October 2

"I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it" Psalm 39:9

These words express a fitting attitude for lovers of God. Since he makes all things work together for their good, then this act of his which has befallen me can only be for my benefit. I will yield to it, therefore, without protest, not even asking why my lot differs from the lot of others.

Only if my love is directed, not at God, but at some object I am seeking for its own sake will the good which he wishes to give me be deferred. Lack of explanation matters little. The way of knowing God is by love and not by knowledge. When I recall how the Lord Jesus said of the sparrows, "Not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father," should I not accept in silence what comes to me from his hand, seeing the love that has planned it?

October 1

"He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his spirit that dwelleth in you." Romans 8:11

The previous verse explains how God gives life to our spirit; this verse tells us how he gives life to our body. The body is dead in this sense that it is traveling toward the grave. No matter how advanced a Christian's spiritual walk is, he has yet to possess a redeemed body. This can only be in the future. Today's body is just an earthly tent, a body of humiliation.

This verse, however, teaches us that if the Spirit of God abides in us, then through this indwelling power God also gives renewal to that earthly tent. He is not here speaking of a future resurrection, but of the fact that the Holy Spirit can strengthen our physical bodies so that we can meet the requirements of God's work. Neither our life nor the kingdom of God will suffer through the weakness of a body thus renewed and empowered.

September 30

"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us [and we beheld his glory]." John 1:14

There came a time when God committed himself to human form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Before the Word became flesh, God's fullness knew no bounds. However, once the incarnation became a reality, his work and his power on earth were committed to this flesh. Would the Son of man, Christ Jesus, restrict God or manifest him? We are shown from the Bible that far from limiting God, he has instead wonderfully manifested God's fullness.

Then the time came for Christ to distribute his life to his disciples. There, we may feel, the restriction really began! For nearly 2,000 years God has been working in the Church toward the day when, in the fullest sense, his glory will no longer be restricted.

Do we realize this? If we do, will we not spontaneously lift our eyes to him and cry, "O God, how we have hindered thee! How we have limited thy power and thy glory! Find a way through us, even now, freely to manifest thy glory!"

September 29

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus." 1 Corinthians 1:30

Here I must share with you my experience. Back in 1927 I came to the point where I knew that there was a lack of something in my life. Sin was defeating me, and I saw that something was fundamentally wrong. I asked God to show me the meaning of the expression "I have been crucified with Christ."

For some months I prayed earnestly and read the Scriptures, seeking light. It became increasingly clear to me that when speaking of this subject God nowhere says, "You must be," but always "You have been." Yet in view of my constant failures, this just did not seem possible.

Then one morning I came in my reading to this verse, "You are one in Christ Jesus" I looked again. "That you are in Christ, is God's doing." It was amazing! Then if Christ died, and that is a certain fact, and if God put me into him, then I must have died too. I have been crucified with Christ! I cannot tell you what a wonderful discovery that was.

September 28

"Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth." Ephesians 6:14

The spiritual warfare is defensive, not offensive, for the Lord Jesus has already fought the battle and won the victory. The work of the Church here on earth is simply to guard and maintain that victory. It is not to overcome the devil, but to resist an already defeated foe. Her work is not to bind the strong man; the strong man has already been bound. Her work is not to let him be loosed.

There is no need to attack; simply to guard is sufficient. The starting point of the spiritual warfare is to stand upon the victory of Christ; it is to keep in view the fact that he has overcome. It is not to deal with Satan, but to trust the Lord, because his victory is already ours. Let us gird our loins with this truth.

September 27

"I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me." Philippians 4:13

Christ is my health forever. Praise him, this is a fact. To have the Lord heal me, and to have him as my healing are two very different things. May I remind you that Paul does not tell us he obtained healing as a thing in itself. What he says is that in his life he continued to have One who was his health. Though his weakness persisted, his healing also persisted. His weakness might be prolonged, but his health was prolonged too.

Most of us think of healing as a matter of elimination, but it is not that at all. It is the life-giving Person of the indwelling Christ. Healing is, for us, not the absence of weakness but the presence of a vital Power.

September 26

"As poor, yet making many rich." - 2 Corinthians 6:10

We may be as frugal as we like where our private affairs are concerned, but we must not try to be sparing in the Lord's service, for that will be to deny him the opportunity of working miracles on behalf of the multitudes. Our attempts at frugality will frustrate his purpose as well as impoverish our own lives.

We come far short as Christian workers if we can only exercise faith for the meeting of our own needs and do not reach out to others in want. We may think as his servants that like the Levites we are entitled to expect God's people to offer us their tenth. What we are prone to forget, however, is that the Levites were in turn under obligation to offer their tenth.

Every Christian, no mater how small his assets, should always be a giver. Only to receive, without giving, is to court the disaster of spiritual stagnation.

September 25

"Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus?"

Men always like to reason; but I might well ask if there is any reason why I should have been saved. There is no reason whatsoever. I have neither willed it nor contributed to it, and yet I am saved. This is the most unreasonable thing which has ever happened to me.

When I was young I was frequently offended by the seemingly unreasonable things which God did. Later I read Romans 9, and for the first time in my life I began to see my own littleness and God's greatness. He is so far above all in unapproachable splendor the the glimpse of a tiny fraction of his glory would send us to out knees and make us abandon our reasonings.

The Queen of the South was shown a small part of the glory of Solomon, and there was no more spirit left in her. In the presence of him who is greater than Solomon, what matters my feeble reasoning?