Verse of the day — Exodus 14:14
The Lord will fight for you; you must be quiet."
Exodus 14:14(HCSB)
Open Windows by T. Austin-Sparks
A Divine Purpose
All things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28 ESV)
The Lord Jesus derived much strength from this knowledge of purpose with which His life was bound up. There is no doubt that we too shall get strength from that sense of purpose, that consciousness of a divine vocation which is ours. That is why the enemy always tries to discourage us. He seeks to raise questions and doubts in our hearts as to the reaching of the goal, telling us that our labor is in vain. If he succeeds to rob us of that sense of purpose in our life, to make us doubt with regard to our testimony, our work, or the value of the suffering we have to go through, we shall lose our strength and the enemy will get the upper hand.
Jesus Christ was maintained in God strength all the way through, because He was dominated by the sense of His mission, because He kept firm His purpose. If we hold fast the purpose of our life, if we keep in view our heavenly calling, we too shall be maintained in strength. But if we try to fulfill some ambition of our own, if we carry out our own programs, if we keep some movement going, there will be no divine resources available for us. In order to be maintained in strength it is essential that we know that we are in the purpose of God. Our service must always be the result of a divine purpose. It is of the greatest importance for us to realize that we have a place in God plan. We have to deny ourselves. In God purpose there is no room for personal interests. To them that love God,to them whose heart is taken up with God and the fulfillment of His purpose, all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.That is a definite statement showing believers are called into a Divine purpose. We have got to know as definitely as the Lord Jesus knew, that we are in God purpose.
Morning Daily Light by Samuel Bagster
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
God commanded the man, … “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” § She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. § If by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. § Since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. § Our Savior Jesus Christ … has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. § For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
John 10:10; Gen. 2:16,17; Gen. 3:6; Rom. 6:23; Rom. 5:17; 1 Cor. 15:21,22; 2 Tim. 1:10; 1 John 5:11,12; John 3:17
Evening Daily Light by Samuel Bagster
The judgment seat.
We know that the judgment of God is according to truth. § When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. § Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. § There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
We are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 2:2; Matt. 25:31,32; Matt 13:43; Rom. 8:33,34; Rom. 8:1; 1 Cor. 11:32
None but the Hungry Heart by Miles Stanford
Defective Beginning
Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24).
Are we aware of the importance of a personal assurance of salvation? Healthy spiritual growth is founded upon it. Many Christians seem unable to enter Romans Six and Eight simply because they are not truly established in Romans Three, Four and Five. Full assurance as to our eternal security in the Lord Jesus is the basis for the ever-deepening experience of our identification with Him.
"The defect in souls in general is the incompleteness of their conversion. It is pardon that is apprehended and not acceptance. Acceptance embraces God's side - how He feels, and this should be chief, for we as sinners have offended Him. The offender has been removed from His eye by a Man - the Lord Jesus Christ, and He can receive us on the ground of the Man who glorified Him in bearing our judgment.
"We cannot enjoy acceptance but in the way in which it was acquired or effected for us, and if we are in the acceptance we know that no improvement of the flesh could commend us to God, and that we cannot be before Him but in Christ. But if we are in any degree dark as to the crucifixion of the old man, we are not in acceptance experientially, we are not in the daily benefit of it, and our liberty by the Spirit can never go beyond our conscious acceptance." -J.B.S.
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2).
Devotional Studies by Elizabeth Haworth
Have You Considered Satan? (JOB-study 15)
A Full Study Of JOB
Prayer Link
From the start, we find 'my servant Job' – a man of faith – a Godly intercessor. From the introduction we discover Job interceding on behalf of his dear children. From the beginning, we hear that Job was committed to intercessory prayer. Despite his traumatic circumstances, Job never ceases his prayer-link to the Lord. Regardless of his bitter questionings of God, Job never sins with his lips. And God uses his serious lack of understanding to draw Job closer to Himself. And God uses His faithful, interceding bond-slave to bless his wife and his friends.
God’s Grace
So through Job’s protection, and intercession, God was gracious to his erring wife. And through his faith and intercession, God was gracious to his unteachable friends. In attempting to comfort Job, each friend offered their own, self-acquired wisdom, and like Job, the creed to which they held was was an incomplete reality of God. But unlike Job, they were unteachable about the fuller measure of the truth of Christ. It was the spiritual battle betwixt God and Satan that first wreaked havoc on Job. It was the unseen onslaught from the invisible realm of the enemy, that 'smote' Job. Once the evil leviathan attacked his prey, the old serpent shrouded himself in religiosity, and Satan uses the old sin nature of Job’s friends to continue his wicked works.
Man’s Pride
Satan even subtly uses the pious, religious old sin nature of Job against himself – and though not mentioned later, Satan’s venomous influence permeates Job’s story. The genesis of deceptions was first realised in Eden’s garden – PRIDE. The pinnacle of deceitful pretence will reach its fullness in its revelation – PRIDE. And all biblical battles between are rooted and grounded in satanic deception. And the one escape is to crucify the old nature and to be rooted and grounded in Christ.
Satan’s Subtlety
This same desire to be as gods, knowing good and evil, is evident in the story of Job, and Satan seeks to use this same tool to shipwreck every life
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Knowing Jesus Devotional by Elizabeth Haworth
Beautiful Thoughts
THINK on THESE things
If there be any virtue,
THINK on THESE things