Wednesday, May 20, 2015
HOW GOD MEETS ALL OUR NEEDS
HOW GOD MEETS ALL OUR NEEDS
Harry Foster
"My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Jesus Christ." Philippians 4:19
HOW could Paul be so positive when he did not know what needs the Philippians had? As the church had grown since he had so hurriedly left it, there must have been believers there whom he had never seen. How could he address all the saints and speak so dogmatically of all their needs, when he did not know them? He did not need to know them. He knew his God. And so it was out of his own rich experience of divine sufficiency that he commended them with all their needs to his own proved Lord: "My God", he assured them, "is the One who will assuredly supply all your needs". His was more than a general statement about God; it was coloured and reinforced by what he himself had learned. This personal reference to his God also suggests that he has information to impart as to how God meets our needs. In our search for help we turn back to the beginning of this letter and ask just what were the qualities of Paul's God which are so calculated to provide all our needs. We have four chapters before us, and each will help to clarify this great truth for us.
Chapter One. The God of Happenings
I suggest that the first chapter speaks of God's ability to turn every experience which we can have to good account. For the believer, He is the one who is in full command of all that happens. "I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel" (verse 12).
The allusion here is to his imprisonment. The Philippians had first got to know Paul when he was thrust into the inner dungeon of their own prison. Wonderful things happened, then, in answer to prayer. In a marvellous earth-shaking experience Paul and Silas were set free and all their hearts had been filled with rejoicing. This time, however, their dear Paul had been a prisoner for a long time and there had been no release for him in spite of all their prayers. What had gone wrong? Was this a need that God could not meet?
The apostle was clearly concerned to assure them that nothing had gone wrong -- in fact everything was turning out for good and for [91/92] God's glory. "The things that happened to me"! What a catalogue of apparent calamities. If Luke had sent them a letter about it all (which is more than likely, since he knew them so well), they would have the details of those happenings which we can read in Acts 21:10 onwards. They would thus know of the mobbing in the temple, the fact that he had literally to be carried away by Roman soldiers to prevent the angry crowd from tearing him to pieces. They would have known of the plots, the chains, the unjust delays of insincere governors who were looking for bribes, the storm and the shipwreck, the much rain, the cold and the viper in the firewood, all culminating in the mystery of the long drawn out captivity in the Roman prison.
What strange and painful 'happenings'! Could not the God who opened prisons so easily have met Paul's needs by opening his? Could not the Saviour who so easily calmed the storm have made it calm and safe for Paul? Peter was not only released from prison in answer to prayer but the tyrant Herod was struck down by divine judgment. Could not Peter's God have met Paul's need by doing the same with the tyrants who kept Paul captive? Of course He could. But He did not. So one of the first lessons we must learn about God's meeting of our needs is that He has a way of not repeating Himself, but of changing His methods. He did not work for Paul in Rome as He had formerly worked for him in Philippi. This was no problem to Paul who wanted to assure his friends in Philippi that this new phase of God's dealings with him was bringing greater blessings than ever. He had been sovereignly brought to Rome where God had a special purpose for him. If the journey there had been a strange one, it had all been overruled by divine wisdom and power. It is true that when the fierce tempest struck their ship, God did nothing to mitigate its fury, leaving them in apparently hopeless circumstances for many dark days. But in the middle of the gale He sent a special heavenly messenger to His servant. He did not this time speak peace to the winds and waves, but He did something even better when he filled Paul's heart and mind with the peace "that passeth all understanding" (4:7). At every turn and in every circumstance, God met Paul's needs in ways which brought blessing to many and glory to Himself. From his prison the apostle could make the claim that Christ had been exalted in those strange years of testing, only asking for prayer "that now, as always", Christ might be exalted in his body (1:20).
Paul's words not only tell us more about his God, but suggest to us ways in which He meets our needs. He allows circumstances and men to work against us, and then overrules all the evil to bring salvation to sinners (v.13), encouragement to other Christians (v.14), and joy to the heart of His tried servant (v.18). Death itself, the great enemy, can only come when He wills it, and then it will bring gain to its victim (v.21), and will certainly mean that the one involved has no more work on earth to do for his Lord (v.25). Paul's God was the One who would perfect the work which He had begun in His servant, and who gave the apostle confidence that He would do the same for us all. He is the God of all the things that happen to us. No wonder that the apostle keeps on exhorting us to rejoice.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Skillful Guidance
By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman
"He guided them by the skillfulness of his hands" (Ps. 78:72).
When you are doubtful as to your course, submit your judgment absolutely to the Spirit of God, and ask Him to shut against you every door but the right one...Meanwhile keep on as you are, and consider the absence of indication to be the indication of God's will that you are on His track...As you go down the long corridor, you will find that He has preceded you, and locked many doors which you would fain have entered; but be sure that beyond these there is one which He has left unlocked. Open it and enter, and you will find yourself face to face with a bend of the river of opportunity, broader and deeper than anything you had dared to imagine in your sunniest dreams. Launch forth upon it; it conducts to the open sea.
God guides us, often by circumstances. At one moment the way may seem utterly blocked; and then shortly afterward some trivial incident occurs, which might not seem much to others, but which to the keen eye of faith speaks volumes. Sometimes these things are repeated in various ways, in answer to prayer. They are not haphazard results of chance, but the opening up of circumstances in the direction in which we would walk. And they begin to multiply as we advance toward our goal, just as the lights do as we near a populous town, when darting through the land by night express. --F. B. Meyer
If you go to Him to be guided, He will guide you; but He will not comfort your distrust or half-trust of Him by showing you the chart of all His purposes concerning you. He will show you only into a way where, if you go cheerfully and trustfully forward, He will show you on still farthcr. --Horace Bushnell
As moves my fragile bark across the storm-swept sea,
Great waves beat o'er her side, as north wind blows;
Deep in the darkness hid lie threat'ning rocks and shoals;
But all of these, and more, my Pilot knows.
Sometimes when dark the night, and every light gone out,
I wonder to what port my frail ship goes;
Still though the night be long, and restless all my hours,
My distant goal, I'm sure, my Pilot knows.
--Thomas Curtis Clark
Kept for the Master's Use By Frances Ridley Havergal
Kept for the Master's Use
By Frances Ridley Havergal
Table of Contents
| › Prefatory Note - KEPT FOR The Master's Use. By Frances Ridley Havergal Philadelphia Henry Altemus Company Copyrighted 1895, by Henry Altemus. ...read |
| › 1: Our Lives Kept for Jesus - 'Keep my life, that it may be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.' Many a heart has echoed the little song: 'Take my life, and let it be ...read |
| › 2: Our Moments kept for Jesus - 'Keep my moments and my days; Let them flow in ceaseless praise.' It may be a little help to writer and reader if we consider some of the ...read |
| › 3: Our Hands Kept for Jesus - 'Keep my hands, that they may move At the impulse of Thy love.' When the Lord has said to us, 'Is thine heart right, as My heart is with t ...read |
| › 4: Our Feet kept for Jesus - 'Keep my feet, that they may be Swift and beautiful for Thee.' The figurative keeping of the feet of His saints, with the promise that whe ...read |
| › 5: Our Voices kept for Jesus - 'Keep my voice, and let me sing Always, only, for my King.' I have wondered a little at being told by an experienced worker, that in many ...read |
| › 6: Our Lips kept for Jesus - 'Keep my lips, that they may be Filled with messages from Thee.' The days are past for ever when we said, 'Our lips are our own.' Now we k ...read |
| › 7: Our Silver and Gold Kept for Jesus - 'Keep my silver and my gold; Not a mite would I withhold.' 'The silver and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts.' Yes, every coin we ...read |
| › 8: Our Intellects kept for Jesus - 'Keep my intellect, and use Every power as Thou shalt choose.' There are two distinct sets of temptations which assail those who have, or ...read |
| › 9: Our Wills kept for Jesus - 'Keep my will, oh, keep it Thine, For it is no longer mine.' Perhaps there is no point in which expectation has been so limited by experie ...read |
| › 10: Our hearts kept for Jesus - 'Keep my heart; it is Thine own; It is now Thy royal throne.' 'It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace,' and yet some ...read |
| › 11: Our love kept for Jesus - 'Keep my love; my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure-store.' Not as a mere echo from the morning-gilded shore of Tiberias, but as an ev ...read |
| › 12: Our Selves kept for Jesus - 'Keep my self, that I may be Ever, only, all for Thee.' 'For Thee!' That is the beginning and the end of the whole matter of consecration. ...read |
| › 13: Christ for Us - 'So will I also be for Thee.'--Hos. iii. 3. The typical promise, 'Thou shalt abide for Me many days,' is indeed a marvel of love. For it is given t ...read |
| › 14: Selections From Miss Havergal's Latest Poems - An Interlude. That part is finished! I lay down my pen, And wonder if the thoughts will flow as fast Through ...read |
"He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit" (John xv. 2).
Days of Heaven Upon Earth
"He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit" (John xv. 2).
Recently we passed a garden. The gardener had just finished his pruning, and the wounds of the knife and saw were just beginning to heal, while the warm April sun was gently nourishing the stricken plant into fresh life and energy.
We thought as we looked at that plant how cruel it would be to begin next week and cut it down. Now, the gardener's business is to revive and nourish it into life.
Its business is not to die, but to live. So, we thought, it is with the discipline of the soul. It, too, has its dying hour; but it must not be always dying: Rather reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Death is but a moment. Live, then, ye children of the resurrection, on His glorious life more and more abundantly, and the fulness of your life will repel the intrusion of self and sin, and overcome evil with good, and your existence will be, not the dreary repression of your own struggling, but the springing tide of Christ's spontaneous overcoming and everlasting life.
CHASTISEMENT By F.B. Meyer
Way Into the Holiest - 28: CHASTISEMENT
By F.B. Meyer
Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." (HEBREWS 12.6).
It is hardly possible to suppose that any will read these lines who have not drunk of the bitter cup of affliction. Some may have even endured a great fight of afflictions. Squadron after squadron has been drawn up in array, and broken its regiments on the devoted soul.
It has come to us in different forms, but in one form or another it has come to us all. Perhaps our physical strength and health have been weakened in the way, or we have been racked with unutterable anguish in mind or body; or have been obliged to see our beloved slowly slipping from the grasp of our affection, which was condemned to stand paralysed and helpless by.
In some cases, affliction has come to us in the earning of our daily bread, which has been procured with difficulty and pain, whilst care has never been long absent from our hearts, or want from our homes. In others, homes which were as full of merry voices as the woods in spring of sweet-voiced choristers are empty and silent. Ah, how infinite are the shades of grief! How extended the gamut of pain! How many can cry with the Psalmist, "All Your waves and Your billows are gone over me!
We can see clearly the reason of all this suffering. The course of nature is out of joint. Man's sin has put not himself only, but the whole course of nature into collision with the will and law of God, so that it groans and travails in its pains. Selfishness has also alienated man from his fellows, inciting him to amass all that he can lay hands on for himself, oblivious to the bitter sufferings of those around him, and careless of their woes. Whilst behind the whole course of nature there is the incessant activity of malignant spirits, who, as in the case of Job, may be plotting against us, revelling in any mischief, which, for some great reasons, they are permitted to work to our hurt.
There are different ways in which affliction may be borne. Some despise it (verse 5). They refuse to acknowledge any reason in themselves for its infliction. They reject the lesson it was designed to teach. They harden themselves in stoical indifference, resolving to bear it with defiant and desperate courage.
Some faint under it (verse 5). They become despondent and dispirited, or lose heart and hope. Like Pliable, they are soon daunted, and get out of the Slough of Despond with as little cost as possible to themselves, or, like Timorous and Mistrust, turn back from the lion's roar.
We ought to be in subjection, lifting the cup meekly and submissively to our lips, calmly and trustfully saying "Amen" to every billow and wave, lovingly trying to learn the lesson written on the page of trial, and bowing ourselves as the reeds of the river's edge to the sweeping hurricane of trial.
But this, though the only true and safe course, is by no means an easy one. Subjection in affliction is only possible when we can see in it the hand of the Father of spirits (verse 9).
So long as we look at the second causes, at men or things, as being the origin and source of our sorrows, we shall be filled alternately with burning indignation and hopeless grief. But when we come to understand that nothing can happen to us except as our Father permits, and that, though our trials may originate in some lower source, yet they become God's will for us as soon as they are permitted to reach us through the defence of His environing presence, then we smile through our tears, we kiss the dear hand that uses another as its rod, we realise that each moment's pain originates in our Father's heart, and we are at rest.
Judas may seem to mix the cup, and put it to our lips, but it is nevertheless the cup which our Father gives us to drink, and shall we not drink it? Much of the anguish passes away from life's trials as soon as we discern our Father's hand. Then affliction becomes chastisement. There is a great difference between these two.
Affliction may come from a malignant and unfriendly source, chastisement is the work of the Father, yearning over His little children, desiring to eliminate from their characters all that is unlovely and unholy, and to secure in them entire conformity to His character and will.
RECOVERY OF LIFE'S CUTTING EDGE
Roger T. Forster
Reading: 2 Kings 6:1-7
THE background to this story is that Elijah and Elisha in their spiritually unified ministry, reflecting Christ and His Church endowed by the Spirit, had seen something of revival begin amongst the apostate Northern Kingdom of Israel. One major feature of this was the rise of the sons of the prophets and their wives -- men and women who wished to embody the prophetic word of God and relate to Elijah and Elisha as children learning God's way of family living.
In 1 Kings 20, the days of Elijah, there seemed to be just a few of these sons of the prophets in evidence. In 2 Kings 2, when Elijah was translated, there appear to have been fifty or so near at hand. In 2 Kings 4:1 mention is made also of their wives, and 4:43 indicates that there were over one hundred present in the community's life. Now in this sixth chapter of 2 Kings, we are told that the place where they were living was too small for such a growing community. It was this growth that occasioned the event of the building of a larger campus, with the subsequent loss of the axe head into Jordan in the course of the building operation.
One wonders if some modern Elisha, if appealed to under such circumstances, might have urged the workers not to worry about the loss of the cutting edge but to press on with God's work. As if to suggest that they should keep chopping with the axe handle, persevering and perspiring in their efforts to keep things going at all costs. Before we ask what the lost axe head represents, what the cutting edge of growth and church building is all about, it is important to remember that spiritual revival and growth is connected with the Biblical principle of community life. This is a truth not only illustrated [79/80] by the sons of the prophets in the days of Israel's apostasy, but throughout the whole church age. We are all aware of the beginning of the New Testament church in Jerusalem, with its spontaneous, voluntary, communal living, so that "All that believed were together and had all things common. No man called what he possessed his own, and there was none who had need" (Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-34).
The Irish Missionary movement was made up of small communal bands, both from Catholics and from theUnitas Fratrum, a pre-reformation Biblical movement. Anabaptists, Moravians and Methodist class meetings are all in the same stream of those who saw the need of some form of living and sharing together. Going back to the New Testament it seems from Romans 16 that the church in the great metropolis of Rome certainly had house group cells, five of which are mentioned in that chapter.
It is in the smaller congregations that body life can most adequately be experienced. Many churches are inspirational in their singing, free and fulfilling in their worship, profound in their teaching and active in their organised outreach, all essential elements in the Christian life. Too often, however, the factor that is missing is the life-changing business of becoming more like our Lord Jesus, that is, "being conformed to the image of his Son". Yet this is really the heart of God's purpose in the churches. Failure in Christ-like growth among believers is a serious hindrance to Church growth as a whole.
IN THE WILDERNESS WITH GOD
IN THE WILDERNESS WITH GOD
Angus M. Gunn
"Thou wentest after me in the wilderness" Jeremiah 2:2
"I did know thee in the wilderness" Hosea 13:5
THE wilderness journey of the people of God only began after they had experienced three fundamental crises. These are Old Testament illustrations of three great New Testament experiences of being sheltered by the blood, led of the Spirit and delivered by the power of the cross.
For the Israelites the sprinkled blood was God's means by which the entire problem of sin was removed. It represented the sum total of the whole answer of God to the problem of guilt. The blood on the door was all that God had to see for full protection from wrath. It did not matter how they felt about it; they could not even see it, for they were shut inside the door at the time.
Secondly we read that immediately they were freed, they were led onward by the Holy Spirit, as symbolised by the cloud and the pillar of fire. The leading of the Spirit is not for some select few who have had a special experience; it is for all those who have entered into life by the redeeming blood. It is the birthright of every child of God to be led by the Holy Spirit from their first moments of pilgrimage.
Then there was the Red Sea. We read that there God said to them all: "Fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and you need only be still" (Exodus 14:13). The position was that even though they had been delivered from the guilt of sin, they were still in bondage to its power; they were afraid of Egypt, under Egypt's grip. It was the Red Sea which brought them deliverance from this bondage and from the world power over them. And look what they had to do to experience release from it all -- simply to accept divine deliverance. God did it all. In the same way, when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He delivered every committed Christian from all the sinful habits which could hold him down. He did not just promise something which might happen in the future: He did it then, when He died on the cross. When we accept what Christ has done for us on the cross, then we can know full deliverance from fear and from the power of sin.
So Israel came through these three fundamental crises, and then went right on with God knowing, as the first chapters of Exodus tell us, how the entire power of sin -- past, present and future -- are dealt with by God's redemption. [27/28] All that follows, in Exodus and the following books, represents their moving forward in the will of God. We read of their joyful and free expectation in the song which came with their deliverance in Exodus 15. They looked forward to being led on and right in to the land of promise: "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them ..." (v.17). As a redeemed people they now had a sense of purpose, of destiny; they were going somewhere and they knew what it was all about.
The full realisation of redemption is dealt with in the same song which is to be found in the book of Revelation where the saints in glory sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb (15:1-5). Those who sing that song will no longer have to face the wilderness; it will all be past. In Exodus, though, the redeemed throng of singing Israelites found that as they moved on with God, they had to face the wilderness. And so do we. But we go into the wilderness with God.
We are not here dealing with the wandering life of those who are trying to live without God or who have strayed far from Him, but with that way of testing and learning which is the way of His will. In the Bible, "wilderness" is not the sort of bucolic, holiday notion that we associate with the word, but it is desert, a place without life, a place of barren emptiness and hardship. We find now that the Exodus image of the Christian life reminds us that wilderness experiences are absolutely essential for our spiritual growth. Wilderness experiences are inevitable for every Christian on his way forward to the promised land, for something is to be done there which can be done nowhere else.
At the end of their journey, the Israelites were informed that God had led them through the wilderness "to know what was in thine heart" (Deuteronomy 8:2). The truth was that there had to be a sorting out, and God made use of the wilderness for doing this most important work. The wilderness is essential for fullness. After all, the Lord Jesus Himself was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. We know too that Paul had a wilderness experience, and so did David and others. Perhaps the most notable of God's servants who were so tested was Moses, the man who was now at the head of God's ongoing people. He had deep and drastic trials in the wilderness to prepare him for his task. The wilderness is not a chance happening; it is an essential experience under the hand of God. It is His Winter, the time in which He causes His people to put down deeper roots in preparation for the Spring of spiritual growth and the fruitful Summer of fullness.
Not that Israel needed to spend all that time there. Most of what we read took place at the beginning and end of that journey, with the long middle period an unrecorded waste of time. After a little over a year at Sinai they were only eleven days journey from the land. In God's purpose the trial was meant to be much shorter; nevertheless it was absolutely necessary, as part of His will for them. The same applies to us. There is no other way through into the promised land.
This can be an enormously beneficial experience; it can be the very thing that makes you, as it certainly was for Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 32:12). The wonderful spirit found in these two men was born out of the wilderness. They were what they were not because of some special experience of blessing nor because of the support and fellowship of hundreds of others. No, they went through the wilderness with God, and so they learned to triumph. The purpose of the desert is to sift us and bring up to the surface hidden weaknesses. God has no use for 'phoneys'. He needs to deliver us from a world of pretence into a life where we are wholly committed to His will. What He does in us is infinitely more important than what He purposes to do for us in an outward way. It is clear in Israel's case that while He had brought them out of Egypt, He now had to get Egypt out of them. It was deeply rooted in their system as a result of long history. And there is a long history of this world's spirit and ways in you and me. In the wisdom of God He plans to prove His delivering power from it not just by meetings and seminars, but in the trial and testing of daily life.
It can be one of the great reassurances of God's care for us when we find how He engineers and overrules circumstances in our everyday lives which bring to the surface things which we never suspected were in us. So often this is done not by some special Bible message but by the situations in the home or on our job, the clashes which we have with those who are in close contact with us. The test then is as to whether we are going to accept God's verdict on the things which needed to be uncovered, or whether [28/29] we will try to dig in our heels and do what Stephen called "turning back to Egypt" in our hearts. If we are irked or if we are deprived, does this mean the outburst of old nature? Basically what it comes down to is the question as to whether we are in this thing for what we can get out of it; or are we there for the crown rights of Jesus Christ and His authority over our lives. It is in the wilderness that the Lord tests us by depriving us of the things that we prize, to show us what He already knew -- what was in our hearts of self interest. A friend who had been in a Japanese prison camp told me of how horrified she had been at the behaviour of some fellow prisoners who were keen Christians and yet acted so badly when the bread ran short. Things began to surface which she had never expected. So it is in one way or another with us all.
In the Scriptures we are given a frank exposition of the things which were disclosed by the wilderness. Items are pulled out of that story of Israel's history and highlighted in the New Testament also, in order that we might realise how true to life this all is. There is a passage in 2 Corinthians 10:1-13 which pulls these matters out into high relief so that we might realise that this is not just something in ancient history but that which applies to us today. We are told by Paul that there were those who had a genuine experience of deliverance and a taste of the Holy Spirit, yet whose lives in the end became a complete disaster. They never reached God's goal for them. In the wilderness testing they forsook God instead of moving closer to Him. Paul wrote concerning problems in Corinth, but under God he wrote for us all, reminding us of Old Testament illustrations of abiding possibilities. The five-fold warning here lifted directly from the story in the book of Exodus deals with:
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