sorrow—the face of the Christ on the cross, beams on it with healing in its beams. "By his stripes—we are healed." By his wounding—our wounds are cured. His visage was marred—that the marring of sin in our faces might be changed to beauty. By his sorrows—our sorrows are comforted.

[nChrist]

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

        July 2.

        "Then he said, "Take the arrows," and the king took them. Elisha told him, "Strike the ground." He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, "You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times." 2 Kings 13:18-19

        Character comes out in little things. It seemed a small matter, there in the prophet's dying chamber, whether the king shot three arrows or six—yet the future successes of his army depended on it. Unconsciously, he was undergoing a critical test. His lack of energy in shooting the arrows, betrayed a fatal weakness of character. And when the test was over the measure of his success in life was unalterably fixed. No doubt he would have given large sums for a repetition of the testing, now that, he knew what depended on it; but it was too late.

        Every life is full of just such testings. Destinies are forever turning on events too trivial for record. Our characters are ever being put to proof in the smallest things, and the result settles important matters for our future. He who improves his one talent, receives more. He who is faithful in things that are least, is entrusted with greater things. On the other hand, unfaithfulness in the smallest things, is forever keeping men out of greater trusts. The picking up of a pin in a merchant's office, has made a great destiny for a boy. There is not a lad who may not make or unmake his fortune any day, by some unconscious acts.

        God also is continually putting us to the test to see how we do this or that little thing; and he determines thereby whether or not he can entrust great things to us.

[nChrist]

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

        July 3.

        "He has put a new song in my mouth!" Psalm 40:3

        The ancient statue of Memnon was fabled to become musical, when the sun rose and the beams of morning light fell upon it. Just so, when the light of the gospel falls upon a darkened heart, it begins to sing. No wonder salvation gives joy! Only think of what we are saved from—the horrible pit of sin; and of what we are saved to—childship in God's family. Can we but rejoice, if we realize our full deliverance?

        Every Christian should be a singer. If we cannot acquire the vocal art, we should at least sing and make melody in our heart unto the Lord. God wants to put a song into the mouth of every child of his. Our song should be one that nothing can check. Paul sang in prison with his feet fast in the stocks, and his back gashed with stripes. No trouble or pain should have power to hush the song in a Christian's heart.

        Then, our lives themselves should be songs. We cannot all be poets, to write glad hymns of praise for others to sing; or singers, to thrill hearts by the sweetness of our voice; but we can live hymns and songs, and that is just as pleasing to God!

[nChrist]

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

        July 4.

        "For seven days they celebrated with joy the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the LORD had filled them with joy." Ezra 6:21-22

        The Lord is always doing things to make us joyful, if only we will accept the love he sends us in them, and rejoice. Christian life ought to be one of joy. Christ said he wished his disciples to have his joy in them, and wished their joy to be full. There are a great many reasons why we should be joyous Christians. The greatest is that we are saved from sin and are in God's family. Our privileges, blessings, and hopes—are enough to fill our hearts with gladness.

        We ought to show our joy in gratitude. Some people take all God gives them, accept all he does for them, and yet go through life grumbling and complaining all the time! Every little trial or care counts for more with them, than all the multitude of God's goodnesses. There is never any sunshine in their faces, for they can always find something that is not satisfactory, to make a cloud of, and to give them excuse for being unhappy. This is a poor, miserable way to live. These people are neither joyful themselves, nor do they help to make the world brighter. We ought to be ashamed to live so unworthily and unbeautifully. God wants us to be burning and shining lights, and to scatter happiness and good cheer wherever we go. Instead of being croakers, he wants us to be sweet singers. It is a sin not to live cheerfully!

[nChrist]

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

        July 5.

        "Praise be to the Lord! Not one word has failed, of all the wonderful promises He gave!" 1 Kings 8:56

        It is nearly three thousand years since Solomon uttered this testimony; but we can say now, just as confidently as the king did that day, that in all these centuries since not one word of all God's good promise has failed any one of his people. No one has ever trusted a promise of God—and had that word fail of fulfillment.

        The most real and sure things in this world—are the words of God. In every one of them, God's own almighty hand is gloved. We clutch them—and find ourselves clutched in turn by divinity, out of whose clasp we never can fall, nor be torn away. We lean upon these words—and find ourselves encircled and upborne by the everlasting arms. We pillow our head in weariness or sorrow upon God's words of love and comfort—and find ourselves drawn close to our Father's heart, held in his warm bosom, and soothed by his tenderness, which is gentler than a mother's.

        So all through life, in every experience, we may trust the promises of God, and commit all our interests to them, and be assured in our heart that not one of them will ever fail us. We may trust them, too, in death, and we shall find everything just as God has said: the divine presence with us in the valley, dying but a going to be at home, absent from the body at home with the Lord, in eternal blessedness. Not one Word of God can fail.

[Soldier4Christ]

They Shall Never Perish

“And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” (John 10:28-29)

What rich blessings Christ promises to those who “hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (v. 27). To think that the omnipotent Creator knows us and gives us eternal life! He is certainly powerful enough to see that this life is in no danger, either from our own weaknesses (“they shall never perish”) or from the enemy without (“pluck them out”). Temporary eternal life simply cannot be. The eternal life that He gives lasts for eternity.

Actually, the promise “they shall never perish” is very strong in the original Greek. A repeating negative precedes the word “perish,” and the specific form of the word “never” literally includes “eternally,” or “forever.” A more complete rendering would then be, “They shall not, in no wise perish, no, not for eternity.”

The word “man” is not in the original, and the word “any” is more properly translated “any one” or “any being.” This includes Satan—no match for the Savior. He is powerless to pluck or snatch us from either the Father’s or the Son’s hands. How could we be any more secure?

Note that the Father gave us to His beloved Son as gifts of His love. In turn, Christ values these precious gifts so much that He holds us securely in His hand, so tightly that no created being can snatch us away. The Father even assists in providing us this security, for we are also in the “Father’s hand,” and “I and my Father are one” (v. 30).

When we consider the size and strength of the Creator’s hand, we can understand why no one, not even Satan, can snatch us out of its protective care. JDM

[nChrist]

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

        July 6.

        "This became a great sin!" 1 Kings 12:30

        The king's plan was successful. The people did not go back to the temple at Jerusalem—but bowed down before the calves. The separation was thus made complete. No only so—but the false leading of the king, turned the ten tribes into a path that took them farther and farther away from God.

        Twenty times the Scripture records that "Jeroboam made Israel to sin." The name of Jeroboam is held up to execration through all the after history—as a man who made others sin!

        Sin grows from small beginnings—until it attains giant proportions. The man who starts an error, knows not what moral ruin will come from it. To teach one child falsely, may be to blight thousands of lives. Those who begin new enterprises set in motion streams of influence, good or bad, which may continue to flow forever. Jeroboam gave character to this new kingdom, and all the nineteen kings who followed him walked in his wicked steps.

        There is a story of an abbot who coveted a piece of ground. The owner consented to lease it to the abbot for one crop only. The abbot sowed acorns, a crop which took three hundred years to ripen. Jeroboam's one sowing of sin, burdened the new kingdom with evil through all its history. Satan begs for one crop only, and then sows seeds whose harvest will fill all the life to the end. We do not know what we are doing—when we start a wrong thing.

[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
___________________________________________

        July 7.

        "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a well of water welling up to eternal life!" John 4:14

        If you are a true believer in Christ, your new life will become a spring of water in you. Wherever you go, into the driest desert, into the hottest plain, far away from the means of grace and from spiritual privileges, into the dark paths of sorrow—your life shall not waste nor fail, for its fountain is within you. It is not fed from without, nor is it dependent upon ordinances and 'means of grace' as sources of nourishment along the way. The fountain of your life, your comfort, your joy, your strength—is fed from the mountains of heaven, from the fullness of Christ; hence it can never waste. Thus from this well of water in the heart of the Christian, flows out a perpetual stream of life, with blessing for the world.

        If you can be only a little spring, with but water enough to fill a pilgrim's cup, do not be discouraged; be the sweet blessing that you can be, and thank God for the privilege. Yet Jesus says that "rivers of living water" shall flow from this well in him who believes—not a mere trickling rill—but large rivers, to bless a whole community. We should not be satisfied with any small measure of usefulness. We should seek to bear much fruit. We should always abound in the work of the Lord. We should seek to be the largest blessing we can be.

[nChrist]

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

        July 8.

        "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables." Mark 4:11

        It is astonishing how differently the truth of Christ looks from within and from without. It is like the stained-glass windows in a church. One who stands outside and looks at them sees none of their rich beauty. They seem dull, opaque, and without meaning. But let one stand within the building and look at the rich windows, and all is transformed. The lines and figures appear in all their rich loveliness.

        It is the same with the truths of God's Word. They are not attractive to those who are without. People sometimes sneer at the faith of Christians, as they find them leaning upon an unseen God, and clinging to intangible hopes. But when one becomes a Christian, all is changed. Where there was no loveliness, there now appears the loftiest beauty. What was laughed at before, is now seen to be worthy of highest admiration. Only those who have received Christ, can really understand the wonderful things of his love.

[nChrist]

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

        July 9.

        "The LORD upholds all those who fall—and lifts up all who are bowed down." Psalm 145:14

        God never gets tired helping us learn our lessons. No matter how often we fail, he is ready to give us another chance. When we fail to have our lesson learned, he does not give us up, putting us out of his school—but tells us to take the lesson over again and try to get it better. Only think how often we have to try—before we do things as he wants us to do them, how often we fall in trying to walk, before we learn to walk. If our great Teacher were not patient with us—we would never become like Christ; but he never wearies of our slowness. He is pleased with our efforts, however faulty they are, and has for us always an encouraging word.

[nChrist]

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

        July 10.

        "By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another." John 13:35

        There is one unfailing mark of Christian character, wherever it is found: Love is always in it. Whatever else may be or may not be in the new life of the Christian—the scarlet thread of love is always woven into the character. God is love, and the believer in Christ, is in a measure, like God. To be a Christian is to have Christ in the heart; and Christ is love. Not to have love—is not to be a Christian.

        The first effect of faith in Christ—is the springing up of love in the heart of him who believes. This love does not lie hidden—but is revealed in the life. It shows itself in love for God; but there is no love for God—which does not also make the heart warm toward man. He who loves not his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

        Christian love is not a mere beautiful sentiment, glowing like a radiant vision in the soul—but fading the moment we meet our brothers in actual life; it is a love that becomes the very mainspring of all action, the burning heart of all ambition. It is a love that makes us pitiful toward all human sorrow, gentle toward human infirmity, helpful toward human need, patient under human unkindness and injury, and ready at every call to do and suffer and sacrifice.

[nChrist]

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

        July 11.

        "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak—and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself." Romans 15:1-3

        There are some people who are anointed to be helpers of others—to build them up. Those who have questions or perplexities, those who are seeking light or guidance, turn to them instinctively, with confidence, sure of finding what they seek.

        There is need for such helpers. There are questions which books or sermons do not answer; it is a friend that is needed, one who can understand and sympathize. No other ministry to which men are ordained in this world, is so sacred as this, which comes into lives in their deepest experiences, at times when, without wise help, they may be wrecked. There is not one of us who may not be such a helper.

[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
___________________________________________

        July 12.

        "I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen." John 3:11

        The things that Christ teaches are certainties. Very much human science is only guessing; we cannot be sure of it. Every now and then some new discovery is made, which sweeps away whole volumes of boasted theories. We have to be all the time buying new books—just to keep up with the times; and we are afraid to quote from any but the newest editions, lest there has been some recent discovery which contradicts the older.

        But Christ's teachings are certainties. He came down from heaven, where from all eternity he had dwelt, and he knew the things he taught. We may accept his words without the slightest doubt, and may build our soul's hopes upon them. What he said about God, about God's love, about heaven, about the judgment, about the future life, about the way of salvation, is all certainty! As we go on into the future, we shall find everything just as he has described it.

        This fact should give us deep and strong confidence—if we are reposing upon Christ's promises for salvation and life. It should drive us speedily to his cross for refuge—if we are still unsheltered, for he has told us of condemnation abiding upon all who do not believe on him. We may not disregard a single word that Christ spoke, for all his words are all true and eternal. Not one of them can ever fail him who leans upon it.