Mighty Works

The following is taken from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening:

"Do not be content with forming schemes and talking of them.  One good deed is worth a thousand theories.  Let us not wait for large opportunities or for a different kind of work, but do the things we find to do day by day.  We have no other time in which to live;  past is gone, future not arrived.  We never have any time but the present.

Serve God!  Do it with all your might.  Do it promptly.  Do not fritter away your life in thinking what you intend to do tomorrow as if that would recompense for the idleness of today.  No man served God by doing things tomorrow.  Do it today with heart, soul and strength.

And remember, your might is not in yourself.  NO, you are perfect weakness.  Your might is in the Lord of hosts.  Seed His help.  Then wait in prayer and faith for His blessing.  Only then will what we do be well done and not fail in its effect."

And adding to this, I recently went to the funeral of a young man and this was said of him:  It was not a big work that he did, but it was the everyday details of life lived well that made him great.  One man wrote of him: "he did not seek to impress but by his very life that is exactly what he did."  

Refuge in the Name

"But I will leave among you a humble and lowly people, and they will take refuge in the name of the LORD."  Zephaniah 3:12

Prayers of the Puritans are humbling at best.  I've been reading "Valley of Vision" in my devotion time recently and have written down some excerpts that go along with the above passage:

"No comfort in anything apart from enjoying thee and being engaged in thy service.  I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal and it delights me to leave them there."

"When thou art present, evil cannot abide; in thy fellowship is fullness of joy, beneath thy smile is peace of conscience, by thy side no fears disturb, no apprehensions banish rest of mind."

"Thou art all good in times of peace, my only support in days of trouble, my one sufficiency when life shall end."

Let us take refuge in the name of the LORD.

Christian Contest

Sometimes I fear, we as believers forget about Jesus and begin competing for a holiness we have learned but forgot why.  Daily,  and I do mean daily, we MUST meditate on Jesus.  He is the author and the finisher of our faith.  We would not even understand the Bible apart from Him.  Don't think you have any holiness to boast of that He has not put there.  We are not in a contest, a Christian competition!  We are in love with a Savior who has bought us with His own blood, has called us by His own grace and will keep us by His own power.  If we don't love Him, then back we must go to the beginning to seek Him.

Spurgeon said, "He did not shed His precious blood to make you a hypocrite."  "You will seek Him and find Him when you seek Him with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13

Perform the Word

I thought the following verses would be a good start to 2014.  They are from 2 Chronicles written about King Josiah, who became king at the age of eight.  I know there are a multiplicity of scriptures to use to start off a new year but this just happens to be what I'm teaching this week.

"He did right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of this father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left."  Several years later, God said this about him, "Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before Me, tore your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you."  And last but not least, "Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant written in this book."

So, in a nutshell: Do right in God's sight.  Stay the course.  Be tender-hearted and humble.  Weep over sin.  Walk hard after God to keep His Word with all your heart and soul.  Perform the words.  [I really like that: "PERFORM THE WORDS" (34:31)]

Happy New Year!  May we grow in love with our Savior.  May He become more and we become less.  May we be fruitful, may we bear much fruit.