Dawn 2 Dusk Blessed to Listen, Ready to ObeyJesus had just been publicly praised because of the woman who bore and raised Him. But He redirected the moment, pointing away from mere human admiration and toward a deeper kind of blessing: those who truly listen to God’s word and actually live it. He wasn’t belittling His mother; He was lifting our eyes to see what real closeness with Him looks like—ears that hear, hearts that surrender, and lives that obey. The Blessing You Can’t Buy In a world that measures blessing by comfort, money, or recognition, Jesus gives a different definition. He says, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). Notice the shift: blessing isn’t tied to your background, your connections, or your gifts, but to your response to God’s voice. Anyone, anywhere, can step into this blessing—if they are willing to hear and to submit. That makes this invitation both humbling and thrilling. This is the same heartbeat we see in Psalm 1, where the blessed person is the one whose “delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does” (Psalm 1:2–3). God is not offering a quick spiritual high; He is offering rootedness, fruitfulness, and endurance. The question is not whether He is speaking—but whether we are treating His word as our delight or just an occasional accessory. Letting the Word Actually Land Hearing is easy. Sermons play in the background, verses scroll by in our feeds, audio Bibles run while we drive. But Jesus ties blessing not to exposure, but to engagement: hearing and obeying. James presses this home: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). It is entirely possible to be around Scripture all the time and still be spiritually self-deceived—thinking we’re growing simply because we’re informed. So what would it look like today to let God’s word land, not just pass by? It might mean slowing down with a single verse until the Spirit shows you one concrete step of obedience. It might mean finally forgiving that person because you’ve read, “forgiving one another, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). It might mean confessing a hidden sin instead of explaining it away. The living word “is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). When it cuts, it is not to harm you, but to heal and free you. Obedience That Flows from Love Obedience can sound cold or heavy—until you remember who is speaking. The One who calls you to obey is the One who bled for you. Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). Obedience is not a ladder you climb to reach God; it is the evidence that His love has already reached you and taken root in your heart. This means every act of obedience today—no matter how small—can be an act of love. Restraining your tongue, turning from a website, opening your Bible when you’d rather scroll, showing kindness when you feel irritated—these are all quiet ways of saying, “Jesus, I trust You more than I trust myself.” His commands are not chains but channels for joy. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). The more we love Him, the more we will find that obeying Him is not just possible—it is our pleasure. Lord Jesus, thank You for the gift of Your living word. Today, help me to hear You clearly and obey You quickly—let my love for You be seen in my choices. Morning with A.W. Tozer Man—The Dwelling Place of God: A Do-It-Yourself Education Better Than NoneTHIS IS WRITTEN FOR THOSE CHRISTIANS who may have missed a formal education. Let no one despair. A do-it-yourself education is better than none. It can be acquired by the proper use of our mental powers.
Our intellectual activities in the order of their importance may be graded this way: first, cogitation; second, observation; third, reading.
I wish I could include conversation in this short list. One would naturally suppose that verbal intercourse with congenial friends should be one of the most profitable of all mental activities; and it may have been so once but no more. It is now quite possible to talk for hours with civilized men and women and gain absolutely nothing from it. Conversation today is almost wholly sterile. Should the talk start on a fairly high level, it is sure within a few minutes to degenerate into cheap gossip, shoptalk, banter, weak humor, stale jokes, puns and secondhand quips. So we shall omit conversation from our list of useful intellectual activities, at least until there has been a radical reformation in the art of social discourse.
We shall not consider prayer here either, but for quite another and happier reason. Prayer is the loftiest activity possible to man, and it is of course partly mental, but it is nevertheless usually classified as a spiritual rather than an intellectual exercise; so it will be omitted.
I believe that pure thinking will do more to educate a man than any other activity he can engage in. To afford sympathetic entertainment to abstract ideas, to let one idea beget another, and that another, till the mind teems with them; to compare one idea with others, to weigh, to consider, evaluate, approve, reject, correct, refine; to join thought with thought like an architect till a noble edifice has been created within the mind; to travel back in imagination to the beginning of the creation and then to leap swiftly forward to the end of time; to bound upward through illimitable space and downward into the nucleus of an atom; and all this without so much as moving from our chair or opening the eyes-this is to soar above all the lower creation and to come near to the angels of God.
Of all earth's creatures only man can think in this way. And while thinking is the mightiest act a man can perform, perhaps for the very reason that it is the mightiest, it is the one act he likes the least and avoids most.
Aside from a few professionals, who cannot number more than one-tenth of one percent of the population, people simply do not think at all except in the most elementary way. Their thinking is done for them by the professionals.
After cogitation comes observation (in order of importance, not in order of time). Observation is, of course, simply a method of obtaining information. Without information the most powerful mind can produce nothing worthwhile. Philosophers have not agreed about whether the mind receives all of its ideas through the five senses or comes into the world with a few "innate ideas," i.e.,ideas already present. But we need not settle this argument to conclude that information is indispensable to sound thought. Knowledge is the raw material out of which that finest of all machines, the mind, creates its amazing world.
The effort to think well with an empty head is sure to be largely wasted. There is nothing like a good hard fact to correct our carefully constructed theories. God has given us our five senses, and these are most highly sensitive instruments for the gathering of knowledge. So efficient are these instruments that it is quite impossible for a normal person to live even a brief time without learning something. For this reason a child five years old may properly be said to be educated in that he has by observation gathered a few facts and arranged them into some sort of orderly pattern within his mind. A doctor of philosophy has done nothing different; he has only gone a little further.
While it is impossible to live even a short time without learning something, unfortunately it is possible to live a long time and not learn very much. Observation is a powerful tool, but its usefulness depends upon how well we use it. One of the tragedies of life is that the powers of observation atrophy when not used. Just when this begins with the average person I have no sure way of knowing, but I would hazard a guess that it is at about the age of twenty-five. By that time most people have formed their habits, accepted the conventions, lost their sense of wonder and settled down to live by their glands and their appetites. For millions there is not much to observe after that but the weather and the baseball score.
Lastly reading. To think without a proper amount of good reading is to limit our thinking to our own tiny plot of ground. The crop cannot be large. To observe only and neglect reading is to deny ourselves the immense value of other people's observations; and since the better books are written by trained observers the loss is sure to be enormous. Extensive reading without the discipline of practical observation will lead to bookishness and artificiality. Reading and observing without a great deal of meditating will fill the mind with learned lumber that will always remain alien to us. Knowledge to be our own must be digested by thinking. Music For the Soul Christ’s Coming to the World ~ IAnd the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let him say. Come. - Revelation 22:17 The two halves of this verse do not refer to the same persons or the same "coming." The first portion as an invocation or a prayer; the second portion is an invitation or an offer. The one is addressed to Christ, the other to men. The commentary upon the former is the last words of the Book, where we find the seer answering the promise of his Master: "Behold! I come quickly!" with the sigh of longing: "Even so! Come! Lord Jesus." And in precisely a similar fashion the bride here, longing for the presence of the bridegroom, answers His promise: " Behold, I come quickly!" which occurs a verse or two before, with the petition which all who hear it are bidden to swell till it rolls in a great wave of supplication to His feet. And then with that coming, another " coming" is connected. The one is the coming of Christ to the world at last; the other is the coming of men to Christ now. The double office of the Church is represented here, the voice that rose in petition to Heaven has to sound upon earth in proclamation. And the double relation of Christ to His Church is implied here. He is absent, therefore He is prayed to come; but He is in such a fashion present as that any who will can come to Him. He will come again; but ere He does, and because He will, men are invited to approach Him now, and if we do, to our hearts, too. His appearing will be a joy and not a terror. And the sweetness of His presence with us amidst the shows of time will be perfected by the glories of our presence with Him when He comes at last. Christ has come, Christ will come. These are the two great facts from which, as from two golden hooks, the whole chain of human history hangs in a mighty curve. The one fills all the past, the other should brighten all the future. Memory should feed upon the one, hope should leap up to grasp the other. And so closely are these two connected as that the former is incomplete and ineffectual without the latter. He has come, therefore He will come. And that coming is to be in bodily form, even as the angels said: "This Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go." What was the likeness? The differences are enormous: He came in weakness; He will come in power. He came in humiliation; He will come in glory. He came to redeem; He will come to judge. But the similarity is this, that as in true bodily form He truly entered into human conditions, and walked amongst men upon earth, having a local habitation and a name amongst us, so He comes again in no metaphor, in no ideal fashion, but in simple corporeal reality, once more manifest and visible amongst the children of earth. He came in obscurity, stealing into the world with but a handful of poor shepherds for the witnesses. He will come, "and every eye shall see Him." He will come in a body no less truly human, no less really corporeal, but in a body of glory, which shall fitly manifest and ray out the indwelling of Divinity. And He comes for judgment, and He comes to perfect the union between Himself and all humble hearts that love Him and trust Him. Spurgeon: Morning and Evening Ezra 8:22 For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. A convoy on many accounts would have been desirable for the pilgrim band, but a holy shame-facedness would not allow Ezra to seek one. He feared lest the heathen king should think his professions of faith in God to be mere hypocrisy, or imagine that the God of Israel was not able to preserve his own worshippers. He could not bring his mind to lean on an arm of flesh in a matter so evidently of the Lord, and therefore the caravan set out with no visible protection, guarded by him who is the sword and shield of his people. It is to be feared that few believers feel this holy jealousy for God; even those who in a measure walk by faith, occasionally mar the lustre of their life by craving aid from man. It is a most blessed thing to have no props and no buttresses, but to stand upright on the Rock of Ages, upheld by the Lord alone. Would any believers seek state endowments for their Church, if they remembered that the Lord is dishonored by their asking Caesar's aid? as if the Lord could not supply the needs of his own cause! Should we run so hastily to friends and relations for assistance, if we remembered that the Lord is magnified by our implicit reliance upon his solitary arm? My soul, wait thou only upon God. "But," says one, "are not means to be used?" Assuredly they are; but our fault seldom lies in their neglect: far more frequently it springs out of foolishly believing in them instead of believing in God. Few run too far in neglecting the creature's arm; but very many sin greatly in making too much of it. Learn, dear reader, to glorify the Lord by leaving means untried, if by using them thou wouldst dishonor the name of the Lord. Spurgeon: Faith’s Checkbook The Life-Giving StreamThe living waters, in the prophet’s vision, flowed into the Dead Sea and carried life with them, even into that stagnant lake. Where grace goes, spiritual life is the immediate and the everlasting consequence. Grace proceeds sovereignly according to the will of God, even as a river in all its windings follows its own sweet will; and wherever it comes it does not wait for life to come to it, but it creates life by its own quickening flow. Oh, that it would pour along our streets and flood our slums! Oh, that it would now come into my house and rise till every chamber were made to swim with it! LORD, let the living water flow to my family and my friends, and let it not pass me by. I hope I have drunk of it already; but I desire to bathe in it, yea, to swim in it. O my Savior, I need life more abundantly. Come to me, I pray Thee, till every part of my nature is vividly energetic and intensely active. Living God, I pray Thee, fill me with Thine own life. I am a poor, dry stick; come and make me so to live that, like Aaron’s rod, I may bud and blossom and bring forth fruit unto Thy glory. Quicken me, for the sake of my LORD Jesus. Amen. The Believer’s Daily Remembrancer In the Mount of the Lord It Shall Be SeenJEHOVAH has provided supplies for His people. He arranges the bestowment of them, and hears and answers prayer for them. He may allow them to come into trials, dangers, and troubles; but "in the mount the Lord will be seen," He will show Himself as rigidly faithful to His word; as kind and merciful in all His dealings; as attentive to the wants and wishes of His people; as ready to supply them, and display His love and power in delivering them. In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen that Satan is a liar; that our fears were all groundless; that unbelief is a great sin; that prayer shall surely be answered; that faith and hope shall not be disappointed; that Jesus is touched with the feeling of our infirmities; and that none shall be ashamed who trust in, wait for, and obey the commands of the Most High God. Beloved, we have seen the Lord in the mount of trial we have found it turned into the mount of mercy, and we shall see Him on the mount of glory ’Tis in the mount the Lord is seen; And all His saints shall surely find, Though clouds and darkness intervene, He still is gracious, still is kind. Yes, in the mount, the Lord makes bare His mighty, His delivering power Displays a Father’s tender care, In the most trying, darkest hour Bible League: Living His Word "I will surely bless you and give you as many descendants as the stars in the sky. There will be as many people as sand on the seashore. And your people will live in cities that they will take from their enemies. Every nation on the earth will be blessed through your descendants. I will do this because you obeyed Me."— Genesis 22։17-18 ERV Obedience means to believe and to wait. We often talk about obedience in the church. Obedience is probably something which is the most complex and poorly understood. What does it mean to obey God? We can see the man Abraham from the Bible as a great example of a man who had obedience to God. Some Christians explain that the uniqueness of Abraham was because of God's choice. In other words, God chose him and that is why he was special. But this is not true. People who think or explain this way aim at defending or justifying human laziness. The Word of God clearly teaches that Abraham simply obeyed God in a situation where normally no one would obey. Obedience is required only when we see a conflict between God's will and our own desire or between God's will and even our own needs. In other words, sometimes we need to obey when we are going to do something that God does not want or when God commands us to do something that we don't want to do. I think that obedience means to believe and to wait - to believe in God's promises and to trust Him, to wait for God. These are just words that come from the heart of a person who knows God. To obey the Lord Jesus means to accept every situation from God and to glorify only Him. Obedience to God has special power, special blessings in it. As God's faithful children, we obey Him even if we are about to cross the road of death. In 44 days of terrible wartime in 2020, I learned to wait on God and obey Him. When I was going to the front line, there were many guys in the truck. We were going at night with the lights off. When we were near the front line, slowly two or three people were getting down to different places. And the more we drove, the more the boys started hurrying to get down, because they realized that the farther we went, the more difficult the way back would be. Suddenly I wanted to take a step, but I could not. I realized that God did not want me to get down early, as if He was saying, "Don't worry, I have prepared a better place for you." When I reached my place, it became clear that it was the worst place, the most dangerous, and there had already been seven victims a day before. I did not understand why God brought me there, but I also had no choice. But God kept me and taught me to obey Him. God not only saved me, but together with me, He saved about sixty guys there. Only at the end did I realize that God had led me there to save those boys, and I was just a tool in His mighty hands. When we obey God, we allow Him to fulfill His plans in our lives and, more importantly, in the lives of others. Let us obey the Lord and He will say to us also, "the nations will be blessed though you, because you heard my voice and obeyed me." By Pastor Arman Gevorgyan, Bible League International staff, Armenia Daily Light on the Daily Path Psalm 73:28 But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.Psalm 26:8 O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house And the place where Your glory dwells. Psalm 84:10 For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Psalm 65:4 How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You To dwell in Your courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, Your holy temple. Lamentations 3:25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. Isaiah 30:18 Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him. Hebrews 10:19,20,22 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, • by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, • let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org. Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit's words to explain spiritual truths.Insight Everyone wants to be wise. Yet Paul taught the Corinthians that true wisdom or discernment requires the believer to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Because Satan's greatest impact on us occurs when he decieves us, we need the Holy Spirit's help. Spiritual discernment enables us to draw conclusions based on God's perspective, make wise decisions in difficult circumstances, recognize the activities of God's Spirit, distinguish the correct and incorrect use of Scripture, and identify and expose false teachers. Challenge Ask God to give you his discernment as you serve him. Let that discernment guide you in your daily walk. Devotional Hours Within the Bible Peace Be Unto You!John 20:19 , John 20:21 , John 20:26 No other benediction that could fall upon the ears of men, could mean more than this: “Peace be unto you!” This is a restless, striving, struggling world. Nation wars with nation. Business interests are in antagonism with other business interests. There are race wars which sometimes seem utterly unappeasable until one or the other race has been exterminated. Then there are family feuds which sometimes go on for generations in deadly enmity. And there are personal quarrels, alienations, strifes, which separate friends. Besides all this, there is a restlessness in human hearts. Men are unhappy and not at peace in themselves. There is strife within the bosom of nearly everyone. No word Christ ever spoke caught more ears than when He said, “Come unto me ... and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), or “Peace be unto you!” His words answered a universal need and a universal yearning. “Peace be unto you!” This was the first word the risen Christ spoke to His disciples as a body after He returned from the grave. This gives special significance to what He said. Three different times He spoke the same words, “Peace be unto you!” twice the evening of the day on which He rose, and once the following week. Yet, while He used precisely the same words, they had a different meaning each time, and were not merely a repetition. Look at the setting of the benediction as He first uttered it. It was evening. The disciples had sought the quiet and safety of the upper room for a meeting together. The doors were carefully shut, for fear of the Jews. The little company was in sore dread of those who had crucified their Master. “Jesus ... stood in the midst, and said unto them, Peace be unto you! And when he said that, he showed unto them His hands and His side.” Why did He show them His hands and His side? Because of the WOUNDS. He reminded them of His sufferings, through which alone peace could come to them. The second use of the words was a few minutes later. “Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be unto you!” Then He added, “As my Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive the Holy Spirit.” Here the benediction of peace, is accompanied by the gift of the Spirit. There can be no true, deep peace in us except when the Holy Spirit holds sway in our hearts. The third time the benediction was given: “A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’” Here the purpose of the benediction was to help Thomas’ slow faith. “Peace be unto you!” The spirit of Christianity is all in the direction of peace. There is a picture called “Peace” which is suggestive. It shows a cannon lying in a meadow, in the grass, with a lamb feeding beside it, nibbling at its very mouth. But while the picture is beautiful, it is incomplete. The cannon, which once was used in war, dealing death, is still a cannon, useless but ready to be used again in the old way. The prophet suggests a more fitting and complete picture when he says in his vision of the redeemed nation, “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3). That is the kind of peace Christ would make. The sword shall no longer be a sword, though rusty and unused but shall be made into a plowshare, doing its work for humanity. In the artist’s picture would be truer to the spirit of Christianity, if the cannon were not merely lying in the meadow, with the lamb feeding quietly beside it but instead was made into church bells to call the people to the house of God. The peace which our Master would make is not merely the laying down of arms but a peace which shall bring good to both nations and restore them to fellowship. Christian peace is not merely a drawn battle, with the old bitterness remaining. The bitterness must be swallowed up in love. If two have been estranged through misunderstanding, or by whatever cause, Christ’s peace leads them together in a new friendship which forgets the past and wipes out all traces of difference in a relationship of love. “Peace I leave with you!” This was the Master’s bequest to His friends. He did not leave them gold and silver. He did not entail great estates upon them. He had none of these to leave. In His life on earth, the birds were better off than He, for in the world His hands had made He had nowhere to lay His head. When He died He had no grave in which His body might rest, and would have been buried in the potter’s field, amid criminals and outcasts, had not a noble friend rescued Him from that ignominy and lent Him a new rock-hewn tomb, for the three days and nights He slept. He was poor, and had no earthly inheritance to bequeath. But He left peace as a heritage. “Peace I leave with you!” “MY peace I give unto you!” (14:27) It was not merely peace but His own peace, that He bequeathed to His friends. “My peace”! Think what Christ’s peace was. It was the peace that He had had in His heart and life all His days. You know how serenely He met all experiences. He never lost His quietness and composure in any circumstances. Life had no terrors for Him. His was not an easy life. Soon after His public ministry began, opposition began, developing into bitter enmity, with plottings and schemings for His death. But nothing disturbed Him. He was never fearful or alarmed. He knew what was before Him. The cross threw its dark shadows on His path long before He reached it. But with unruffled peace He moved on toward it. “My peace I give unto you!” It is possible for Christ’s followers to have the same peace the Master had. He bequeaths it to them let them claim their inheritance. He gives it to them let them accept the gift. But why is it that so many Christians do not have this peace ? What restless lives many of us live! Some of us scarcely ever have an hour of real peace. We fret at every trifle. We allow ourselves to be annoyed by the smallest things that do not go as we want them to go. We are full of discontents and complainings. We are envious at the prosperity of others. We vex ourselves over the things that are disagreeable in even the least way. We are continually dismayed by life’s experiences. We are afraid to live and afraid to die. Is that the best that Christ can do for us? Is that the full meaning of His words here, “Peace be unto you; Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you”? Is that all that our religion can do for us? No! Jesus meant just what He said. He means for us to have His peace. We may have it too. He shows us His hands and says, “Peace be unto you! I have purchased peace for you.” He breathes on us His divine Spirit, and says, “Peace be unto you!” Let the peace of God into your heart today. You have had enough of restlessness, fret, anxiety and struggle. Let Christ’s peace rule. “Peace be unto you!” “My peace I give unto you!” When men have fought for their country, loyal patriots, and when the war is over, and the victory won, those who survive come home with wounds and scars, maimed and broken, and those who look upon them see the price of the peace which the country is enjoying. Let us not forget that the peace which Christ gives, cost Him suffering and shame and death. We have peace because He went to His cross! In a gallery in Europe, two pictures hang side by side. One is of a sea swept by storms great waves, black clouds, lightning bolts, and on the wild water wrecks of vessels, with human forms struggling or dead. The artists calls His picture, “Life”. Hanging beside this picture is another, almost the same a rough sea, billows, clouds, lightnings, wrecks, men struggling in the waters. In the center of this picture, however, a great rock rises up out of the wild sea, reaching above the highest waves, standing serene and firm in the midst of the storm. Then in the rock, far up, is a cleft of herbage and flowers growing, and as you look closely, you see in the midst of the herbage a dove sitting quietly on her nest. The artist calls His picture “Peace.” It represents the Christian’s life. In the world there is tribulation. Peace does not come through the quieting of earth’s storms. Christ does not make a little spot of calm for us, shutting off the storms. No! that rock rising above the waves tells the story. It is peace in the midst of the storm, in Christ. We have it in the hymn, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me; Let me hide myself in Thee!” The Christian has no promise of less sorrow than his worldly neighbor; or of an easier life, a life without struggle, pain, or buffeting. You remember how Christ got His peace not by living in a little paradise but in the enduring of all manner of suffering calmly and quietly. His peace was within. We must get our peace on fields of struggle. It must come through Christ’s victory over the world. It must be Christ’s gift. It must be in our heart. President Eliot, of Harvard University, said this at the dedication of an art gallery: “The main object in every school should be, not to provide the children with means of earning a livelihood but to show them how to live a happy and worthy life, inspired by noble ideals which will exalt and dignify both labor and leisure. To see beauty and to live it is to possess large securities for such a life.” To live only to get bread and clothes is a groveling aim. To live only to make money, to get on in the world, is an unworthy aim for an immortal being. We live worthily only when we live to grow into beautiful character and to do beautiful things of love. Peace is the highest mark of spiritual beauty. There is a German legend of the origin of the moss rose. One day the angel of the flowers, weary in his ministry in the heat of the sun, sought a place to rest but found none. Turned from every door, he lay down under the shelter of a rose, and slept and was refreshed. He thanked the rose for the pleasure and comfort he had enjoyed in its shade, and then said that, to reward it, he would adorn it with a new charm. So soft, green moss grew around the stem, and those who looked at the flower saw the beautiful moss rose, loveliest of all the roses. So to those who are faithful to Christ, He gives a new charm, life’s highest and most heavenly adornment, peace. We should be at peace with all men. If there is bitterness toward any human being, our peace is not Christ’s peace. No matter what wrongs Jesus suffered, how unjustly or cruelly He was treated He kept love in His heart. It is easy to cherish resentments. We like to say we have a right to he angry. Yes but that is not the divine way. God forgives and forgets and loves on. Suppose God never forgave! Suppose He cherished resentments and refused to love us and to bless us! Let love heal all heart - hurts. If we think we have been treated wrongfully, let us forgive, and new beauty will come, instead of a scar. The storm made a great gash on the mountainside but grass, moss and flowers came, and the mountain was never so beautiful before as now it became. We should have peace also in our own hearts. Why should we go on in the old restlessness and strife a day longer? Why should we worry so and fret when Christ offers us His own serene peace? No matter what may come to us in any possible future, nothing will come which could break our peace, if only we are obedient and true to God. There will be mysteries, contradictions, perplexities, disappointments but in all these a divine Hand will move and nothing can fret us if we are truly Christ’s. “The peace of God ... shall keep your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). Bible in a Year Old Testament ReadingIsaiah 1, 2, 3 Isaiah 1 -- Israel's Rebellion and Zion's Corruption NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Isaiah 2 -- The Coming of God's Kingdom and a Day of Judgment NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Isaiah 3 -- Judgment on Leaders, the Wicked, and Judah's Women NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB New Testament Reading Galatians 2 Galatians 2 -- Paul at Jerusalem; Dispute with Peter NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Reading Plan Courtesy of Christian Classics Etherial Library. |
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