George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

[nChrist]

August 14

The Tears of Jesus - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Jesus wept— Joh_11:35
He beheld the city, and wept over it— Luk_19:41

Only Two Occasions of Jesus Weeping Are Recorded

There are but two occasions in the Gospels on which we light upon our Savior weeping; only two instances in which we see His tears. It is true that in the Epistle to the Hebrews we have a glimpse into the inner life of Christ, and there we read that He made supplication with tears and strong crying unto God. But into that interior life of prayer when Father and Son had fellowship together, we cannot enter, for it is holy ground. The point to observe is that in His recorded life we only hear of the tears of Jesus twice; once at the grave of a man who was His friend: once when Jerusalem lay spread out before Him. And both, not in the earlier days of youth when the human heart is susceptible and quivering, but in the later season when the cross was near. Goethe confesses in his autobiography that as he grew older he lost the power of tears, and there are many men who, as experience gathers, are conscious of a hardening like that. But our Savior, to the last moment that He lived, was quick and quivering to joy and sorrow, and His recorded tears are near the end. Never was He so conscious of His joy as in the closing season of His ministry; never did He speak so much about it nor so single it out as His most precious legacy. And so with weeping, which in the human heart is so often the other side of joy—it is under the shadow of His last days that it is recorded.

Both Weepings Prompted Not by Suffering,but by Divine Compassion

I am going to speak on the differences between these two Weepings; but first I ask you to observe one feature in which the two are beautifully kin. There are tears in the world, bitter and scalding tears, which are wrung out by personal affliction; tears of anguish, of intense corporeal anguish; tears caused by cruelty or mockery. And the point to be ever observed is that our Lord, though He suffered intensely in all such ways as that, never, so far as we read, was moved to tears. He was laughed to scorn—He of the sensitive heart—yet it is not then we read that Jesus wept. He was spat upon and scourged and crucified; but it is not then we light upon Him weeping. And even in the garden of Gethsemane where great drops were falling to the ground, drops which would have looked like tears to any prying child among the olives, Scripture tells us, as with a note of warning lest we should misinterpret what was happening there, that they were not tears, but drops of sweat and blood. The tears of our Lord were not wrung out by suffering, however intense and cruel it might be. On the only two occasions when we read of them they are the tears of a divine compassion. And whenever one thinks of that, one is impressed again with the wonder of the figure of the Christ, so infinitely pitiful and tenderhearted; so unswervingly and magnificently brave.

The First Tears Were Shed for the Individual, the Second for Many

Now if we take these two occasions on which the weeping of Jesus is recorded, and if, having found their common element, we go on to note the points on which they differ, what is the difference that first would arrest you? Well, I shall tell you what first impresses me. It is that the former tears were shed for one, and the latter tears were shed for many. Jesus wept beside the grave of Lazarus, for one single solitary friend; for a man who had loved Him with a great devotion and given Him always a welcome in his home. There is no such human touch in all the Gospels, nothing that so betrays the heart of Christ, as to be simply told that Jesus wept when He went out to stand before the grave of Lazarus. Here is a heart that has known the power of friendship, that has known the infinite solace of the one; a heart more deeply moved when that one dies than by all the cruelties which men can hurl at Him. And then, having learned of His infinite compassion for those who have had one heart to love and lose, we read that Jesus wept over the city. Picture Jerusalem on that Sunday morning, densely crowded for the Passover. Every house was full and every street was thronged; there were tens of thousands gathered there. And when our Lord, turning the crest of Olivet, saw before Him that crowded city, then like a summer tempest came His tears. Tears for the one; tears for the twice ten thousand: how typical is that of the Redeemer! Never was there a compassion so discriminative, and never a compassion so inclusive. Our separate sorrows—He understands them all, and our hours of solitary anguish by the grave; but not less the problem of the crowd. There are men who are full of sympathy for personal sorrows, but have never heard the crying of the multitude. There are men who hear the crying of the multitude, but have never been broken-hearted at the tomb. Christ has room for all and room for each. He loves the world with a divine compassion. And yet there is no one here who cannot say, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me."

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[nChrist]

The Tears of Jesus - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Tears Shed for Death and for Life

The next difference which impresses me is this—and it is a suggestive and profound distinction—it is that the former tears were shed for death, and the latter tears were shed for life. There was something in the death of Lazarus which made a profound impression upon Christ. He was troubled; He groaned in spirit; He wept. Often He had been face to face with death before, with death in some of its most tragic aspects. He had looked on the still, cold face of Jairus' daughter, and had seen the anguish of the widow of Nain. Yet it is only now, upon the road at Bethany, that we see the storm and passion of His soul when faced by the awful ravages of death. Nobody ever fathoms all that death means until its hand has knocked upon his door. It is when someone whom we have loved is taken that we understand its meaning and its misery. And Christ, being tempted like as we are, felt the anguish of it in His soul with intensity. Death had come home to Him—attacked Him at close quarters—carried one of the bastions of His being. How utterly cruel was the last great enemy. The Lord groaned in spirit and was troubled: a storm of passion swept across His soul. He wept for all that death had done and all that death was doing in the world. And so these tears of His are sacramental of all the sorrow of the aching heart when the place is empty, and the grave is tenanted, and the familiar voice is silent.

Now with that dark and dreary scene will you for a moment contrast the other scene? It is a city shimmering in beauty under the radiance of a Sunday morning. Children are playing in the marketplace; women are singing as they rock the cradle; men are at business and regiments are marching—there is movement and there is music everywhere. Friends are meeting who have not met for years for Passover was the great season of reunion, and eyes are bright and hearts are beating bravely in the gladness of these old ties reknit. Out on the Bethany road there had been death; here in the teeming city there was life; life in the crowd—life in the marching soldiery—life in the little children romping merrily; life everywhere, in the indistinguishable murmur which rises where there are ten thousand people who have waked in the sunshine of another morning to the traffic and the concourse of the day. It was all that which swept into the gaze of Christ, and it was that which swept into the heart of Christ that Sunday morning when from the brow of Olivet He looked across the valley to Jerusalem. As a lad of twelve He had looked, and looking wondered, with all the thrilling expectancy of boyhood. Now we read that He looked, and looking, wept. They were not tears for death, but tears for life; tears of divine compassion for the living; tears for the might-have-been—the vanity—the awful judgment that was yet to be; tears for the living who have gone astray and who are hungering for peace and have missed it and who have had their opportunity and failed. There is a sorrow for the dead which may be intense and very tragical. It may wither every flower across the meadow and take all the summer sunshine from the sky. But there is a sorrow deeper than sorrow for the dead—it is the sorrow for the living; and it is much to know that Jesus understood it. The bitterest sorrow has no grave to stand at, no sepulchre to adorn with opening flowers; the bitterest sorrow wears no garb of mourning, and receives no beautiful letters by the post. The bitterest sorrow does not spring from death; it springs from that mystery which we call life; and Jesus felt it to His depths. Thou who art mourning for the dead, for thee there is Jesus by the grave of Lazarus. Thou who art mourning for the living, for thee also is that same compassion. He understands it all. He shares it. Like a great tide it flowed upon Him once, when in the morning from the brow of Olivet, He looked upon Jerusalem and wept.

Tears Others Shared in and Tears None Could Understand

I close by pointing out one other difference that stands out very clearly in the Scripture. The former tears were such as others shared in; the latter were tears that no one understood. Read that chapter in the Gospel of John again, and you find that Christ was not alone in weeping. Martha and Mary were there, and they were weeping also, and the Jews who had known Lazarus and loved him. There was a kinship in a common sorrow there, a fellow feeling which united hearts, a sense of common loss and ache and loneliness. Now turn to the other scene, and what a difference! It is a pageantry of enthusiastic gladness. The cry goes ringing along the country road, "Hosanna to the Son of David." And it is amid these shouting voices of men beside themselves with wild enthusiasm that the Scripture tells us Jesus wept. At the grave of Lazarus many an eye was wet. Here every eye was dancing with excitement. No one was weeping here; nobody thought of weeping; it was the triumph of the Lord—Hosanna! And all alone, amid that welcoming tumult, in a grief which nobody could pierce or penetrate, the tears came welling from our Savior's eyes. In this our mortal life there are common griefs, touches of nature which make the whole world kin. But how endlessly true is the old saying of Scripture that the heart knoweth its own bitterness. And in those bitternesses which words can never utter and which lie too deep for any human help, what a comfort to know that our Savior understands! In all the common sorrows of humanity He is our Brother, and He weeps with us. He stands beside the grave of Lazarus still, clothed in the beauty of His resurrection. But in that lonely unutterable sorrow, which is the price and the penalty of personality, we may be sure He understands us also.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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[ibTina]

When I think about the Jesus crying... it really gets to me.  My Saviour... in such a deep loving sorrow..... Oh how He loves us!

 
        I LOVE YOU JESUS!!!!!!

[nChrist]

August 15

Unwarrantable Interferences - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him— Joh_11:48

The Error of the Pharisees

There was a sense in which the Pharisees were entirely wrong. Historically, and in the sovereign will of God, it is just because the Pharisees did not let Christ alone that we believe and worship Him. Had they let Christ alone, I speak with reverence, there would have been no Calvary for Jesus. And had Jesus never been lifted up on Calvary, He never would have drawn all men to Him. They were quite wrong, then, these Pharisees, in one sense. Their interference was a predestined thing. They plotted and schemed and compassed the death of Jesus. And they said, That ends it, none will believe Him now. Yet the King in His beauty is the crucified Redeemer still.

Jesus Left Alone Shows Forth His Glory

But if there was one sense in which the Pharisees were wrong, there was another sense in which they were entirely right. With a meaning they never saw, it was quite true, "If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him." For Pharisaism is not only a sect. It is a spirit. It is living still, disguised, perhaps, but unchanged. And if a sinful world is to believe on Jesus, if men and women are to see His majesty and hail Him as Redeemer, and adore Him, it is a new sight of the King Himself we want: the Pharisee must leave the Christ alone. Truth unadorned is then adorned the most. And "I am the way, the truth, the life," said Jesus. I would that many a commentator, many a dogmatist, many a highly intellectual preacher even, had learned that simple lesson from our text: "If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him." For there is a charm, a constraining beauty about Jesus, that draws like a magnet the wandering hearts of men. But tampering hands have been laid upon the Lord. He has been shrouded, hidden, removed from the garden of humanity, till many a simple soul can only cry with Mary, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him."

And so I am led to our central thought, that of "letting alone," and I wish to treat it in a Biblical way. First, then, we shall fix our minds on this: there are times when we must leave God alone.

Don't Leave God Alone When He Wants to Be Prayed to

Now the strange thing is—and I call it strange though to the man who knows his Bible it is quite familiar—the strange thing is, that the times when we must leave God alone are not the times when God appears to wish it. Go back to the story of Exodus, for instance. Recall that sad scene of the golden calf. The people made their idol and they danced around it, and they played the harlot and forgot God around it till the anger of God was like a scorching flame. And what did God cry to Moses? "Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, that I may consume them." And Moses simply refused to let God be—he fell on his face, entreated passionately, saved the people, and was never more Christlike than in that splendid disobedience. Or take the cry of the Syrophoenician woman. "Lord, save my daughter, save my daughter, Lord!" And if the silence of Christ meant anything at all, and if His word about the lost sheep of the house of Israel meant anything at all, it meant, "Let Me alone." But her mother's heart refused to let Christ alone. She pleaded, she parried, she found a choice argument in His refusal, till Christ was mastered by that most disobedient persistency, and she went home to find her daughter healed.

I think you see now what the lesson is. With a life to live and with a death to die, never let God alone by not praying. "Let me alone," the God of science is crying, "for I work by my inexorable laws, and I shall not change them at my creature's bidding." "Let me alone," the God of providence is crying, "for your neighbor yonder has not prayed for years, and yet he has all he needs." But I take sides with Moses and that woman. And if new depth, new insight, new power for the little self-denials of everyday, new cravings for holiness, new humility—if these things rise in me as the tide rises, come to me like a bird upon the wing, I shall thank God that I have learned the lesson of never letting Him alone in prayer.

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[nChrist]

Unwarrantable Interferences - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Let God Alone to Have His Way with You

That, then, is one sphere where the earnest heart cannot leave God alone. And I have thought it right to touch on that to safeguard our topic from abuse. But there is another sphere where God is sovereign. It is the sphere of action. It is the realm of life. And there it is wisdom, it is peace, just to let God alone to have His way with you. I suppose there never was a general, not even Lord Roberts, who was more loved by his soldiers than the Viscount de Turenne, who was marshal of France in the time of the great Louis. It was he who, if he gained a battle, used to write we won, and if his army were defeated, wrote I lost. Well, I have read how one night, going the round of his camp, he overheard some of the younger soldiers bitterly murmuring at the discomforts of the march. And an old veteran just recovering from a wound was saying, "You do not know our father. When you are older, you will never talk like that. Be sure he has some grand end in view that we cannot make out, or he would never allow us to suffer so." And brave Turenne, who tells the story himself, used to say that that moment of eavesdropping was the proudest and happiest moment of his life. The young men were bitter and angry at his leadership. Things would be different if they were in command. But the old veterans who had fought with their general in many a field and marched with their general many a weary mile, they let him alone because they loved him so.

Do that with God. It is one secret of a strenuous life. The deepest philosophy comes to its crown in that. I have known fathers whose hearts turned hard as adamant when the angel of death stooped down and kissed their children. They are the raw recruits in life's great army, and they cannot let their General alone. But the trained soldier trusts Him, believes in a life-plan that he cannot see, and prays for submission to the will of God, though the cup be bitter and the cross be sore. O follower of Christ, let God alone. Perhaps it is kinder to bring the rod upon thy back than to put the jeweled ring upon thy finger. He has a path for thee. He has a plan for thee. He has a heaven for thee. Watch, wait, cooperate, accept, but do not insolently interfere.

I believe, too, that there is a wider sense in which we are called to let God alone. For I am conscious in the religious life of our time of a certain fretful anxiety and unrest and the absence of a quiet and solemn dignity that gave a grandeur to our fathers' piety. I am amazed, indeed, to note how men and women can be engaged for years in so-called Christian service, and it never seems to dignify their characters, and never lifts them an inch above the world, and never sweetens their so unkindly tongue. Do you remember Uzzah? Do you remember how the ark of God on the new cart was jolted and shaken by Nachon's threshing-floor? And Uzzah, in terror lest the ark should fall, put out his hand, took hold of it, and steadied it. And the anger of God was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there, and he died. Happy for Uzzah had he let God alone! And the spirit of Uzzah is abroad today. There is an irreligious anxiety for God. And while I thank Him for all loyal service, and praise Him for all consecrated hands, I want men to believe the ark is holy, and I want men to believe that God is sovereign, and I want a little of the reverence and of the wonder and of the awe brought back again that befit the creature serving his reigning King.

Times We Must Leave Men Alone

If there are times when we must leave God alone, there are times when we must let men alone. And that is our second thought; there are times when we must let men alone.

And here again, as was the case with God, these times are rarely the times when men would like it. The very hour when a man cries to be let alone may be the very hour when I dare not do so. The Bible is full of instances of that. One notable one springs up, and it is this. It is the morning when Jesus entered the synagogue at Capernaum, and there was a man with an unclean spirit there. And the man cried, "Let us alone, what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?" And Jesus? Jesus rebuked him saying, "Hold thy peace and come out of him." It was impossible for Christ, just because He was the Christ, to let that devil-ridden soul alone. And wherever men are living on in sin, helpless and bound, strangers to peace and God, the Church of Jesus cannot let them be. A sinful soul may cry, Let me alone! But with a sweet and masterful intolerance, Christ is still deaf to that; and we must help, and we must save mankind, even against their own wishes.

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[nChrist]

Unwarrantable Interferences - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

This grace, then, of letting alone, frees no man from his moral responsibility either towards his wandered or his heathen brother. Where, then, does it enter into human life? We shall take another Gospel incident and see. I find Christ sitting at Simon the leper's table, and the woman who was a sinner is kneeling there, and she has broken the alabaster box and is pouring the precious ointment on the feet of Jesus. And the disciples murmur and are indignant. They cannot understand this gross extravagance. "Might not this ointment have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?" Let her alone, says Jesus, why trouble ye the woman? Let her alone, you do not understand. She is serving with a service of her own, moved by the passion of an all-pardoning love: there is one work; there is one character for her; there is another service and another life for you.

And that is one glory of the Gospel. It does not crush men into one common mould, but it gives the greatest freedom to individuality and perfects and crowns each struggling soul uniquely. You are never yourself till you are Christ's, and woe to that preaching of an exalted Lord that forces men's service into a common type! It is not because I want to be original, it is because I want to be a Christian, that I say to all murmuring disciples, let me alone; I have my box to break; it is not yours. I want to see the keen man, the man who is honorable and Christian in his business. And I want to see the philanthropist, the man who is eagerly bent on doing good. And I want to see the dreamer, the man who feels the beauty of the world, and never does anything, perhaps, except reflect it. And I wish to say to the philanthropist, Do not upbraid the merchant. And I wish to say to the keen man of business, Do not despise the dreamer. Let him alone. He too is serving God. There is need for the purification of the market. There is need for heroic work among the poor. There is need that the beautiful should be interpreted. And when all is over and the morning breaks and the manifold service of a million hearts is unified in Christ, you will be thankful that you let others alone, for there will be more "well dones" than you have ever dreamed!

Pray That God Never Lets You Alone

There are times, then, when we must leave God alone. There are times when we must let man alone. I just want to say this in closing: Heaven grant it that God never lets you or me alone.

There is a terrible text in the Old Testament: "Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone." I have pleaded with Ephraim, says God, for years. I have pleaded with Ephraim as a father with his child. But Ephraim has spurned Me; he has given his heart to his idols; and Ephraim is reprobate. His day of grace has set. "Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone." Drive on thy chariot, Ephraim, to thy hell. There is a terrible text in the New Testament. It is when Jesus says to Judas, "What thou doest, do quickly." For I have pleaded with thee, O Judas; I have prayed with thee. And now his doom is sealed; let him alone. Out, Judas, get it over, get it done, and to thine own place, hastily.

The hour may come when God lets us alone.

Do you say that hour will never come to you? Watch! For it is not by a desperate career, and it is not by one black and awful deed, that a man shall sin away the grace of God. It is by the silent hardening of our common days, the almost unnoticed tampering with conscience, the steady dying-out of what is best under the pressure of a worldly city; it is by that the spiritual dies, it is by that men become castaways. Better the harshest discipline than that. Great God of mercy, let none of us alone! Deal with us, lead us, chasten us as Thou wilt, if only we be sanctified, ennobled, and drawn out of self into the light of Him who is chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

August 16

Undeveloped Lives - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone — Joh_12:24

Waste in Nature

In the summer, when the world is at its fairest, one thing that impresses us very strongly is what I might call the prodigality of nature. Every flower is busy fashioning its seeds; there are trees with thousands of seed pods on them; and we know that of all these millions of seeds being formed, not one in ten thousand will ever come to anything. Now, I am not going to speak of the problems suggested by that wastefulness. I wish rather to say a word or two upon the subject of undeveloped lives. In every corn of wheat that finds no congenial soil, there are undeveloped possibilities of harvest; and that suggests to me the question that often confronts us, the question of undeveloped lives.

The Possibilities of Life Often Overwhelm Us

There are some seasons when we feel this more acutely. Allow me to recall some of these times to you. One is the hour when we are brought into contact with a strong and radiant personality. There is something very stimulating in such company, but often there is something strangely depressing too. Most of us have felt some sinking of the heart in the presence of exuberant vitality. I do not mean that we are repressed or chilled; it is not the great souls, it is the little souls, that chill us. But I mean that the possibilities of life so overwhelm us, in the splendid outflow of a radiant nature, that we feel immediately, perhaps to the point of heart-sinking, how undeveloped our own life must be.

Again, we feel it in these rarer moments that come to us all sometimes, we know not how—moments when life ceases to be a tangle, and flashes up into a glorious unity. In such hours it is a joy to be alive; thought is intense; things quiver with significance. There is a passing expansion of every power and faculty, touched by mysterious influences we cannot gauge. I think that for Jesus every hour was like that. For us, such hours are like angels' visits. But when they come they bring such visions of the possible, that we feel bitterly how poor are our common days. If this be our measure we are not living to scale. If this be our waking, is not our life a sleep? It is in the rarer and loftier moments, then, that we apprehend the meaning of undeveloped life.

Early Death Brings Sorrow of Undeveloped Lives

But perhaps it is in the presence of early death that the thought reaches us with its full pressure. For the tragedy of early death is not its suffering; it is the blighted promise and the hope that is never crowned. I scarcely wonder that in well-nigh every cemetery you shall see a broken column as a monument. It is hardly Christian, but it is very human, and I do not think God will be hard on what is human. Wherever death is, you have mystery. But in the death of the young the mystery is doubled. And where there were high gifts of heart and intellect, the mystery is deepened a thousandfold. Why all this promise? Why this noble overture? Why, when the pattern is just beginning to show comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears and slits the thin-spun life? The great mystery of the early grave is the sorrow of undeveloped lives.

The Pain of God in Seeing Undeveloped Lives

Now there is one thing that I should like to say in passing. It is that in the light of undeveloped lives there must be infinite pain in the omniscience of God. Do you remember how Robert Browning sang, "All I could never be, All men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God"? God recognizes the value and the power of the possibilities we never even see. We take men as we see them, for the most part. We do not trouble about hidden talents. If our eyes were opened in the city street to the undeveloped love and gifts and character in the crowd, what a new sense of hopelessness would strike us! But the hungering of love we never dream of, and the craving of hearts, and the gifts that cannot blossom, all these are clear as a star to the Eternal, and that is one sorrow of divine omniscience.

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[nChrist]

Undeveloped Lives - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Christ's Influence in Developing Lives

Now one of the first things to arrest me in Christ Jesus is His influence in developing the lives He touches. It is as if God, in that sorrow of omniscience, had charged His Son to call forth all possibilities. I doubt not there were other publicans with gifts as good as Matthew's, and other doctors quite as sincere as Luke; but under the influence of Jesus Christ the gifts of these men so developed that they have made all Christendom their debtors, while the rest are sleeping in unrecorded graves. When Simon Peter first steps upon the scene he is a rash, impulsive, and impetuous man. One recognizes the slumbering greatness in him; but one feels the boundless possibilities of evil. So Jesus takes him and uses him as a master musician might use his beloved instrument, till the chords are wakened into such glorious music that the centuries are ringing with it still. Jesus touched nothing which He did not adorn. And He adorned, not as we decorate our streets, but as God adorns the lilies of the field. He drew from the worst their unsuspected best. He kindled the love and pity that were sleeping. He roused into most effectual exercise whatsoever gift or talent was concealed. And if today the aggregate life of Christendom is infinitely deeper, fuller, and more complex than any life the world has ever known, we largely owe it to the influence of Jesus in the development of human life.

Development Does Not Depend on Time

The question, then, which I desire to ask is this: What were the forces that Jesus used in this great work? And I wish you to notice, as it were by way of preface, how the historical career of Jesus makes the thought of development independent of the years. We say that the days of our years are threescore years and ten. We get to think that three score years are needed if human life is to come to its fruition. And then we are confronted with the life of Jesus, a life symmetrical, proportioned, perfect, and Jesus of Nazareth died at thirty-three. Most lives are just awaking into power then; but the life of Jesus was perfect in its fullness. Most of us would cry at thirty-three, "It is only now beginning"; but Jesus upon the cross cried, "It is finished." And the great lesson which that carries for every one of us is that we must not measure development by time. There may be years in which every talent in us is stagnant. We live in a dull and most mechanical way. Then comes an hour of call or inspiration, and our whole being deepens and expands. A crushing sorrow, a crisis, or a joy, develops manhood with wonderful rapidity, and may do the work of twelve months in a week. Let us remember, looking unto Jesus, and noting the shortness of that perfect life, that the scale of development is not the scale of years.

"Love Lifted Me"

What, then, were the great forces Jesus used in developing undeveloped life? The first was His central truth that God is love. He taught men that in heaven was a Father; that the heart that fashioned them and ruled them, also loved them; and in that vision of the love of God, men found a magnificent environment for growth. I think we all know how love develops character. I think most of us have known that in our homes. If in our childhood we were despised or hated, the most expensive schooling could not right things. A mother's love is the finest education. When a man is afraid he never shows his best. When all the faces around him are indifferent, there is no call to stir upon his talents. But when love comes, then all the depths are opened, and life becomes doubly rich and doubly painful, and every hope is quickened, and every desire enlarged, and common duties become royal services, and common words take a new depth of meaning. We all know how love develops character. That was the first power that Jesus used. He said to a repressed and fearful world, "God loves you." And if human life has been developing in Christendom into amazing and undreamed-of amplitude, it is primarily a response to that appeal.

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[nChrist]

Undeveloped Lives - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

To Develop One Must Surrender

But there was another power that Jesus used. It was the human instinct of self-surrender. It is the glory of Jesus that He called self-surrender into the service of our self-development.

There was one religion in the ancient world that strove with all its power to make man complete. It was the beautiful religion of the Greeks, and its aim was to make life a thing of beauty. It did not fail; but it slowly passed away. It proved unequal to the terrible strain of life. And one reason of its decadence was just this, it had no place for the grandeur of self-sacrifice. Then rose the philosophy of Stoicism, and it grasped with both hands the truth of self-surrender. It said the first duty of man is to surrender, till he has steeled himself into impregnable manhood. It failed, because life insisted on expansion. It failed, as every philosophy and creed must fail, that says to the God-touched soul, "Thus far thou shalt come and no farther." It had grasped the vital need of selfsurrender, but by self-surrender it had really meant self suppression.

And then came Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God. And He said, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out." Surrender thy sight, if need be; but then why? That the glories of heaven may break upon thy soul. And if thou hast ten talents, give them out; and why? That thou mayst have thine own with usury. And if thou art a rich young ruler, sell all thou hast; and why? That thou mayst enter into the deeper, larger life that comes from the wholehearted following of the Lord. The Greek philosophy had said, "Develop and be happy." The Stoic had said, "Surrender and be strong." But Jesus said, "You never shall develop till you have learned the secret of surrendering." I think, then, that that was Jesus' second power in advancing the development of life. He did not only say, "Take up thy cross." There were other teachers who might have said that too. But He said, "Take up thy cross that thou mayst follow Me"; and He is life abundant and complete.

Our Life Shall Go on Developing Forever

Lastly, and this is the crowning inspiration, our Lord expanded life into eternity. Our life shall go on developing forever, under the sunshine and in the love of God. "I go to prepare a place for you," He said. The environment of heaven shall be perfect. Love is at work making things ready for us that we may ripen in the light forevermore. I know no thought more depressing than the thought that all effort is to be crushed at death. It hangs like a weight of lead upon the will, when a man would launch into some new endeavor. But if death is an incident and not an end, if every baffled striving shall be crowned, if "All I could never be, All men ignored in me," is to expand into actuality when I awake, I can renew my struggle after every failure. It is that knowledge, given us by Jesus, that has inspired the development of Christendom. I affectionately plead with you to make it yours

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
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(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
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of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
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[nChrist]

August 17

Spiritual Analysis - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him— Joh_12:29

Christ's Agony and God's Assurance

The visit of these Greeks to Jesus was a very memorable hour in His experience. It opened up prospects to Him of a worldwide recognition, and in that recognition lay His glory. But immediately there pressed upon His heart the dark road by which that glory must be won, and as the vision of a cross rose clear before Him, His soul grew exceeding sorrowful even unto death. "What shall I say," He cried, "Father save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father thy will be done, I take the cup: glorify thy name, whatever the cost to me." And then there came a voice from heaven saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." It was God's assurance in the darkest hour that through agony and death Christ would not be forsaken. It was the divine token given when needed most, that the love of heaven would not let Him go. And when the people heard the voice some said it thundered, and others that an angel spoke unto Him.

Now that at once suggests two thoughts to me, and these two, to which I ask your attention for a little, are: First, there are many things to which we can give either a lower or a higher meaning. Second, it is when we give such things their higher meaning that we are nearest to the truth.

Higher or Lower Meanings

First, then, there are many things to which we can give lower or higher meanings, and we see how clearly this is illustrated in the scene from which I have taken our text. There came a voice from heaven; it was the voice of God, that voice which is as the sound of many waters, and with the same accent of unutterable depth it fell on every ear of the awed bystanders. And to some it was nothing but the roll of thunder, there was nothing miraculous or supernatural about it; it was only the muttering and brooding of the storm that had been threatening to break perhaps since sunrise. But to others, gifted with finer sense, and among them it may be the shepherds who had been on the hills at Bethlehem, there was something in the sound that was inexplicable unless it had fallen from the lips of angels. It was the same note that struck on every heart. At the back of all we see and hear there is our character, and our character reacts on everything that reaches it. So to the separate men there came the voice of God, and they all heard it—how could they help but hear it; yet when they heard it some said it thundered, and others that an angel spoke to Him.

In Nature You See What You Are

Now I might illustrate this truth in many spheres, and first let me ask you to think of the world of nature. It is the same world to everyone of us, yet to everyone of us how different it is. You send a geologist out into the country, and he has eyes for every rock and dip and cutting. You send a botanist out into the country, and every flower on the hedgebank speaks to him. To a poet there is a voice in every breeze, sermons in stones, books in the running brooks; but to Eugene Aram, cursed with a sense of guilt, every branch in the forest seemed to point a finger, and every zephyr whispered of detection. "The thief doth fear each bush and officer," says Shakespeare. Milton, writing of the nightingale, calls it "bird most musical most melancholy"; yet the poet Coleridge, in a well-known passage, speaks of it as the merry nightingale. The fact is it was Milton who was melancholy, and it was not the nightingale but Coleridge who was merry: both listened to the same exquisite music, and then their sad, glad hearts made all the difference. My point is that they are always doing that. Unto the pure all things are pure. Our life and mood and character and temper react on everything we see and hear, until for one man this is a poor dead universe, and for another the very home of God. One world—yet some will call it a machine, and others will find it instinct with divinity. One voice—yet some said it thundered, and others that an angel spoke to Him.

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[nChrist]

Spiritual Analysis - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Oneness in Our Deepest and Highest Lives

Or turning from nature we might think of human life, the common life we are all leading. It is very surprising, when you get deep enough, to discover the oneness of all human hearts. It is our surface-life that really separates us; it is largely outward and accidental things that drive us asunder. When you get beneath the surface into that deeper region where the truer and intense life is lived, it is wonderful how soon you find that touch of nature—the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. Men tell us that if in one room you place two well-tuned harps and strike a note loudly on one harp, immediately upon the other harp you will hear the same note faintly yet clearly echoing: and so when the chords of these souls of ours are touched by the one hand that is the Master of their music, there is not a soul within hail but may be set vibrating in most mysterious and kindly unison. In our great experiences we understand each other. In our deeper joys and sorrows we are one. In our elemental passions, in our hopes and fears, our social distinctions crumble in the dust. There is an essential oneness in our deepest and highest life as there was in the voice that fell upon these bystanders.

We Color Life Differently

But then the strange thing is that men should take that life, that common stock and harvest of experience, and should view it so differently and give it such different colorings as it passes through the alembic of their characters; that for one man life becomes a glory and for another man life becomes a curse. What is a pessimist? He is a man who holds that life for all its sunshine is a tragedy. What is an optimist? He is a man who holds that for all its tragedy life's brow is towards the sunrise. Yet pessimist and optimist alike, with a whole world between their interpretations, are looking out on the same crowded theatre and listening to the same human voice divine. You remember how the poet Keats describes this life:

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and specter thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

I should call that the pessimistic view.

And you remember how Longfellow describes this present life:

Life is real, life is earnest,

And the grave is not its goal.

I should call that the optimistic view. Yet before both there passed the same procession, and it was the one world which inspired both their songs. Some said it thundered when the voice was heard, and others said an angel spoke to Him. Some could hear nothing but a threatening tempest; others in the same voice detected angel music. And so with life at large, men are so different—may I not say they have made themselves so different—that where to one there is only the muttering storm, to another there are the broken syllables of God.

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[nChrist]

Spiritual Analysis - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

The Importance of Interpretation of Experiences

And is it not the same with our own life's experience? What different meanings we extract from it! It is not what we meet with that is of supreme importance, it is how we interpret what we meet with. The same joy will make one intensely selfish, and make another to be intensely grateful; and the same sorrow will make one man blaspheme, and bring another broken-hearted to God's feet. How many have cried in some desolating hour when they have been stripped of the savings or of the love of years—how many have cried, lifting rebellious hands, "This is cruel; I cannot believe God loves me." Yet Job, stripped in a day of everything, crushed, humbled, ruined, orphaned in an hour, could only cry, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Do not forget, then, that it is our privilege and our power always to react on whatever God may send. The speech of God has always double meanings, and the interpretation is not God's but ours. By all we have made ourselves, by what we strive for, by our faith, our love, our real and vital manhood, do we extract the meaning of our providence's and get just what is really our own. "We all get what we bring." Some said that it thundered, others that an angel spoke—it was the same voice transmuted through different hearts. And the vast distinction between the lives that triumph and those that go drifting out into the night, is not so much the kind of thing they meet with as the kind of way in which they understand it.

Christ's Life Differently Interpreted

Then I often think of our text and of its bearings when I read the Gospel story of the life of Jesus. What a moral test and touchstone was that life—take some of His great miracles and see what happened. "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub," the scribes said; and His friends and relatives said, "He is beside himself." But the common people, when they saw the miracles, immediately glorified the God of Israel. How is it with us as we face that life today? What do we make of these deeds, these words, that death? God does not force us to accept the truth; He says, "There are the facts, interpret them for yourselves." Happy the man who in a simple faith has been so nourished and upbuilt by Jesus Christ that though all the world should gainsay him he would still be confident that no one less than an angel spoke to him.

Attributing Higher Meaning Brings You Closer to the Truth

Thus far then of the first thought I wished to illustrate, that things may be capable of deeper or higher meanings; now secondly, and in a few sentences in closing, this: It is when we give such things their higher meaning that we are nearer to the truth.

Now I ask you to observe in the passage of our text that none of the bystanders gauged the voice correctly. Some said it thundered, and yet it did not thunder. Some said it was an angel, and yet no angel spoke. Both parties were wrong; both were beside the mark; as a matter of actual fact, both were astray. Yet the men who interpreted the sound most loftily were far nearer to the truth than were the others. Whose was the voice that spake? It was the voice of God. And not one in the crowd recognized it as God's voice. To that extent everyone of them was wrong, the wisest of them no less than the most foolish. But if an angel, with his magnificent intelligence stands nearer to God than a dead thunderbank, and if the voice of an angel that expresses reason is more akin to God's voice than the brooding storm, then the men who interpreted the sound most loftily—who said it was not thunder but an angel— were far nearer to the truth than were the others.

Need I expand that lesson ? I think not. You can take it with you and practice it. The chances are that in nine-tenths of our judgments, you and I like these Jews are quite astray. But whatever you are judging, lean to the nobler side. If it is thunder or angels, vote for the angels. I care not what it be, whether your neighbor's character or your own trials or public men or Scripture. And though when the morning breaks we all may be proved astray—for who dare be dogmatic in this world of shadows—I think we shall find that if we took life at its highest and interpreted everything at the largest, not its least, we shall be nearer the truth as it is in Jesus, than if we had chosen in any lower way.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

August 18

The Cross and the World - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel— Mat_15:24
I, if I be lifted up…will draw all men unto me— Joh_12:32

Christ Came to and for Israel

We have but to read the record of the Gospels, to find confirmation of the former of these texts. The whole activity of Christ on earth shows Him as sent to the lost sheep of Israel. Within the boundaries of Israel He was born, and within the boundaries of Israel He died. With the one exception of the journey here recorded, He never in His maturity left the Jewish land. His twelve disciples were of the Jewish faith; His friends were inhabitants of Jewish homes; His enemies were not the Romans, but His own, to whom He came and they received Him not. For His teaching He sought no other audience than the men and women of the Jewish villages. For His retirement He sought no other solitude an that of the Galilean hills. And all His miracles, with rare exceptions, which were recorded because they were exceptional, were wrought for the comforting of Jewish hearts, and for the drying of tears in Jewish eyes. The whole story of the Gospel, then, is a witness to the truth of our first text. In the fulfilling of His earthly ministry Christ confined Himself to Jewish limits. And He did so because of His assurance, that He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Christ, However, Anticipated a Wider Ministry

But as we study the words of our Redeemer, one thing gradually grows very clear. It is that He anticipated a ministry that should be wider than these Jewish limits. I am not thinking just now of any words He spoke after He was risen from the dead. I am thinking only of His recorded utterances in those crowded years before the cross. And what I say is that no reasonable man can study the discourse of the historic Jesus without discovering that He foresaw a ministry which was to be as wide as the whole world. There is, for instance, the second of our texts today—"I will draw all men unto me." There is that beautiful word of an earlier chapter, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold." There is that utterance at Simon's table, when the woman broke the alabaster box, "Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, this that she hath done shall be told of her." I ask you to observe that these great sayings have stood the test of the most searching criticism. They are so germane to the mind of Christ that they have come triumphant through the fires. And they tell us this, that through the earthly ministry, confined as it was within the house of Israel, Christ had the outlook of an approaching lordship over the nations of mankind.

The Cross and the Worldwide Empire

But these utterances tell us more than that, and to this I specially invite attention. They tell us that in the mind of Jesus His death and His worldwide empire were related. So far as we can learn about the mind of Christ, we can with reverence say this about it. It was when the cross was clearest in His thought that the worldwide empire was most clear to Him. If you will think of the texts which I have cited, and consider the occasion of their utterance, you will understand quite easily what I mean. Take for instance that most beautiful word, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold." What are the words which immediately precede it? "The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." At the very moment when the thought of shepherding kindled the vision of the shepherd's death, at that very moment there flashed upon the Lord the vision of the sheep beyond the fold. Take again the scene at Simon's feast where Jesus spoke of a Gospel for the world. "Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there this deed that she hath done shall be remembered." And what was it that the woman had done under the interpreting eyes of Jesus Christ? She had anointed His body for its burial. In other words that womanly act of hers had spoken to Jesus of His coming death. Over the table where the guests reclined, it had cast the awful shadow of the cross. And it was then, anointed for His burial by an act which no one else could understand, that Christ in vision lifted up His eyes and saw the Gospel preached to the whole world. Clearly, then, Christ looked upon His death as the great secret of a worldwide empire. When the one grew vivid in His thought, there rose on Him the vision of the other. And that to me is a matter to meditate on, as one of the most momentous of all truths, by every man and every woman who is interested in the world empire of the Lord. Now the question is, can we follow out that thought, and see even dimly where the connection lies? It is that which I should like to attempt to do.

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[nChrist]

The Cross and the World - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

The Motive of Missionary Enterprise

In the first place, it is the death of Christ which supplies the motive of missionary enterprise.

We must ever remember that when we speak of the death of Christ, we speak of a death different from our own. Our death is the cessation of activity; Christ's was the crown and climax of His life. "I have power to lay it down," He said, and that is a power no other man has shared. We die when our appointed hour comes, and when the hand of God hath touched us, and we sleep. But Christ never looked upon His death like that, as something inevitable and irresistible. He looked on it as the last free glorious service of a life that had always been a life of love. Here in one gleam, intense and vivid, was gathered up the light of all His years. Here in one action which we name His dying was gathered up the love in which He wrought. And it is just because of the power of that action, concentrating all the scattered rays, that Christ could say, "I, if I be lifted up,…will draw all men unto me." How true this is as a fact of history we see in the story of the Christian Church. There is the closest connection in that story between the death of Christ and missionary zeal. There have been periods in the Church's history when the death of Christ was practically hidden. The message of the cross was rarely preached; the meaning of the cross was rarely grasped. And the Gospel was looked on as a refined philosophy, eminently fitted for the good of men, inculcating a most excellent morality, and in perfect harmony with human reason. We have had periods like that in Scotland, and we have had periods like that in England. God grant that they may never come again with their deadening of true religion. And always when you have such a period, when love is nothing and moral law is everything, you have a period when not a hand is lifted for the salvation of the heathen world. For it is not morality that seeks the world; it is religion centering in love. It is a view of a divine love so wonderful that it stooped to the service of death upon a cross. So always, in evangelical revival, when that has been apprehended in the wonder of it, the passion to tell it out has come again, and men have carried the message to mankind.

And may I say that it is along these lines that the road must lie to a deepening of interest. To realise what it means that Christ died, is to have a Gospel that we must impart. There are many excellent people who, in their secret heart, confess to a very faint interest in missions. They give, and it may be they give generously, and yet in their hearts they know that they are not interested. They know almost nothing about mission-fields, and are never seen at missionary meetings, and take the opportunity to visit a sister church when a missionary is advertised to preach in theirs. With such people I have no lack of sympathy, for I think I understand their position thoroughly. I have the gravest doubt if any good is done by trying excitedly to lash up their interest. But I am perfectly confident that these good people would waken to a new and lively interest, if only they realised a little more the wonder of the love of God in Christ. What think you, my brother and my sister, is the most wonderful thing that ever happened? It is not the kindling of the myriad stars, nor the fashioning of the human eye that it might see them. It is that once the God who is eternal stooped down from heaven and came into humanity, and bore our burdens, and carried our sorrows, and died in redeeming love upon the tree. Once realise what that means, and everything else in the world is insignificant. Once realise what that means, and you must pass it on to other people. And that is the source of missionary zeal—not blind obedience, nor any thoughts of terror, but the passing on of news so wonderful that we cannot—dare not—keep it to ourselves.

The Answer for a Universal Need

In the next place, the death of Christ interprets and answers a universal longing. It meets with perfect satisfaction the deepest need of all the world.

One of the great gains of this age of ours is that it has drawn the world together so. There is now an intermingling of the nations that but a few decades ago was quite impossible. Thanks to the means of transport we possess, and to the need of expansion on the part of nations; thanks to the deathless spirit of adventure, to the gains of commerce and to the march of armies, there is a blending now of the whole earth such as was undreamed of once. Now one result of all that intermingling has been a new sense of the oneness of humanity. No longer do we delight in travellers' tales, such as captivated the Middle Ages. Men push their way into untravelled forests, and they come to us from Arabia and Tibet, and under all that is strange they bring us tidings of the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. We realise today as men have never done, how God has made all nations of one blood. Deeper than everything that separates, there are common sorrows and elemental hopes. There is one common heart by which we live; one common life in which we share; one common enemy awaiting all, when the pitcher is broken at the fountain.

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[nChrist]

The Cross and the World - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

But especially has this oneness of humanity been made evident in the religious life. That has been one incalculable gain of the modern study of comparative religion. It has investigated a thousand rites, and found at the back of them a common longing. It has touched the foundations of a thousand altars, and found they were built upon a common need. It has gathered from Africa, from India, from China, the never-failing story of religion, and always at the very heart of things it has discovered one unchanging element. It is not enough to say that all men have religion. That is now an accepted commonplace. Something far more wonderful and thrilling has been slowly emerging into prominence. It is that under a thousand different rites, from those of Patagonia to those of China, there lies the unquenchable desire of man to get into right relationship with God. Deeper than all sense of gratitude, though gratitude is very often there—deeper than unreasoning terror, though heathen religion is always big with terror deeper than that, this fact stands out today, based on exhaustive and scientific study, that the deepest longing in the soul of man is the longing to get right with God. It is that in the last analysis which explains sacrifice, and where is the heathen tribe that does not sacrifice? It is that which explains the sway of heathen witchcraft, of which the evils can never be exaggerated. The religious life is the deepest life of man, and in that life, over the whole wide world, the one determining and vital question is, how can mortal man get right with God?

My friend, I almost ask your pardon for having taken you so far afield. But you see, I think, the point which I am driving at, and from which there is no possible escape. That very question, so vital to humanity, is the question which the atonement answers. It answers the cry that is rising to the heavens from every heathen rite and heathen altar. It tells men in language that a child can grasp, yet with a depth that angels cannot fathom, how sinful man by an appointed sacrifice can be put right with the eternal God. I believe with all my soul in educational missions, but at the heart of missions is more than education. I believe with all my soul in medical missions, but at the heart of missions there is more than healing. Christ never said, "My teaching shall draw all men," nor yet, "My healing power shall draw all men"; He said, "I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men, and this spake He of the death that He should die." That means that in the atoning death there is the answer to man's deepest need. It means that the deepest cry of all humanity is answered in the message of the cross. And I venture to say that all we have learned today in the modern study of comparative religion, corroborates, and authenticates, and seals that certainty upon the lips of Jesus.

The Necessary Step before the Comforter Could Come

Then, lastly, we have the thought that the death of Christ has liberated His influence. It has opened the window of the ark, if I might put it so, that the dove might fly abroad over the waters. "It is expedient for you that I go away," He said, "for if I go not away the Comforter cannot come." Now the Lord is that Spirit, says the apostle—it is that same Jesus glorified and liberated. So by the lifting up upon the cross Christ was set free from local limitation, to pass into a spiritual ministry that should be co-extensive with the world. No longer can any village of far Galilee claim the present monopoly of Christ. No longer can loving hearts in Bethany say, "He is our guest and ours only for tonight." He is at present now by the lake shores of Africa as He is within the house of God where you worship—because He lived and died. We often talk of the story of the cross as if in that story lay the world's redemption. But I beg of you to remember that while that is true, it is far from being all the truth. Christ spoke not a word of the story of the cross. He said, I—persisting through the cross—I, the living Christ, will draw the world—I whom death is powerless to hold. In other words, when our missionaries go forth, they go with something more than a sweet story. They go with Him of whom the tale is told, so wonderful, so unspeakable, so moving. They go with Him who, having tasted death, is now alive and lives for evermore, and who is able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto God by Him.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________