Golden Silence?


Every day more babies are born. Every day more children come of age to understand the complicated things of life. Every day adults are faced with their own unrighteous inadequacy before God. Every day there are people who have struggled to grasp the gospel and are losing their faith little by little because no one comes along to encourage them. Every day senior citizens reach the precipice of death, never having understood the gospel of Christ. Every day dirt covers the body of errant souls who have gone to the judgment without any shield. Considering all that, when is it OK for a Christian to stop speaking about their life in Christ?

Isn’t it a little bit like secretly nibbling from your vast resource of food in a famine struck land? While the others waste away from malnutrition you appear to be a miracle among them. All the while, the Christian knows the secret of life.

The really sad thing is that simple fear of embarrassment is what is causing so much death. If we yearn to be like Christ let us remember this: he did not fail to open his mouth.

The Consuming Truth


The following is a hard truth, yet only hard because that is the nature of so many hearts.

“For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever.”

—2 John 2

Once let the truth of God obtain an entrance into the human heart and subdue the whole man unto itself, no power human or infernal can dislodge it. We entertain it not as a guest but as the master of the house—this is a Christian necessity, he is no Christian who doth not thus believe. (Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon)

The will of God to save is a consuming fire. That fact is not open to debate.

Consider the Robin


In the quietness before dawn, the Robin wakes to consider. Rested, healthy, feathers to preen, hunger to notice, thus a hunt to enjoy.

Following his musings (taking stock of who he is):

Publicly, loudly, shamelessly, he gives thanks to God before the hunt begins. The open window has been our seat midst the symphony.

He cannot hide his heritage. Never does he consider the miracle of flight. He is a Robin.

Can the Christian hide his heritage?

Does the Christian consider the miracle of belief?

Can the Christian desire that he were not a Christian?

Remember the Robin before he is gone for the season. He has been a faithful and radiant display of how Man should treat his own place and the God who made him.

Remember the Robin while he is gone, that faithfulness may attend your winter days. When HE returns will he find you having been faithful?

Consider, the Robin cannot be an Aardvark.

Belonging


I can say no better than did Charles Spurgeon:

Morning, October 19 Go To Evening Reading

“Babes in Christ.”

—1 Corinthians 3:1

Are you mourning, believer, because you are so weak in the divine life: because your faith is so little, your love so feeble? Cheer up, for you have cause for gratitude. Remember that in some things you are equal to the greatest and most full-grown Christian. You are as much bought with blood as he is. You are as much an adopted child of God as any other believer. An infant is as truly a child of its parents as is the full-grown man. You are as completely justified, for your justification is not a thing of degrees: your little faith has made you clean every whit. You have as much right to the precious things of the covenant as the most advanced believers, for your right to covenant mercies lies not in your growth, but in the covenant itself; and your faith in Jesus is not the measure, but the token of your inheritance in him. You are as rich as the richest, if not in enjoyment, yet in real possession. The smallest star that gleams is set in heaven; the faintest ray of light has affinity with the great orb of day. In the family register of glory the small and the great are written with the same pen. You are as dear to your Father’s heart as the greatest in the family. Jesus is very tender over you. You are like the smoking flax; a rougher spirit would say, “put out that smoking flax, it fills the room with an offensive odour!” but the smoking flax he will not quench. You are like a bruised reed; and any less tender hand than that of the Chief Musician would tread upon you or throw you away, but he will never break the bruised reed. Instead of being downcast by reason of what you are, you should triumph in Christ. Am I but little in Israel? Yet in Christ I am made to sit in heavenly places. Am I poor in faith? Still in Jesus I am heir of all things. Though “less than nothing I can boast, and vanity confess.” yet, if the root of the matter be in me I will rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the God of my salvation.

Practice


John 3:21 mentions those who “practice“ the truth. In our vocabulary practicing means pretty much taking a stab at something. “Well I hope this works out.” But there are quite a few different meanings to the word practice that are worth examining. Let the readers decide for themselves which words best reflect God‘s intention. The numbers after each word or how many times they occur in the Bible.

accomplished (1), act (4), acted (3), acting (1), acts (2), appointed (3), away* (1), bear (5), bearing (1), bears (3), become (1), bore (1), bring (1), bring…to pass (1), bring about (2), bringing (1), brings forth (1), call (1), carried (1), carries (1), carry (1), cause (3), causes (2), causing (1), commit (2), commits (2), committed (4), composed (1), consider (1), created things (1), dealt (1), did (33), did…do (2), do (170), does (16), does…do (1), doing (38), done (43), establishing (1), execute (4), exercises (1), expose* (1), formed (1), formed a conspiracy (1), forms (1), gave (4), give (4), gives (1), giving (1), have (2), have kept (1), having (1), held (1), indulging (1), keep (3), keeps (1), kept (1), made (38), make (47), makes (7), making (9), observe (2), offer (1), offering (1), perform (4), performed (8), performing (7), performs (1), practice (5), practices (11), practicing (1), present (1), proceeding (1), produce (3), produced (1), produces (2), producing (1), provide (1), put (1), satisfy* (1), setting (1), show (2), showed (1), shown (1), spend (1), spent (4), took (1), treat (6), treated (1), weaker (1), worked (1), working (1).

Superior


Here is a fact.

Every religion on earth has a limit. Every man, whom the people have elevated, is still nothing more than a man. Every rite, every ordinance, every prescribed ritual, and every perception of holy in these religions, are limited to the mind of man. They are established by man. They cannot help but be faulty and full of limit.

But the majesty of Christ spawns its own personal religion in the ones he chooses to embrace. Over the centuries man has tried to bridal that faith in Christ. But God has chosen his High Priest, Jesus. And the response of his people is a direct result of his interaction with them. He teaches them to listen. He teaches them to obey. And as every man is his own nation, customs and language, the language Christ speaks to his people is that people’s language.

There is no limit in Christ.

Another proof that the religions of this world are not from God is the platitude of them. While Christ is one, man cannot help but be many (with endless vagaries, I might add).

If you would prove that this is true, believe in Christ alone. The religions of this world mimic opinion. While Christ is the exact representation of the living God himself.

Man can only speak about God. Christ speaks from God.