Scripture: "The love of God is shed abroad i» OUT hearts, by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."—ROM. v. 5.
        The thought sometimes arises, as we consider Christs love to us, our love to Christ, our love to the brethren or to souls around us:—the demand is too great, it is unattainable, it is impossible for a Christian to live this life of love, and to show it to the brethren and to needy souls. And because we deem it impossible, and because of our unbelief and lack of faith in Gods promises, we make little progress in this spirit of love.
        We need continually to remind ourselves that it is not in our own strength, or even by serious thought that we can attain to the love of Christ. We must realize the truth that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and will daily afresh be poured out by the Spirit of God. It is only as we are wholly surrendered to the leading of the Spirit that we will be able to live according to Gods will. When the inner life of love is renewed from day to day we shall feel compelled to work for souls.
        Here is a prayer that you can offer: "I bow my knees unto the Father, that He would grant you, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may know the low of Christ which passeth knowledge," You may be rooted and grounded in this love, and know the love that passeth knowledge—but on one condition—you must be strength¬ened by the Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your heart. Then you will indeed be rooted and grounded in love.
        Christian, take this message from Gods Word, and let it influence your life. Unless you wait upon God daily on your knees, for His Spirit to be revealed in your heart, you cannot Ive in this love. A life of prayer will make a life in the love of Christ, in the love of the brethren, in love to souls, a blessed reality in your experience.
        Put your confidence each day in secret in the Holy Spirit— the Spirit of love which Cod will give to those who ask in faith.

Scripture: "And He said, Certainly I will be with thee"(Exodus 3:12).
        Of course, if the LORD sent Moses on an errand, He would not let him go alone. The tremendous risk which it would involve and the great power it would require would render it ridiculous for God to send a poor lone Hebrew to confront the mightiest king in all the world and then leave him to himself. It could not be imagined that a wise God would match poor Moses with Pharaoh and the enormous forces of Egypt. Hence He says, "Certainly I will be with thee," as if it were out of the question that He would send him alone.
        In my case, also, the same rule will hold good. If I go upon the LORDs errand with a simple reliance upon His power and a single eye to His glory, it is certain that He will be with me. His sending me binds Him to back me up. Is not this enough? What more can I want? If all the angels and archangels were with me. I might fail; but if He is with me, I must succeed. Only let me take care that I act worthily toward this promise. Let me not go timidly, halfheartedly, carelessly, presumptuously. What manner of person ought he to be who has God with him! In such company it behoveth me to play the man and, like Moses, go in unto Pharaoh without fear.

Scripture: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion.”(Revelation 14:1)
        The apostle John was privileged to look within the gates of heaven, and in describing what he saw, he begins by saying, “I looked, and, lo, a Lamb!” This teaches us that the chief object of contemplation in the heavenly state is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” Nothing else attracted the apostles attention so much as the person of that Divine Being, who hath redeemed us by his blood. He is the theme of the songs of all glorified spirits and holy angels. Christian, here is joy for thee; thou hast looked, and thou hast seen the Lamb. Through thy tears thine eyes have seen the Lamb of God taking away thy sins. Rejoice, then. In a little while, when thine eyes shall have been wiped from tears, thou wilt see the same Lamb exalted on his throne. It is the joy of thy heart to hold daily fellowship with Jesus; thou shalt have the same joy to a higher degree in heaven; thou shalt enjoy the constant vision of his presence; thou shalt dwell with him for ever. “I looked, and, lo, a Lamb!” Why, that Lamb is heaven itself; for as good Rutherford says, “Heaven and Christ are the same thing;” to be with Christ is to be in heaven, and to be in heaven is to be with Christ. That prisoner of the Lord very sweetly writes in one of his glowing letters—“O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without thee, it would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, and have thee still, it would be a heaven to me, for thou art all the heaven I want.” It is true, is it not, Christian? Does not thy soul say so?
        
        “Not all the harps above
        Can make a heavenly place,
        If God his residence remove,
        Or but conceal his face.”
        All thou needest to make thee blessed, supremely blessed, is “to be with Christ.”

Scripture: “And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house.”(2 Samuel 11:2)
        At that hour David saw Bathsheba. We are never out of the reach of temptation. Both at home and abroad we are liable to meet with allurements to evil; the morning opens with peril, and the shades of evening find us still in jeopardy. They are well kept whom God keeps, but woe unto those who go forth into the world, or even dare to walk their own house unarmed. Those who think themselves secure are more exposed to danger than any others. The armour-bearer of Sin is Self-confidence.
        David should have been engaged in fighting the Lords battles, instead of which he tarried at Jerusalem, and gave himself up to luxurious repose, for he arose from his bed at eventide. Idleness and luxury are the devils jackals, and find him abundant prey. In stagnant waters noxious creatures swarm, and neglected soil soon yields a dense tangle of weeds and briars. Oh for the constraining love of Jesus to keep us active and useful! When I see the King of Israel sluggishly leaving his couch at the close of the day, and falling at once into temptation, let me take warning, and set holy watchfulness to guard the door.
        Is it possible that the king had mounted his housetop for retirement and devotion? If so, what a caution is given us to count no place, however secret, a sanctuary from sin! While our hearts are so like a tinder-box, and sparks so plentiful, we had need use all diligence in all places to prevent a blaze. Satan can climb housetops, and enter closets, and even if we could shut out that foul fiend, our own corruptions are enough to work our ruin unless grace prevent. Reader, beware of evening temptations. Be not secure. The sun is down but sin is up. We need a watchman for the night as well as a guardian for the day. O blessed Spirit, keep us from all evil this night. Amen.

Scripture: "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee" (Dan. 6:20).
        How many times we find this expression in the Scriptures, and yet it is just this very thing that we are so prone to lose sight of. We know it is written "the living God"; but in our daily life there is scarcely anything we practically so much lose sight of as the fact that God is the living God; that He is now whatever He was three or four thousand years since; that He has the same sovereign power, the same saving love towards those who love and serve Him as ever He had and that He will do for them now what He did for others two, three, four thousand years ago, simply because He is the living God, the unchanging One. Oh, how therefore we should confide in Him, and in our darkest moments never lose sight of the fact that He is still and ever will be the living God!
        Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him and expect help from Him, He will never fail you. An older brother who has known the Lord for forty-four years, who writes this, says to you for your encouragement that He has never failed him. In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me; but because I was enabled by His grace to trust Him He has always appeared for my help. I delight in speaking well of His name. --George Mueller
        Luther was once found at a moment of peril and fear, when he had need to grasp unseen strength, sitting in an abstracted mood tracing on the table with his finger the words, "Vivit! vivit!" ("He lives! He lives!"). It is our hope for ourselves, and for His truth, and for mankind. Men come and go; leaders, teachers, thinkers speak and work for a season, and then fall silent and impotent. He abides. They die, but He lives. They are lights kindled, and, therefore, sooner or later quenched; but He is the true light from which they draw all their brightness, and He shines for evermore. --Alexander Maclaren
        "One day I came to know Dr. John Douglas Adam," writes C. G. Trumbull. "I learned from him that what he counted his greatest spiritual asset was his unvarying consciousness of the actual presence of Jesus. Nothing bore him up so, he said, as the realization that Jesus was always with him in actual presence; and that this was so independent of his own feelings, independent of his deserts, and independent of his own notions as to how Jesus would manifest His presence.
        "Moreover, he said that Christ was the home of his thoughts. Whenever his mind was free from other matters it would turn to Christ; and he would talk aloud to Christ when he was alone--on the street, anywhere--as easily and naturally as to a human friend. So real to him was Jesus actual presence.

References: Further Study: Acts 26:24 Rom 8:19, 25 Rom 10:17 Col 1 Rom 8:15-25 Col 1:4 1 John 3:2
In endeavouring to make ‘known the mystery’, Paul knew that no man’s eyes are opened by the reasoning of his mind. His encounter with Festus bears this out. Having listened to Paul, Festus exclaimed, ‘Paul, you are out of your mind! Your great learning is driving you mad’. The mystery is revealed to us when we receive the word of truth; the truth concerning our sonship. Receiving this word as an incorruptible seed, we are born from above and our eyes are opened to see the kingdom. The faith to inherit our sonship is received at this point, for we know that ‘faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God’. This is the faith to receive and lay down our sonship in the body of Christ. For this reason Paul rejoiced over the Colossians. ‘We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.’ Firstly, the mystery is revealed to us. And by faith we know it will be fully revealed in us in the age to come. This is our hope. It is a hope that we see afar off, but it is not yet seen in us. For this reason Paul wrote, ‘We hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it’. The full revelation of the mystery will be revealed in the day of His appearing, and in the new heavens and the new earth. ‘Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him.’ This is the revelation of the sons of God for which we wait eagerly.

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References Further Study Rom 12:1 Col 3:4 1 Cor 12 1 Cor 15:38 John 6:54 2 Cor 5:10 1 Cor 6:13-17
We must always remember that our bodies are members of His body. We are members of Christ. The apostle Paul said, ‘He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him’. When we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, we are not only presenting our ‘death-doomed’ mortal bodies. We are presenting the new creature back to Christ, offering ourselves completely to Him. And we do this by the mercies of God, with the earnest desire of inheriting our eternal destiny. We present our mortal bodies to Him in the hope of the resurrection. Remember that the body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. ‘And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.’ Do you know that our eternal judgement will be based on two things? Firstly, it is completely dependent on whether or not we have become a new creation. And secondly, we are judged according to the deeds done in our body. As we present our bodies to Him, He includes us in His body. And more than this, as we receive and feed upon His word, He is giving the body of His flesh to us. Accordingly, we will certainly overcome death and inherit eternal life. Like Jesus Himself, our sonship has been sown in weakness; that is, in a weak and mortal body. However, we, like Him, will be raised incorruptible as a result of our participation in His body. When we hear the voice of the Son of Man, He will give to each one of us a body as it pleases the Father. The body of our eternal sonship will be fashioned like Christ’s glorious body.

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References Further Study Act 18:18 Act 21:23 Jas 5 Mat 13:33 Lev 7:12 Jas 5:5, 7, 14-15
When Jesus spoke the parable of leaven, He was not covering the full scope of the woman’s offering. He was simply drawing our attention to the three levels of the peace offering which she set aside in three measures of meal. What He did not identify is that one of each leavened cake was raised as a heave offering. It was the symbol of a vow towards the coming season of sowing and reaping. The apostle James developed the proposition of a vow even further. In chapter five of his letter, he referred to the words of Jesus concerning the accrual of possessions and the curse that falls upon those who seek to accrue for themselves luxury and pleasure. In the same chapter, he accounted for the patience of the farmer as he waits for the early and latter rain. Remember that the rain is the blessing that comes upon us when we prove the Lord in tithes and heave offerings. Then James put forward a most interesting proposition. When the elders anoint someone with oil, the ‘vow’ offered in faith will deliver and protect the one who is faint. Our English versions translate this word as ‘prayer’. On every other occasion in the New Testament it is translated as ‘vow’. When we consider this, it does not escape our attention that his reference to oil was based in the oil of the peace offerings. Both the leavened and unleavened bread of the peace offerings were mixed with oil. It is the symbol of the joy of the Lord in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us. Every vow which we make must be anointed with oil and approved of by the Holy Spirit. Unless the early and latter rain falls upon our work then we will not fulfil our vows.

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References Further Study Dan 8:11-13, 31 Joh 19 Dan 9:27 Mat 21:13 Dan 12:10-11
The conditions under Roman rule in the time of Christ, were consistent with what Daniel had already said. He prophesied of abomination in three phases – the multiplying horror under the Grecian rule, the same abomination when Christ comes and finds a ‘den of thieves’, and the same abomination in the time of the end. When Christ comes, according to Daniel, He will cause sacrifice and offering to cease, and will introduce the ‘wing’ of desolation. Now He will make desolate the powers that are doing the desolating. As a lampstand church in our own day, we are positioned in the first phase of the book of Revelation, in chapters one to three. Accordingly, we are heirs of the prophetic, lampstand theme, in the way that it develops across the Scriptures. The seventh world order is forming, but not yet manifested. As it was with each of the historic phases, a remnant refined in testimony, despite the desolation of offering, will become the weapon by which God will desolate those who are committing the desolation.

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