There is nothing miraculous about the things we can explain. We command what we are able to explain, consequently it is natural to seek to explain. It is not natural to obey; nor is it necessarily sinful to disobey.

There is no moral virtue in obedience unless there is a recognition of a higher authority in the one who dictates. It is possibly an emancipation to the other person if he does not obey. If one man says to another — ‘You must,’ and - ‘You shall’, he breaks the human spirit and unfits it for God.

A man is a slave for obeying unless behind his obedience there is a recognition of a holy God. Many a soul begins to come to God when he flings off being religious, because there is only one Master of the human heart, and that is not religion, but Jesus Christ.

But woe be to me if when I see Him I say - I will not. He will never insist that I do, but I have begun to sign the death warrant of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and say — I will not, He will never insist; but I am backing away from the recreating power of His Redemption. It is a matter of indifference to God’s grace how abdominable I am if I come to the light; but woe be to me if I refuse the light (see John 3:19-21)

‘Twas then I rose and gazed afar
Beyond the clouds and farthest star.
To One whose ways are great and grand:
A thousand works o’er sea and land.

The flowers that blossom in the light
to captivate the sense of sight;
The birds that sing their glad refrain
As though to stir our trust again.

And then there loomed a little Child,
Becoming, gentle, meek and mild;
A trustful smile, a golden ray,
to turn our darkness into day!

Beholding faith with all its charm,
Why need to harbor thoughts of harm?
Much rather enter gates of praise
And seek life’s long unending days.

And then there came momentous news,
Revealing grand enchanting views –
Peace from on high, good will to men;
Edenic joys to bloom again.

Then war shall cease, disease and crime,
which do not savor endless time;
For Jesus died that He might bring
His peace and joy to everything!

A thousand years to pave the way
For this eternal gladsome day;
A thousand years to raise the dead
And offer them the Living Bread.

Then all the grateful will arise
to find an end to all their sighs.
Then they will say with voice and pen,
“God’s love surpasses minds of men!”

With such good news, why be dismayed,
Bewildered, troubled and afraid?
With heart and soul let’s look above
And trust in Christ’s Redeeming love!

Author unknown -
From Bible Standard Ministries,
Layman’s Home Missionary Movement

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‘Rise, let us be going’ - Matthew 26:46

The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realized what they had done, it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable is apt to make us despair, and we say — ‘It is all up now, it is no use trying any more’.

If we imagine that this kind of despair is exceptional, we are mistaken; it is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize that we have not done that which we had a magnificent opportunity of doing, then we are apt to sink into despair.

… and Jesus Christ comes and says — ‘Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost forever, you cannot alter it; but arise and go to the next thing.’ Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him.

There are experiences like this in each of our lives. We are in despair, the despair that comes friom actualities, and we cannot lift ourselves out of it. The disciples in this instance had done a downright unforgivable thing; they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus, but He came with a spiritual initiative against their despair and said - ‘Arise and do the next thing.’

If we are inspired of God, what is the next thing? To trust Him absolutely and to pray on the ground of His Redemption. Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.

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Every little conventicle that is put up, and every hugh cathedral this is reared, be it a biuilding with lowly porch or lofty spire, is called the house of God. Well, did you never read where it is said, ‘God that made heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands, that is to say, of this building’?

Have you never read that magnificent sentence of Solomon at the consecration of the temple, ‘Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house which I have built’? Think ye then that He will dwell in any of these classic buildings, be they of Greek, or Gothic, of Norman or medieval architecture?

Oh, sirs, God is great and greatly to be praised, as much outside as inside of your petty structures. He is everywhere; He filleth all things; and God’s house is not a place that you can build for Him, artistic as your tastes may be. Your memorial windows are not His remembrancers. They may charm you, they cannot cheat Him. But there is a place where God ever dwells. What habitation hath He prepared for Himself, and what tabernacle hath He builded?

There is one abode mysteriously fashioned. We speak of its strange conception and its matchless purity of architecture. It was the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. ‘A body hast thou prepared me’. And the house of God, the true Bethel, the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, for ‘in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’

For ‘the word was made flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’ The house of God is first the Person of Christ, and then the church of God, which is the Body of Christ mystically. This is the house and the household of God, even the church of the living God…

As you whispered, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.” This agony, tearing of my heart, this unimaginable truth.

Unbearable, insufferable, and horrific pain taken for a miscreant’s expense. Passage of time and men, this still clings to my heart after generations of lights have been spent.

Forgive me, forgive me Father as this scourge remains fixed to my hand. To be sightless, ignorant of the Savior, this hammer I wield at the Son of Man.

Driving, striking, pushing these irons through the carapace of God’s mortality. Lifting, up heaving this tree of damnation, the motionless gaze of your body’s frailty.

Gasping, moments of breath from heaven, I peer at the crown of exaltation. Your last, your precious last draw of life I grapple the lance, thrusting conformation.

By my hands…

We are all guilty of His death. Only God could go through this and still offer us eternity. He has Risen, is Risen, and will forever be Risen.

Happy Easter! (The tomb is still empty)

Doug Gorman
Faith Online Business

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There are some in this house of prayer this morning who are spiritually paralyzed. They have eyes and they see the gospel; they have ears and they have heard it, and heard it attentively too; but they are so paralyzed they will honestly tell you, that they cannot lay hold upon the promise of God; they cannot believe in Jeuss to the saving of their souls.

If you urge them to pray, they say ‘We try to pray, but it is not acceptable prayer.’ If you bid them have confidence, they will tell you, though not in so many words perhaps, that they are given up to despair. Their mournful ditty is:

“I would but cannot sing;
I would, but cannot pray;
For Satan meets me when I try,
And frights my soul away.

I would, but can’t repeat,
Though I endeavor oft;
This stony heart can ne’er relent
Till Jesus makes it soft.

I would, but cannot love,
Though woo’d by love divine;
No arguments have power to move
A soul so base as mine.

O could I but believe!
Then all would easy be;
I would but cannot — Lord, relieve
My help must come from thee!”

The bottom of this paralysis is sin upon the conscience, working death in them. They are sensible of their guilt, but powerless to believe that the crimson fountain can remove it; they are alive only to sorrow, despondency, and agony. Sin paralyzes them with despair.

I grant you that into this despair there enters largely the element of unbelief, which is sinful, but I hope there is also in it a measure of sincere repentance, which bears in it the hope of something better.

Our poor awakened paralytics sometimes hope that they may be forgiven, but they cannot believe it; they cannot rejoice; they cannot cast themselves on Jesus; they are utterly wihtout strength…

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Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture heroically on Jesus Christ’s statements when the facts of your common-sense life shout — “It’s a lie?” On the mount it is easy to say — ‘Oh, yes, I believe God can do it’; but you have to come down into the demon-possessed valley and meet with facts that laugh ironically at the whole of your mount-of-transfiguration belief.

Every time my programme of belief is clear to my own mind, I come accross something that contradicts it. Let me say I believe God will supply all my need, and then let me run dry, with no outlook, and see whether I will go through the trial of faith, or whether I will sink back to something lower.

Faith must be tested, because it can be turned into a personal possession only through conflict. What is your faith up against just now? The test wil either prove that your faith is right, or it will kill it. “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me.”

The final thing is confidence in Jesus. Believe steadfastly on Him and all you come up against will develop your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith, and the last great test is death. May God keep us in fighting trim! Faith is unutterable trust in God, trust which never dreams that He will not stand by us.

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“Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And batter’d by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.”

God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry.

In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and puts us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality.

Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God want you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision.

Don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.

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In our religion it is customary to put God first, but we are apt to think it is an impertinence to put Him first in the practical issues of our lives. If we imagine we have to put on our Sunday moods before we come near to God, we will never come near Him. We must come as we are.

Don’t calculate with the evil in view. - Does God really mean us to take no account of the evil? “Love…taketh no account of the evil.” Love is not ignorant of the existence of the evil, but it does not take it in as a calculating factor. Apart from God, we do reckon with evil; we calculate with it in view and work all our reasonings from that standpoint.

Don’t calculate with the rainy day in view. - You cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus Christ. Jesus said — “Let not your heart be troubled.” God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command — “Let not…” Haul yourself up a hundred and one times a day in order to do it, until you get into the habit of putting God first and calculating with Him in view.

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If this “don’t” does not work there, it will work nowhere. This “don’t” must work in days of perplexity as well as in days of peace, or it never will work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work in anyone else’s case. Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at all, but on your relationship to God Himself.

Fussing away always ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not “out” to realize HIs own ideas; He was “out” to realize God’s ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God.

Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put all “supposing” on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.

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