November 19

“For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” 1 Corinthians 2:2,3

The first of these statements applies to Paul's message, the second to his person. God requires that those who proclaim the message of the cross should have suffered the cross—should know themselves to be, in Paul's own words, crucified with Christ. We often think that when a person like Paul got up to speak, he must have felt confident in the strength of his own resources. But Paul's theme was Jesus Christ “crucified through weakness,” and it was necessary, therefore, that he should tell it in conscious weakness himself.

We must allow God to cancel our self-sufficiency. When we confess before him that we can do nothing in our own strength, then Christ will be able to manifest his power upon us. That which passes through the death of the cross and rises up again in life is of God, and being so will count mightily for him.

November 18

“Therefore the sons are free, But, lest we cause them to stumble. . .give unto them for me and thee." Matthew 17:26. 27

God had never laid it down that his Son must pay the Temple tax, and as Son of God there was no necessity for him to do anything whatever about it. Indeed, we might feel that for him to do so would be to put himself in the wrong position of the "stranger" (verse 25). Then why did he do it? “Lest we cause them to stumble."

Has it occurred to you that the very Son of God himself uttered these words? There could of course be no question at any time of his evading a duty; but that was not the point at issue here. It was a question rather of his discarding a privilege. This is the way of the cross, and the principle is a significant and searching one. The cross of Christ presents us with this expression of God's will: namely, that like him, we are required to forego what we might enjoy, in order that others be not offended.

November 17

“Ye are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Yea, there is no Rock; I know not any.” Isaiah 44:8

To witness is not to disseminate knowledge which everyone already has, but to point to truth that few are aware of. Because of conditions generally in the ancient world, God wanted within it a witness—a people and a land where things were different. Through them, he would bring the Good News of his justice and lovingkindness to all the nations of the earth.

Our commission is the same. Unclouded fellowship with God, faithful exhortation of one another, beautiful Christian lives, all are not enough. There must be witness. The Church is likened to a golden lampstand, not an ornament. Nor is it enough that it should be of gold: it must shed forth the light of God into every corner of this dark world.

November 16

“I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut.” Revelation 3:8

If God is going to have a witness in the earth today, he must have the service of all his less-gifted servants, his “one-talent” men. We might imagine that if he were gracious to his Church, he would give us more people like Paul and Peter; but in fact he seldom does so. The Church of God is full of ordinary, one-talented believers, and if only we would abandon our personal ambitions and seek instead ways for them to serve him, wonderful things would happen.

The Church needs leaders, but it also needs brothers. I believe in authority, but I believe also in brotherly love. In Philadelphia they respected authority, for they kept the Lord‘s word and did not deny his name. But philadelphia in Greek means “brotherly kindness.” It was to these caring brothers and sisters that the door was opened. Let them set out to serve him together and not wait for the specialists; then we shall begin to see what the Church’s service really is.

November 15

“Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

The divine life planted in us, itself so utterly alien to the world around it, is a light-source designed by God to illuminate the world’s true character. It does this by emphasizing through contrast the world’s inherent darkness. From this it is clear that to separate ourselves from the world today, and thus deprive it of its own light, is no way to glorify God. It merely thwarts his intention of serving mankind through us.

The Church, to use another metaphor, is a thorn in the side of God's adversary, a source of constant annoyance to him. We make a heap of trouble for Satan simply by being in the world. So why leave it? The Church glorifies God, not by getting out of the world but by radiating his light in it. Heaven is not the place to glorify God; it will be the place to praise him. The place to glorify him is here.

November 14

“And Jacob said when he saw them, This is God’s host; and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.” Genesis 32:2

This glimpse of the angels of God should have sufficed to reassure Jacob on his return to Canaan. The verses which follow, however, tell how fear of his brother overcame him and led him to divide his people and possessions into “two companies.” Here we find in Hebrew the same word Mahanaim, two hosts, that Jacob had used before. Now, though, he had substituted his own mahanaim for God’s. Where there had been “two hosts” before—namely one heavenly company and one earthly, his own—he now forgot the former and divided his earthly company into two. He then prayed his first real prayer.

In Jacob’s early years it was all scheming and bargaining, and no prayer. Now it was both scheming and prayer. Yet if we pray, we need not scheme. If we scheme, there is no meaning in our prayer. Jacob, however, did both: on the one hand he trusted God, and on the other hand he did the work himself. Happily for him, it was on that night that God met him.

November 13

“He was manifested to take away sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not.” 1 John 3:5, 6

Some of us force ourselves to do things we don’t want to do and to live a life we cannot in fact live, and think that in making this effort we are being Christians. That is very far removed from what God offers us in Christ. The Christian life is lived when I receive the life of Christ within me as a gift. to live by that life.

It is the nature of the life of Christ not to love the world but to be distinct from it, and to value prayer and the Word and communion with God. These are not things I do naturally; by nature I have to force myself to do them. But God has provided another nature, and he wants me to benefit from the provision he has made. God sets up a standard, but Christ shows us his storehouse. Strength, life, grace from God, all are ours to receive that we may measure up to the divine standard.