George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

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August 19

Seeing Jesus Is Seeing God

He that seeth me seeth him that sent me— Joh_12:45

Utterances of Transcendent Importance

That these words are of profound importance we may gather from two considerations. The one is that our Savior cried them (Joh_12:44). As a rule our Savior did not cry. lie did not cry nor lift up His voice in the streets. But now and then, in some exalted hour, the Gospels tell us that He cried (Joh_7:37). And in every instance when He cried, we have words that take us to the very heart of things. Also, remember that in these verses we have our Lord's last public sermon. From the beginning of chapter thirteen onwards our Lord is in seclusion with His own. And we may be certain that every word He uttered in His final and farewell discourse would be of infinite significance.

Does God Meet Man's Need?

We recognize that infinite significance when we face the problem of our faith today. Our problem is not to believe there is a God, but to be sure that He answers to our highest thought of Him. We may justly and seriously question if any man be really an atheist. Some think they are, in moments of recoil; others assert it on street corners. But it seems to me that the thought of God is intermingled with our deepest being, as the sunshine is intertangled with the daffodils which are making the world beautiful. Our difficulty is not to believe there is a God. The atheist has been replaced by the agnostic. Our real difficulty centers in His character—is He equal to our highest thought of Him? For when life is difficult, and ways are shadowed, the soul can never have quietness and confidence unless the Rock be "higher than I."

Is There Any Cruelty in God?

This difficulty is profoundly felt in the modern study of the world of nature. "I find no proof in nature," wrote Huxley once to Kingsley, "of what you call the Fatherhood of God." Nature is quick with whisperings of God as every lover of her knows. That was one reason why our Savior loved her and haunted the places where the lilies were. But no one can seriously study nature without finding there elements of cruelty, and at once the thoughtful mind begins to ask, "Is there, then, cruelty in God?" If there be, He may be still "the Rock," but He is not "the Rock that is higher than I." We never can trust Him in an entire surrender if there be a shadow of cruelty in His nature. And that is the difficulty of many students now, not to credit the existence of a God, but to believe that He is higher than our highest.

Is There Any Injustice in God?

Or, again, we turn to human life, eager to find God in human life. That is a perfectly reasonable inquiry, for "in Him we live and move and have our being." Now, tell me, when we turn to human life are there not things in it that look like gross injustices — injustices that do not spring from character nor from any harvesting of sin? And if man be not responsible for these, at once the thinking mind begins to ask, "Is it God, then, who is responsible for these?" Granted that He is, God may still exist. Atheism is an illogical conclusion. But granted that He is, how can we ever love Him with our whole soul and strength and mind? If in Him in whom we have our being there be the faintest suspicion of injustice, we never can trust Him in utter self-surrender. Take everything you find in life and nature and transfer it to the heart upon the throne, and how extraordinarily difficult it is to believe that the Rock is higher than ourselves. And yet unless it be infinitely higher, there is no help for us when the golden bowl is broken nor when the daughters of music are brought low.

God Is What Jesus Is

And then we hear the word of the Lord Jesus, "He that beholdeth me beholdeth him that sent me." Or, as He said to Philip only a little later, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." We are not commanded to take all we find in nature or in life and carry it up to the heart upon the throne. "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." But we are commanded, over and over again, to take everything we find in Jesus, and by that to read the character of God. Just as a little moorland pool will reflect all the glory of the heavens, so Christ, in the limits of His humiliation, is the mirror of the heart of God. That is what the writer to the Hebrews means when, at the beginning of his magnificent epistle, he calls Christ the "reflection of His glory" (Heb_1:3). That is a very splendid act of faith in this seemingly unjust and cruel world. But that is the act of faith which marks the Christian. We by Him do believe in God (1Pe_1:21). If he who hath seen Christ hath seen the Father, then we can trust the Father to the uttermost, and leave all other difficulties to be cleared when the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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August 20

The Washing of the Disciples' Feet

He poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples, feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded— Joh_13:5

Jesus' Love for His Disciples

From this point onward in the Gospel of St. John, we have the private communion of Jesus with His disciples. When one is leaving for a distant country, and has transacted all necessary business with the outside world, he is fain to spend the few remaining hours in the sweet intimacy of the family circle. So Jesus, when the shadows of His departure stole around Him, dwelt in loving communion with His own. It is to this that John is pointing when he says, "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end" (Joh_13:1). He does not mean until the end of life. He means unto the end and limit of all love. Christ's love, like His life, is endless and unchangeable. There is no yesterday and no tomorrow in its depths. But in the latter hours of that now shadowed communion, there was such outwelling of the eternal passion, that John felt that its tides were at the full. Christ always loved them; now He loved them utterly. That was the thought borne in on the disciple. Yet mark that this uttermost showing of Jesus' love did not lie in unchecked and passionate avowals, but in an action of the lowliest service, and in teaching that would make the loved ones strong. The noblest love must always keep its secrets. It becomes weak when it protests too much. The love of Jesus is the perfect pattern of what the love of every young man and woman ought to be. Note, too, that in this little prologue (Joh_13:1-3), there is the note of knowledge as well as of love. The proverb has it that love is blind; but the love of Jesus was very far from that. He knew that the hour was come that He should depart (Joh_13:1). He knew that the Father had given all things into His hands (Joh_13:3). He knew who should betray Him (Joh_13:11). It was under the illumination of that knowledge that Jesus washed the feet of John and Judas. Does not that augment the wonder of the deed? Does it not set the crown upon its lowliness? Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich.

A Lesson on Humility

While supper, then, was proceeding, on the night before the Passover [for so we ought to translate it, instead of "supper being ended" (Joh_13:2)], Jesus rose from the table to perform this deed. Now the customary time for washing the feet of guests—and where men wore sandals and the heat was sweltering it was a very grateful and a very gracious practice—the customary moment for cleansing the feet was not during the mealtime, but before it. Here, then, there had been some little delay. The service had been omitted on this occasion. And I feel certain it had been omitted because no disciple was lowly enough to offer it. Probably it was about this very hour that they were disputing who should be the greatest (Luk_22:24). They were men like ourselves (we may thank God for it), and they had almost everything yet to learn. And was Peter, who had been arguing for his precedence, going to stoop down and wash the feet of John? And was John (who had his own thoughts about the traitor) going to play the servant to Iscariot? It was intolerable. It was impossible. They were willing to do much, but never that. So with hot feet (and hotter hearts) they went to supper, and Jesus saw it all and loved them still. Then Jesus rose and laid aside His garments. The bitterest rebukes are deeds, not words. He poured the water into a basin. He took the towel and girded Himself for service. And I think that when John, in his revelation on Patmos, saw the Son of Man girt with a golden girdle (Rev_1:13), he would recall this girding at the supper. So Jesus (whose own feet were to be pierced so soon) washed His disciples' feet, and dried them. Did He say to Himself, as He washed the feet of Thomas, "These feet will be beautiful upon the distant mountains"? Or did He say, as He dried the feet of Judas, "These will soon lead the mob into the Garden"? I do not know. But I am sure that in the stern and stormy years to come, not one of the eleven would ever have his tired feet washed, but he would recall this memorable hour.

One Major and Many Minor Cleansings

Meanwhile Jesus was approaching Peter, and the eleven were wondering what Peter would do. Perhaps Peter had been the noisiest in asserting that they would never catch him playing the foot-washer. And now, what a tumult there was in Peter's breast. What a tangle of good and evil in the man. All that was best in him (his reverence for his Lord), and all that was worst in him (his pride), made him draw up his foot as if the Lord's hand had stung it. But there was one thing that was all the world to Peter. It was the friendship of his glorious Master. And his Master (who is the unrivalled Master of the heart) touched, with His exquisite tenderness, that chord. "If I wash thee not, thou has no part with me." The very suggestion stabbed like a dagger. Peter thrust out his hands and bent down his head to Jesus: "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." Then Jesus teaches the lesson of the bath (Joh_13:10). If a man has bathed, and then has soiled his feet, must he plunge his whole body into the bath again? Will he not be truly cleansed (after his bath) if the particular defilement be removed? So, once and for all, a man is justified; once and for all, he is regenerated. And it is the stain here and the defilement there (contracted on the hot and dusty highway) that the risen Savior cleanses every sunset.

Deferred Understanding / Conditional Partnership / Humble Service

Now let us note three lessons on the story. First, we may not understand Christ at the time (Joh_13:7). There is not a child but must do a hundred tasks that she cannot see the worth and meaning of. There is not a mother but might croon to her little baby, "What I do, thou knowest not now." Do not wonder, then, if Christ acts as our mothers do. All children live by faith and not by sight. Next notice Christ's condition of having part with Him. "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." It is not, "If I teach or lead thee not"—far less is it, "If I love thee not." The one condition of partnership with Jesus is to be cleansed by His Spirit and His blood. Last, note Christ's call to loving and lowliest service. That is the center and sum of the whole story. "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet" (Joh_13:14). We sometimes talk of the language of the hands. And sometimes of the language of the eyes. But I think there is also a language of the feet, and I could translate the whole Gospel into it. For first comes Jesus (when we are bowed with sin) and He says, "Son of man, stand upon thy feet." And then comes Jesus (when we wish to serve Him), and He says to us, "Wash one another's feet." And then in the morning, when we are His forever, it is at His feet that we shall cast our crowns.

____________________

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.)
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[nChrist]

August 21

The Loneliness of Sin - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night— Joh_13:30

He Made His Bed in Hell

What first strikes us here is the utter loneliness of Judas. No word-painting, however vivid, could give a deeper impression of that than these few words of John: "He ... went immediately out: and it was night." Within, there was light and gladness, and the richest fellowship this world had ever known. For Christ was there, and John was leaning upon Jesus' bosom, and the talk was on high and holy themes that evening. Outside was fierce hostility. Outside was dark. And no man drove out Judas. No push and curse hurried him to the door. It was the momentum of his own heart and life that impelled him to choose the darkness rather than the light.

Shall we follow Judas into the dark street? He turns and looks, and the light is gleaming from the window of the upper chamber. He hurries on, and the streets are not empty yet. A band of young men, like himself, goes singing by. The sounds of evening worship come stealing from the houses. And everything that tells of love, and breathes of fellowship, and speaks of home, falls like a fiery rain on Judas' heart. The loneliness of Judas was intolerable. He had made his bed in hell. A friend of mine was once preaching on that text in the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh. And when he left the hall and was stepping homewards, a young man rushed across the street and grasped him by the arm and cried, "Minister, minister, I have made my bed in hell," and disappeared. And the lonely misery of that cry will ring in my friend's ears till his dying day. There was a loneliness in it like that in Judas. He was estranged, apart. "He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night."

In a Sense Everybody Is Lonely

There is a sense in which every person is lonely. Each has his different road, his different trial, his different joy; and these differences are invisible barriers between us, so that even in fellowship we walk apart. We say we know that woman thoroughly, and we believe we do, till someday there comes a new temptation to her, or a new chance to be heroic, and all our reckoning are falsified, and there are depths our plummet never sounded. I cannot utter forth all that I am. Gesture, speech, even music are but rude interpreters. The dullest has his dream he never tells. The very shallowest has his holy ground. There is an isolation of the soul that brings the note of pathos into history, and makes me very reluctant to judge my friend, and leads me to the very feet of Christ.

In a Sense Christ Was Lonely

For there is a deep sense in which Christ was lonely too. And it is strange that on the night of the betrayal, perhaps the two loneliest figures in the world were the sinful disciple and his sinless Lord. But oh, the world of difference between the two! Christ lonely because He was the Son of God, bearing His cross alone and going out into the glory. And Judas lonely because he was the son of perdition, with every harmony destroyed by sin, and going out into the night. Now towards which figure are you making, friend? For towards one or the other your feet are carrying you. There is a loneliness upon the mountain top. There is a loneliness in death and in the grave. And the one is the isolation of the climbing heart, and the other the isolation of the lost. Towards which are you headed? Is it "To the hills will I lift up mine eyes" or "The wages of sin is death"?

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The Loneliness of Sin - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Sin Separates

This, then, is one continual effect of sin. In every shape and form, in every age and country, it intensifies the loneliness of life. We talk of social sins. All sin is ultimately anti-social. We hear of comradeship's based upon common vices. All vice in the long run grinds the very thought of comradeship to powder. Sin isolates, estranges, separates; that is its work. It is the task of God ever to lead us to a richer fellowship. It is the work of sin, hidden but sure, to make us lonelier and more lonely till the end. From all that is best, and worthiest, and purest, it is the delight of sin to separate. And I want to touch on the three great separations that sin brings, making life a lonely thing.

Sin Separates Man from His Ideal

First, then, sin separates man from his ideal. When I have an ideal, I can never be quite lonely. When I have the vision beckoning me on, when I have something to live for and to struggle for higher than coin or food, there is a fervor in my common day, and a quiet enthusiasm for tomorrow, that are splendid company for my secret heart. And even if my ideal be a dream, it is so. In the famous battle between the clans on the North Inch of Perth, rendered immortal in the story of Sir Walter Scott, you will remember how the old chieftain Torquil sent out his sons to fight for Hector. And as one son after another fell under the smiting blows of Hal of the Wynd, the old chief thundered out, "Another for Hector," and another of his sons stepped forward to the battle. And they were all slain, every one of them, for Hector—and Hector was a coward. Let the ideal be a dream, yet men will fight for it; and fighting, the heart forgets its loneliness.

And the work of sin has been to separate the world from its ideals—to blot out the vision and to say to men, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Sin lays the emphasis on what I see. Sin holds me back from what I would be, and binds me a prisoner to what I am. Until, at last, through years of weary failure, all that we hoped and longed to be is gone, and the beckoning hands have vanished, and the vision is fled, and we are alone with our own poor selves. Sin separates a man from his ideal. Judas had his ideal once, but the devil entered him, and the ideal died out; and from that hour Judas drew apart.

Sin Separates Man from Man

Not only does sin separate man from his ideal, it separates man from man. When Cain slew Abel, he became an outcast. When David fell, he had to fly. When Peter denied Christ, he went out and wept bitterly. Sin broke life's ties for them, sundered the bonds that bound them to their fellows. Read over every narrative of sin within the Bible, and underneath the outward form of it—it may be passion, envy, treachery, revenge—you will detect, from Genesis to Revelation, the sundering of ties between man and man.

And sin is always doing that. There is not a passion, not a lust or vice, but mars and spoils the brotherhood of life, and tends to the loneliness of individual souls. God meant us to be friends. God has established numberless relationships. And God is righteousness and God is love, and the Spirit of righteousness and love inspires them all. And sin has been unrighteous from the first, and shall be cold and loveless till the end. O sin, thou severing and separating curse! There is no tie so tender but my vice will snap it. There is no bond so strong but sin will shatter it. It separates the father from his child; it sunders hearts; it creates distances within the home, till the full harmonies of life are lost, and the deep fellowships of life impossible. And the world is lonelier because of sin.

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[nChrist]

The Loneliness of Sin - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

And Jesus Christ knew that. Christ saw and felt sin's separating power. And so the Gospel, that rings with the note of brotherhood, centers in Calvary upon the fact of sin. The social gospel is but a shallow gospel, false to the truth and alien from Christ, unless it roots itself in the divine forgiveness and the inspiring power of the Holy Ghost. The poet Whittier tells a story of the Rabbi Nathan, who long lived blamelessly but fell at last, and his temptation clung to him in spite of his prayers and fastings. And he had a friend, Rabbi Ben Isaac, and he felt that his sin had spoiled the friendship. But he would go to him and speak to him and tell him all. And when they met, the two embraced each other; till Rabbi Nathan, remembering his sin, tore himself from his friend's arms and confessed. It was the separating power of sin. But when Rabbi Ben Isaac heard his words, he confessed that he too had sinned, and he asked his friend to pray for him as Rabbi Nathan had asked himself. And there in the sunset, side by side, they knelt and each prayed with his whole heart for the other. "And when at last they rose up to embrace, each saw God's pardon in his brother's face."

Sin, separation—pardon, brotherhood; it is the order of the universe and God.

Sin Separates Man from God

And so sin separates a man from his ideal and a man from men. But the most awful separation of all, the one that reaches the very heart of loneliness, is this: sin separates a man from God.

I can never be lonely in God's fellowship. When I detect His glory in the world, and trace His handiwork in field and sunset; when I recognize His voice in conscience, when I feel the power of His love in Christ; "there is society where none intrudes," there is the sweetest company in solitude; and I may dwell alone, but I can never be a lonely man. "For me to live is Christ," said the apostle; and the friendship of God was so intense for him, that even in the prison at Philippi he had society.

But from the first it has been sin's great triumph to separate the soul from God; and the deepest loneliness of sin is this, that it blinds me to One whom not to see is death, and bars me from the fellowship of Him whose friendship is of infinite value to my heart. If in the sky and sea, if in the call of duty, if in the claims of men, if in the love of Christ, if in all these I see and hear no God. this is a lonely world. And sin has blinded me, and made lonely, as the prodigal was lonely when far from his father and father's home. Shall I arise and go to Him tonight? Shall I return by the way of Calvary to God? I have been separated from holiest and the best. I have been living far from goodness and from God. But -

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

—Charlotte Elliott

____________________

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 22

Tribulation and the Untroubled Heart

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions— Joh_14:1-2

He Speaks Peace in the Midst of Tribulation

There are few more profitable studies than that of comparing spiritual things with spiritual. In the light of this, I should like to compare our text with that of Joh_16:33 —"In the world ye shall have tribulation." In certain selected seasons of our life it is easy to keep the heart untroubled. There are days in life, as in the world of nature, when everything is radiant and serene. But when our Lord says, "Let not your heart be troubled," He is not thinking of such days as that, as is evident from our texts. Tribulation is a spacious word. It comprehends a largeness of experience. It embraces everything from common worry up to fierce and bitter persecution. And it is in lives familiar with all that, and moving in an atmosphere like that, that our Lord looks for the untroubled heart. He is not legislating for recluses. He is not counseling such as live in shelter. He is speaking to men who are thoroughly familiar with the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." It is to them He says, in that quiet way of His, which in its quietness carries the ring of sovereignty, "Let not your heart be troubled."

Jesus Promises a Peaceful Heart, Not an Untroubled Life

From this we gather that in our Lord's intention great emphasis is to be laid on the word heart. And when we turn to the Greek we find that this is so, for the word heart is put in the last place. Our Lord does not call us to an untroubled life. His own life was very far from that. He never asks us to shirk responsibilities, nor to rid ourselves of duties or of cares. But He wants us, as we move through life, playing our part and shouldering our burdens, to have a kind of interior tranquillity. In the world we may have tribulation, and the world for each of us is just our own environment; we may have dark anxieties in business; we may have a heavy load of care at home. But through all that, however hard and worrying, we are to move with a quiet undisturbedness, if we are to live as He would have us do. On the circumference may be a score of frets: these frets are never to reach into the center. Whatever the noise of battle in the field, the soul is to be garrisoned with peace. It is of that interior and sweet serenity that the Lord is thinking when He says, "Let not your heart be troubled."

Three Things Necessary: A Quiet Faith in God

For this undisturbedness, He tells us, there are three things which are necessary. The first of them is a quiet faith in God. If He be the God of Abraham and of Isaac, then He is the God of individuals. He does not deal with us upon the scale of thousands; He deals with us upon the scale of one. And our Lord means that to recognize that dealing, and to trust Him, often in extreme opposition to the senses, is one great secret of interior peace. If trials be only the bludgeoning of fate, if things that meet us be only chance occurrences, it is incredibly hard for common men and women to be victoriously serene within. But the moment we say, "This thing is of God," however dark and inscrutable it be, then the birds start singing in the trees. If underneath are the everlasting arms, if not a sparrow can fall without our Father, if He who sees the end from the beginning is ordering everything in perfect wisdom, however hard life be, or unintelligible, there comes a radiant quietness at the center, and in that quietness we overcome the world. We are not here to be beaten. We are here, the weakest of us, to be more than conquerors. A deep faith in the sovereignty of God overthrows the tyranny of things. All of which our blessed Savior knew so well, from His immediate communion with the Father, that He could say, "Let not your heart be troubled."

Faith in Jesus Christ

The next secret of the untroubled heart is a strong faith in the Lord Jesus. To trust Him fully is to be at rest. One is ready to think that when we follow Christ there is going to be exemption from life's hardships. But discipleship gives no exemptions—in the world ye shall have tribulation. Discipleship may not remove the trouble, but it gives such a new setting to it all, that the interior disquiet departs, and there comes the peace that passes understanding. Through Him we get a grip of God that was simply impossible before. Walking with Him, we learn the love of God with a fullness hitherto unknown. Looking to Him, so radiant and restful, under the very shadow of the cross, we find His spirit entering into us. When we do that, life may not grow easier. The thorn in the flesh may not be taken away. Burdens may weigh heavy on us still, and uncongenial tasks be very irksome. What is given is not a tranquil world, nor is there any promise ora tranquil life—what is given is the tranquil heart. We lose the fearfulness of manhood and reach the happy confidence of childhood. We have a Friend beside us in the darkest mile. We have a Savior who can save unto the uttermost. All of which, in the deep places of our being, unseen by any human eye, ushers in a certain shining peacefulness which the world can never take away.

A Living Faith in the Beyond

The last secret of the untroubled heart is a living faith in the beyond. "In my Father's house are many mansions ... I go to prepare a place for you." There every question will be answered, and every chastisement reveal its loving-kindness. There we shall reach the crowning and completion of all we have tried to do and failed to do. There these partings, which were so very bitter that for a time they almost wrecked our faith in God, will be justified in the gladness of reunion. Our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, will work for us an exceeding weight of glory. We shall arrive, and arriving understand. Heaven will make perfect our imperfect life. It was because our blessed Savior lived and died in this divine assurance that He said to His disciples, and says still, "Let not your heart be troubled."

____________________

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 23

The Great Affirmation

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you— Joh_14:2

Christ Knew about Death; Socrates Only Speculated

It is not by any amplified detail that these words so appeal to human hearts. It is rather by the quiet, assured confidence with which the Savior speaks of the beyond. In the whole of literature there is but one scene worthy to be compared with this. It is where Plato tells of the last hours of Socrates in prison before he drank the poison. I know few things more admirably fitted to reveal the preeminence of Christ than a comparison of these two incidents. Like Christ, Socrates is going to die. Like Christ, his thoughts run on immortality. He discusses it with the friends who come to visit him; he speculates, he argues, and he wonders. What a perfect and stupendous contrast between that and the attitude of Christ. Socrates speculates about a life unknown. Christ speaks of a life that He has known, a realm as real and familiar to Him as my study is to me. It is not what He says so much; rather it is the tone in which He says it that has reached the heart and comforted humanity and given it an anchor for the soul. Where others speculate, the Savior knows. Where others question, He is quietly sure. Where others see but dimly in the shadows, He sees with the certainty of God. And all this on the night of His betrayal, when all that He had lived for seemed in ruins, and nothing seemed to lie before Him but a grave.

Man's Instinct for Immortality

These great words of Jesus corroborate the longings of the heart. All that we crave and hope for in the deeps here is countersigned by the Lord Jesus. Deep and ineradicable is the instinct of man for immortality, witnessed in every age, in every country, in every religion. Even when men deny it with their lips, still do they confess it with their lives, for life has its arguments no less than intellect. By the powerlessness of the whole world to satisfy the poorest heart; by the cargoes we all have on board of things that are not wanted for the voyage; by the passion for truth, the craving for perfection, the glimmering of ideals we never reach, man stretches out his hands to immortality. Whoever loved without longing for forever? Deep affection postulates eternity. Love does not want a year or a millennium. Love cries for immortality. And now comes Christ and looks upon mankind and sees the secret hunger of their souls and says, "If it were not so, I would have told you."

There are beliefs that influence life but little, like the old belief that the sun went round the earth. We may cling to them, or we may give them up, with little difference to conduct. But there are other beliefs that touch and mold and color every action of the common day, and among these is the belief in immortality. In the light of it everything is altered. Altered is our outlook on the world. Altered is the discipline of life, and the import of the chastisements of heaven. Love is different, and hope is different; duty gains august and awful sanction if that instinct of immortality be true. Changed is the face of suffering, of infirmity, of weakness, and of pain. Changed is the loneliness of dying; changed the horrid darkness of the grave. And Christ says, "Children, do you think one instant that if that were an error I would let you keep it? If it were not so, I would have told you. Believe if you like that the sun goes round the earth. That does not matter. I shall not interfere. You may be Mine; you may be washed and sanctified though you believe that the sun goes round the earth. But that deep instinct for immortal life affects profoundly everything you do, and if it were a deception I would have told you."

"I Would Have Told You So"

He would have told us because He loves us and cannot bear to see His own deceived. He would have told us though it almost broke His heart to see the vanishing of hopes and dreams. He would have told us because He was the Truth and refused to let His people live and die under a hope that was the devil's falsehood. Christ corroborates our deepest longing for an immortal life that shall be personal. And He does it in His own quiet way, confidently, with perfect, full assurance. No wonder, then, that this is the favorite chapter with millions of the human race. No wonder that when Lockhart read it to Sir Walter, his big heart was rested and was comforted. No wonder that in Margaret Ogilvy's Bible the pages would fall open at this place, and when she could not read, she stooped and kissed it.

____________________

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
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

August 24

The Way, the Truth, the Life

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life— Joh_14:6

Love Prepares a Welcome

No one was more ready than Jesus to detect the anxieties of those He loved. We picture Him, as He taught the twelve, watching intently the expression on their faces to learn how far His words were understood. Jesus had noted, then, tokens of heart distress (Joh_14:1). The disciples felt His departure like a torture. And it was then that He consoled them with such simple and glorious speech that all Christendom is the debtor to their agony. They thought that His death was an unforeseen calamity. Christ taught them it was the path of His own planning. They thought that heaven was very far away. Christ taught them it was but another room in the great home of whose many mansions this beautiful world was one. He was not stepping out into the dark. He was passing from one room to another in the house. But the mightiest encouragement of all came when He told them, "I go to prepare a place for you." This, then, was the purpose of His going, that love might have all things ready when they arrived. When a child is born here, love has all things ready for it. It will be the same when we awaken in eternity. When a boy or girl comes home from the boarding-school, has not some heart at home been busy in preparation? There is someone at the station, and the bedroom is arranged, and the lights are lit, and the table is spread, and all day there has been happy excitement in the home because James or Mary is coming home tonight. So Jesus says, "I go to prepare a place for you. I go to have all things ready for your coming." And though there are depths in these words we cannot fathom and mysteries we cannot understand, they mean at least that love is getting ready to give the children a real welcome home.

For Wanderers in the Night: I Am the Way

Then Jesus utters the Via Veritas Vita: and first of all He says, "I am the way." It was the very word that the disciples wanted, for they all felt like wanderers that night. Do you know what it is like to lose the road? Did you ever, when out walking across the fields, find the track through the heather grow faint and disappear? There was a helplessness like that in the disciples when Jesus announced that He was soon to leave them. So far, they had all walked with Jesus. Now, at the cross, that pathway seemed to cease. We can hardly grasp the depth of comfort in it when they heard that Christ was to be the Way forevermore. It was in Him they were to fight and conquer. It was in Him they were to live and die. It was in Him they were to reach the glory and stand in the presence of the Father at the end. They felt there was a new and living way. Among the wonders of the old Roman people were the roads they made from end to end of Europe. And the Roman cities are in ruins now, and their palaces and their temples are destroyed, but men are still walking on the Roman roads. So Jesus, our Redeemer, is still the Way. A thousand things have gone, but that remains. It is through His death, and His rising from the dead, and through our daily fellowship with Him that we walk heavenward and reach home at last.

He Is the Truth That Sheds Light on Darkness

Then Jesus says, "I am the truth." He does not say, observe, I speak the truth. There was a deeper meaning in His mind than that. I hope that every child will speak the truth; yet every child, as his experience grows, will discover with shame how untrue he is at heart. Christ is the sum and center of all truth. Where Christ is not, there is a false note always. And one of the great joys of knowing Jesus is the sweet assurance that truth is ours at last. Before the discovery of the law of gravitation, there were a thousand facts that no man could explain. There was no key to them. There was no plan in them. They could never be gathered into a worthy system. But when the great truth of gravitation was discovered—so simple, so universal, so sublime—a flood of light fell on the darkness, and disorder became order everywhere. And it is just so when we discover Jesus. That truth sheds light upon a thousand facts. Things that were quite inexplicable once—sorrows and joys and hopes and fears and haunting—become intelligible through this great discovery. Did not some one say that if you would find the truth you must seek for it at the bottom of a deep well? The glory of the truth that is in Jesus is that it is found in no dark well, but on the way. Quid est veritas? asked jesting Pilate. And in one of the best anagrams the world has ever had, the answer is given, Est vir qui adest.

He Is the Source of Life

Then lastly Jesus says, "I am the life." In Thackeray's great story, Vanity Fair, we read of Amelia Osborne and her baby George. And Thackeray, speaking of the baby, says, "How his mother nursed him and dressed him and lived upon him need not be told here. This child was her being." That is a little picture of the way in which one person can be the life of another. It helps us to understand what Jesus meant when He said to the disciples, "I am the life." There is no book in any literature so filled with the message of life as the New Testament. If there is one word that sums up the Gospel, it is life. And here we are taught that that life is in Jesus Christ. He is the source of it. It is treasured in Him. And there is no way to gain it and to keep it but by trusting and by loving Him.

I cannot solve mysterious things,
That fill the schoolmen's thoughts with strife;
But oh! what peace this knowledge brings—
Thou art the Life!
Hid in thy everlasting deeps,
The silent God His secret keeps.
The Way, the Truth, the Life, Thou art!
This, this I know; to this I cleave;
The sweet, new language of my heart—
"Lord, I believe."
I have no doubt to bring to Thee;
My doubt has fled, my faith is free!

____________________

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 25

The Ladder of Promise

I will love him, and will manifest myself to him .... we will come unto him, and make our abode with him— Joh_14:21-23

The Ascending Scale of Promise

Out of all the riches of these verses, let us take what the Lord says about Himself. Let us select the words He uses of Himself. We may not disentangle in experience the acting of the Father and the Son, but often we may disengage in thought what we cannot disentangle in experience. So here we may reverently lay aside, in thought, what the Lord says about the Father and think only of what He says about Himself. When we do that, how beautiful it grows! We see a gradually ascending scale of promise. We see the Master adding thought to thought till He reaches at last a magnificence of climax. And all this in glorious response to the great waves of doubt and depression which must have rolled over the hearts of His disciples. Let us try, then, to view this ladder of promise from their standpoint.

His Departure Did Not Separate Them from His Love

I take it that the primary dread within their hearts was that, departing, He would cease to love them. He was going away far beyond their presence, and His love would be nothing but a memory. So long as He had companied with them, His love had made all the difference in the world. It had wrapped them round and sheltered them. It had been their refuge and their tower. Now He was about to leave them—to pass over into another realm—and that love would be nothing but a memory. They knew perfectly that for full rich life something more than memory is needed. Left with memories of love and nothing more, how could they be strong to face the future? And then the Lord said (for He knows our thoughts), "Children, I will love you, in the future just as in the past." His love was not to cease when He was slain. It was not to cease when He went home to heaven. It was to be as real, as watchful, and as comforting as in the dear dead days beyond recall. What a joyful message for these poor disciples aware that something awful was impending, dreading the bitter thought of separation!

His Love Would Manifest Itself to Them

Then would follow another wave of doubt: He will love us, but shall we ever know it? Separated from us and far away in glory, if He loves us shall we be conscious of it? Many a congregation loves its minister, but it never tells him of that love. Many a husband loves his wife, but the years go by and the husband never utters it. And I suppose the disciples, in that parting season when their Lord assured them He would love them still, fell to doubting if they would ever know it. When He was with them, they knew it every hour. He showed His love in innumerable ways. Now He was going home, and though He loved them still, would there be any apprehension of that love? And it was then that the Lord, the Master of the heart and of all the swift questionings of the heart, said, "Children, I will manifest Myself to you." That is, not only was He going to love them, but He was going to show them that He loved them. He was going to make His love as clear and manifest as in the days when He walked with them in Galilee. And one can picture the gladness of His own and the new light that would leap into their eyes when they heard that second promise of their Lord.

His Promise to Come to Them Personally

But a new wave was on the point of breaking. Doubts and difficulties had not vanished yet. Would the showing of His love include His presence? If not, the past was richer than the future. Men can tell their love by letter. They can tell it and be a thousand miles away. Many a young fellow in the war did that, and the letters are cherished to this hour. At home and living in the house, they never told their mothers how they loved them, but they wrote it from faraway places. Now try to get inside the hearts of the disciples; they were hearts extraordinarily like our own. Would they not instantly begin to speculate how the Lord was going to show His love? And I daresay, being Jews, they thought of the mediators of the ancient law, and began dreaming of angelic messengers. Tidings would be flashed from far away. White-robed ministers would bring the news. The Lord, remote, in the land of the far distances, would have His means of showing that He loved them. And immediately every one of them would feel that this was something less than the dear past when they had His presence in the fields of Galilee. Then, in early morning, He had come to them. He had come to them across the sea. He had come in the hour of their utmost need as from the mountain of Transfiguration. And our blessed Lord, understanding perfectly these thoughts that were surging in their hearts, said thirdly, "Children, I will come to you." I am not going just to send a message, telling you that My love is still unaltered. I am not going to commission any angel. As in the old days, when My presence went with you and gave you rest, I am going to come to you Myself.

His Promise Was to Come and Stay

But when we love somebody very much it is not enough that he should come to us. We want him—do we not?—to stay with us. Now, then, think of these disciples. The Lord had promised that He would come to them. But if He came and swiftly went away again, how their house would be left unto them desolate! And yet what more could they expect, a little band of very lowly folk, now that their Master was the King of glory? If the government was on His shoulder, if He was seated at the right hand of power, if He was in control of the whole universe and Captain of the hosts of heaven, how much of His time could they expect, a little handful of humble Galileans? At the most, a brief glance, a passing word—and before, they had had Him all the time. At the most, a coming for a few blessed moments, followed by the sadness of farewell. And then the Lord, reading all their thoughts and, it may be, smiling at their childishness, said, Children, I will abide with you. I will love you. Yes, Lord, we believe it, but what if we should never know it? I will show my love to you. Yes, Lord, we believe it, but Thou mightest be very far away and show it. I will come to you. Yes, Lord, we believe it, but think of the darkness when Thou goest away again. Foolish children, I will abide with you. There is nothing more to be said. It is all there. Love's questionings and anxieties are silenced. The ladder of promise is complete.

____________________

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 26

Religion and Remembrance

The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance— Joh_14:26

The Holy Spirit Quickens the Things of Christ

One great office of the Holy Spirit is to quicken and refresh the memory. He is given to vivify and make intensely real things that we were in danger of forgetting. He does not deal in novelties nor in unrelated revelations. He does not bring to us anything out of harmony with what we have learned from the historic Christ. Nothing new beyond and above that which is taught in Scripture is imparted to a man when his soul awakens to God. Through the Holy Spirit there leaps into his consciousness what in his unregenerate life he had not understood—for in Him we live and move and have our being.

We might illustrate that from what we know of poetry. When a genuine poet comes along and utters something that is profoundly true, that never reveals itself as novelty, but as the expression of our deepest selves. Instantly we recognize it; we say "Yes, that is true"; what we discover is but the perfect voicing of something which always was our own. The question is why should we recognize it; why should it not come to us as strange; why should we hail it as something that is ours, though we never had the power to say it? It is because deep is calling unto deep; it is because the poet, in his hour of inspiration, brings to remembrance what is deepest in us, buried under the ashes of our Aetna. So comes the Holy Spirit. He does not traffic in untested novelties. He brings to vivid and powerful remembrance the things of the Lord Jesus. And so doing He touches and awakens all that is deepest in our soul, for Christ is the light of every man. "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men" (Joh_1:4). The business of the Holy Spirit, then, is to display the glories of Christ in us.

The Holy Spirit Aroused the Prodigal's Memory

This spiritual office of remembrance was largely insisted on by the Lord Jesus. We might take, for instance, His story of the prodigal. To that young fellow, feeding among the swine, there came no startling and unexpected news. There did not flash across his starving soul something he had never known before. He remembered; he recalled; he recollected the plenty of his home—and then "I will arise and go unto my father." What drew him homeward was not any novelty. It was not any attainment of new knowledge. What made him start and take the trail for home was the uprush of fond and tender memory. And our Lord means that when anyone starts for home, out of the far land where swine are feeding gluttonously, he always does it in some such way as that. God does not convey new facts to him. He comes to him and whispers, "Son, remember. Remember that you are still a child, though sunken in an alien filth." That is to say, the office of the Spirit, in drawing the sinful soul to higher things, is the deep and mystical office of remembrance.

Peter's Memory Aroused

Again we might think of Simon Peter when he went out into the night and wept. What were the means our blessed Savior used to break his heart and save him through his tears? Argument? There was not one word of argument. Peter did not need to be convinced. Rebuke? There was not a syllable of that, whatever was hidden in those loving eyes. That cock-crow, that loving look of Jesus, awakened remembrance in the heart of Peter. Peter "remembered what the Lord had said," and he went out into the night and wept. What broke the heart of Simon Peter was the swift and anguished surging up of memory. In his panic fear he had forgotten everything. Now he remembered and was saved. So Jesus, like the other Comforter, brought all things to remembrance, and by remembrance rescued and redeemed.

The Lord's Supper Quickens Our Memory

Lastly we might think a moment of the holy hour of the Lord's Supper. Many of my readers will agree with me that that is a profoundly moving time. It is an hour when Christ draws very near to us, and we grow strangely aware that He is present. Earthly things recede into the shadows, and the things of heaven become intensely real. Excuses vanish; we know that we are sinners; we begin to long for a fuller consecration in the quiet hour when we gather at the Table. If ever religion is a real thing, it is real in the season of communicating. If ever we are touched and awed and elevated, it is in that mystical and blessed moment. And then heaven reaches us, and the divine arrests us, not by the impartation of a novelty, but by the Holy Spirit's way of stirred remembrance. At the Lord's Table we get nothing new, nothing beyond and above the preached Gospel, nothing that is not found in Holy Scripture and in the proclamation of the Word. Quickened remembrance does the gracious work. We remember the Lord's death until He come. It is the blessed office of the Holy Ghost to bring all things to our remembrance.

____________________

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 27

Peace, the Possession of Adequate Resources

My peace I give unto you— Joh_14:27

What Is Peace?

Talking with a young fellow some time ago, I was struck by a remark he made. It followed on a sermon which we both had listened to on the subject of interior peace. "It's not peace," he said, "we young fellows want. What we want is thrills." That was a very candid utterance, and one likes young fellows to be candid. It set me wondering whether inward peace was really so grey as it is sometimes painted. And just then, in the book of an honored friend, I lit on a sentence which arrested me. He said peace is the possession of adequate resources. That seemed to me a very fruitful thought with a strong appeal in it for vigorous minds, and it is well worth considering a little.

Peace in Business Is the Possession of Adequate Resources

Think, for instance, how true that is of business. When long seasons of depression come and when business is stagnant, if not moribund, what is it that makes all the difference between intense anxiety and peace? It seems to me, who am not a business man but one who watches things with an observant eye, that it is just the possession of adequate resources. If there be little capital and almost no reserves, how terrible these dead times must be! I sometimes wonder how a business man can sleep not knowing if he can tide it over. But how different, when these dead seasons come, for any business that has great reserves and is strong in the possession of vast capital. Scanty capital means sleepless hours. Inadequate resources spell anxiety. What fears and miseries must haunt the breast when there is almost nothing to fall back upon! I venture to think that in the realm of business when times are bad and everything is stagnant, peace is the possession of adequate resources. The multimillionaire does not need to be unduly concerned about paying his current expenses or investing a sum of money in some new venture.

Creative Genius Means Possessing Adequate Mental Resources

The same thing is true of other spheres. Think, for example, of creative genius. Contrast the toiling literary hack with the man of genius like Sir Walter Scott. The one, very imperfectly endowed, is always in misery lest he be running dry. I have known preachers who were just like that, haunted by the fear of running dry. But the man of genius is serene and confident as Sir Walter was serene and confident, because he is conscious of perfectly adequate resources. "Here is God's plenty," as Dryden said of Chaucer. I have known three or four great men in my life, and there was one feature common to them all. They never worried and they rarely hurried. There was a leisurely serenity about them. And that peace, whatever their task might be, whether laying the Atlantic cable or building the Forth Bridge, found its basis in the possession of adequate resources, not in the bank but in the brain.

Christ's Peace Was the Result of Adequate Resources

Then one turns to our Lord and at once discovers how true that was of Him. It was one of the secrets of His rich serenity. Look at Him in the storm—how calm He is! Look again—He is lying fast asleep. He is peaceful amid the raging elements, slumbering like an infant in its cradle. And all the others, Peter, James, and John, agitated, excited, and alarmed, are fearful amid the terrors of the sea. Their fear betrayed their helplessness. It showed them unequal to their problem. They were not equipped for battling with storms. They had no reserves to call up for a tempest. But He was peaceful and sleeping like a child though the wind was howling and the boat was filling, and His peace was the possession of adequate resources. Picture the anxious look upon the host's face when the wine gave out at the marriage feast at Cana. Even Mary was distressed about it, worrying over the honor of the family. Christ alone was carefree. Christ alone was radiant and serene because He was conscious of perfectly adequate resources. "My peace"—it was a very wonderful peace. No sounding of our thought can ever fathom it. There was perfect fellowship with God in it. There was full and unconditional surrender. But one element, one vital element, witnessed in a score of incidents, was the possession of adequate resources.

By Possessing Christ, You Can Possess Adequate Resources

Then the Master comes to you and says, "My peace I give unto you." And, perhaps, like my young friend, you say, "I do not want that peace. I want to have a vivid, thrilling time of it." Many people are saying that today. Well, now, think of it like this—lay aside the unwelcome sense of peace, as if peace meant taking the color out of life and robbing experience of its vividness. Instead of that, say to yourself quietly, and say it again and again till you have mastered it: peace is the possession of adequate resources. You want to live a full, abundant life; but are you really equipped for such a life? Is your will strong enough—your feeling fine enough—your conscience quiet enough—your heart deep enough? Then Christ comes, and says, "Friend, enter into My fellowship today, and I shall give you the resources that you need." Christ can take the sting out of the conscience. Christ can strengthen the weak, unstable will. Christ can exalt and purify the feeling. Christ can deepen the undeepened heart. He can possess you with His divine resources for a full, abundant, and victorious life, and in that possession there is peace. Peace is harmony. Peace is intense life. Peace is being equal to the problem. Peace is possessing adequate resources for an overcoming and abundant life. That is the kind of peace which Jesus gives, not a dull and joyless resignation, but all the resources a guilty sinner needs to enjoy eternal life "in Him" now.

____________________

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 28

Christ with Us - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Arise, let us go hence— Joh_14:31

The Need of Christ After the Last Supper

When the Last Supper was concluded and Jesus had finished His teaching of His own, He said to them, "Arise, let us go hence." It is on these words I wish to dwell a moment as we too consider the communion table. One would have thought that on such a night as that, the deepest craving of Jesus would have been to be alone. We have all had hours when we craved to be alone, when we could not stand the intrusion of society. And if this be so with us in our lesser sorrows and anxieties, a thousandfold more so must it have been with Jesus when the sorrow of the world was on His heart. How He needed the cooling of the night. How He needed the healing of the silence of the stars. How He was craving just to be alone that He might speak with His Father of the coming agony. And yet He said, "Arise, let us go hence." He could not leave them to go out alone. He loved them far too deeply for that. They might forsake Him, as they were soon to do. It was impossible for Him to forsake them. And so, when they left the table, He went with them, walked with them through the streets of the city, mingled with them as they crossed the valley out to the quiet garden of Gethsemane.

Christ Does Not Send Us Out Alone but Comes with Us

Now what was true that night is just as true now. Our faith is rooted in the conviction that Christ is the same yesterday and today. Very brief is the hour of sacrament. In a moment or two it is over, and we leave the place that we all love so well, and we go back to our homes and to our duties. And what I want you to be sure of is this, that Christ says to none of us, "Depart." But He does say to everyone of us, "Arise, let us go hence." That means that wherever we are going, we may have Christ with us all the time. He does not send us out to be alone. He will never leave us nor forsake us. And though of course we cannot see Him now, nor touch His hand, nor listen to His voice, yet nontheless that fellowship with Him may be the most real thing in human life. Are we not sometimes nearer to our own when their bodily presence is not with us? Are we not closer to their heart, do we not understand them better, when they are with us in spirit and not in body? And so emphatically is it with our Savior. Near as were the eleven to Him, you and I may be still nearer to Him every day. I plead with you as you leave the communion table to believe that Christ goes with you. That is not mysticism nor sentimentalism. It is the most inspiring of realities. As constant as the light by which we see, as constant as the air by which we live, so constant with everyone of us will be our Lord. And just in proportion as we realize this, deep results will emerge in our experience. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

====================See Page 2

[nChrist]

Christ with Us - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

When Christ Is with Us, It Is Enough

In the first place, if Christ go with us, there are many questions that we can leave unanswered. There is a text 1 want to give to you. It occurs in the 16th chapter of this Gospel, the 4th verse, and the last clause of the verse. There we read these words: "These things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you." Ponder these words, friends. What do they mean? Why, they mean this. They mean that in the minds of the disciples there was many a question that Jesus might have answered. They mean that had He cared to do so, He might have explained to them a thousand mysteries. But instead of that He walked with them and lived with them, and showed them what was the secret of His heart, until they felt that that was enough for them. They were content now to be very ignorant. They were content that mysteries should baffle them. They were not restless now to find solutions for the insoluble problems of the universe. It was enough for them that Christ was there. They had His fellowship and that sufficed. There was much yet that they could never fathom, but they had come to
Him and they had rest.

Now, friends, as it was with them, so should it be with every one of us. Since Christ goes with us as we leave the communion table, there are many questions that we can leave unanswered. We shall not vex our hearts as we once did by doubting and wondering if God is love. We shall not be burdened with the weary weight of all this unintelligible world. Knowing that Christ is with us in the darkness, we shall feel that every answer is beside us, and, feeling that we are but little children, we shall be content to leave it there. His love will teach us of the love of God. His patience will interpret that of God. The marks of the nails upon His hands and feet will tell us that somehow suffering is not vain. Our deepest answer will not be added knowledge. Our deepest answer will be closer intimacy. To know Him is to be happy not to know. One of our greatest Shakespearean scholars has remarked that Shakespeare never gives little answers to great questions. He leads you out under the vault of night and there in the presence of mystery he leaves you. And I want you to believe, you Christian people, that that is far more true of Jesus Christ. He never gives little answers to great questions. A Christian is not one who can explain everything. A Christian is the truest of agnostics. He knows that to that finite mind of his the infinite must always be inexplicable. A Christian is a man who walks with Christ, who sees in Christ the very heart of God, and seeing that can lay the burden down till the day break and the shadows flee away.

If Christ Goes with Us, We Have Nothing to Fear

Then, in the second place, if Christ goes with us, there is nothing that we need fear to face. I suppose that no one ever studied the earthly life of Christ without being arrested by one feature of it. That feature was His extraordinary resourcefulness. No one was ever more suddenly assailed, no one ever more cunningly approached. Traps were laid for Him, temptations reached Him, all in an instant, and with amazing subtlety. And yet He was always equal to the problem, always sufficient for the sudden call, always Lord in the unlooked-for moment. Now by a wonderful turn of dialectic, now by the most exquisite of parables, now by a miracle as when He stilled the storm or fed the thousands on the hill—always when the need arose He triumphed; always when the tempter was most subtle He was confident as a man prepared. There was no emergency He could not meet. There was no summons that He could not answer. He could change in an instant, and could change magnificently, saying to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan." And this resourcefulness, this perfect mastery, this fine equality to every summons, was never so manifest or so magnificent as when He was shielding and sheltering His own.

My brother and sister, do you believe that Christ is the same today as He was then? Then what I say is that if He goes with you, there is nothing you need fear to face. Do you think He has lost that power of defending because He is seated on the throne of God? Do you think He is less wonderful today than when He tabernacled in a human body? Oh! Could we but realize that Christ is living, as really as you and I are living, what a difference it would make for some of you. "Arise, let us go hence," He says today—into the darkness of the untrodden future. And life is there and duty that is hard, and a little suffering perhaps, and then the grave. Thanks be to God, if Christ is with us in all the energy of His upholding love, in Him we shall be more than conquerors until at last we know as we are known.

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George H. Morrison Devotions

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[Rookieupgrade1]

Brother.....................


you have no idea how badly I needed to read this.


I have seen so may times in my own life when I KNEW there was not enough and trusted Jesus.......there was always enough, I don't know how and don't care how.


I am in a time like that now in my life, when all the waves are crashing in and my boat seems to be filling up and the sails are torn and useless...........I'm scared.................


Jesus will provide.........It may not be the way I expect or want,...............but it will always be enough...........


I tell myself..................step out of the boat, and walk to Him......focus on Him, and don't concern myself with the waves.....they are determined to drag me down into despair.........focus all the strength I have left, the reserve He gave me, and walk to Him, follow Him......

[nChrist]

Brother Gary,

There comes a time in every Christian's life where the best thing to do is just put everything at the feet of JESUS and pray. Then it's time to wait on the LORD and know that HE will work everything out for our good because we love HIM and trust HIM. It might not seem the best for us at the time, but the MASTER knows everything from one end of our life to the other.

Brother, I'm thinking about a post that someone made recently. It involved a person trying and trying, but finally just saying, "Let GOD." HE really is like the old hymn, "A Shelter In The Time of Storm." There is something good about these storms if we yield to the LORD. These hard times can turn out to be times where we grow closer to the LORD and stronger in HIM. There really are many times that we need to know that we are just men and HE is GOD. Brother, there is a peace that's hard to describe when we yield completely and give it to GOD. These sermons from George H. Morrison are old but extremely beautiful. He does have a way of putting words to our intimate times with the LORD, and it's obvious that dear Brother Morrison is home with the LORD.

A Shelter In The Time of Storm

The Lord’s our Rock, in Him we hide,
A Shelter in the time of storm;
Secure whatever ill betide,
A Shelter in the time of storm.

Refrain

Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A weary land, a weary land;
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A shelter in the time of storm.
A shade by day, defense by night,
A shelter in the time of storm;
No fears alarm, no foes afright,
A shelter in the time of storm.

Refrain

The raging storms may round us beat,
A shelter in the time of storm
We’ll never leave our safe retreat,
A shelter in the time of storm.

Refrain

O Rock divine, O Refuge dear,
A Shelter in the time of storm;
Be Thou our helper ever near,
A Shelter in the time of storm.
Refrain

Brother, I'll be praying for you.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Colossians 1:29 NASB  For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.