0,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Days of Heaven Upon Earth," A. B. Simpson presents a profound exploration of spiritual renewal and the transformative power of faith. Through a blend of devotional prose and reflective poetry, Simpson invites readers to engage deeply with their spiritual lives. The book is structured around the themes of holiness, divine presence, and the everyday experiences of grace, making it a vital contribution to the early 20th-century devotional literature that echoed the holiness movement. Simpson's eloquent yet accessible style encourages readers to cultivate a closer walk with God, emphasizing the interplay between heavenly aspirations and earthly existence. A. B. Simpson, a prominent Christian missionary and founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, was driven by his fervent desire to share the gospel and promote holiness. His own experiences as a pastor and missionary in various cultural contexts informed his writing, enabling him to connect with seekers of all backgrounds. Simpson's theological insights are rooted in his rich commitment to spiritual devotion and social outreach, making his work resonate with the challenges of the contemporary Christian journey. This book is a must-read for anyone navigating the complexities of faith in the modern world. Simpson's eloquent reflections inspire both seasoned believers and curious seekers to deepen their relationship with the divine, transforming mundane life into a vibrant expression of heavenly reality. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Ähnliche
Days of Heaven Upon Earth
Table of Contents
Introduction
This devotional invites readers to live as if heaven’s life were already breaking into the present, allowing ordinary hours—marked by work, weariness, and small joys—to become altars of trust, gratitude, holiness, and hopeful obedience, as the soul learns, day by day, to abide in Christ’s sustaining presence and to receive every circumstance as an occasion for faith, love, and service that anticipates the coming fullness of God’s kingdom while rooting spiritual experience firmly in Scripture-shaped reflection and practical, steady steps of consecration.
Days of Heaven Upon Earth by A. B. Simpson belongs to the Christian devotional tradition, offering brief, Scripture-centered meditations designed for regular, personal reading. Simpson (1843–1919), a Canadian-born pastor and the founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, wrote within the vibrant evangelical milieu of the late nineteenth century. In that context—characterized by renewed interest in missions, holiness, and practical piety—he sought to guide believers toward a daily, experiential walk with God. The book first appeared in that period and reflects its era’s emphasis on disciplined devotion, biblical saturation, and accessible spiritual counsel, while remaining oriented toward timeless encouragement rather than historical controversies.
The premise is straightforward and hospitable: a sequence of daily reflections invites readers to start or punctuate each day with Scripture, meditation, and application. There is no plot to follow—only a devotional arc that accompanies the seasons of the year and the shifting weather of the heart. Each entry is concise and focused, making space for contemplation without demanding an extended study session. Readers encounter themes in varied rotations—faith, endurance, gratitude, prayer, consecration—so that the experience feels like a steady conversation rather than a lecture. The mood is warm and exhortative, aiming to kindle confidence in God’s promises and cultivate resilient hope.
Simpson’s voice is pastoral and earnest, blending practical exhortation with reflective calm. His style is marked by frequent biblical allusion, clear appeals to the conscience, and a steady call to trust that is neither sentimental nor severe. The cadence tends toward encouragement rather than argument, giving readers short, potent doses of clarity that can travel with them through the day. While the theological outlook is unmistakably evangelical, the tone welcomes a broad range of readers seeking faithful living rather than technical debates. The result is a devotional rhythm that feels both intimate and expansive—personal in address, yet spacious enough to meet many circumstances.
At the heart of Days of Heaven Upon Earth is the conviction that spiritual life grows through daily surrender and attentive reliance on God. The entries emphasize sanctification as a lived reality, not an abstract theory: habits, choices, and responses are shaped by abiding in Christ. Trust under pressure, joy in ordinary duties, gratitude amid uncertainty, and patient perseverance recur throughout, inviting readers to integrate belief with practice. Simpson’s horizon includes expectant hope in God’s future and steady obedience in the present, holding aspiration and discipline together. The book’s spiritual logic is simple but searching: receive grace, walk in it, and let love overflow in service.
For contemporary readers navigating distraction, exhaustion, and fractured attention, the book’s brevity and consistency offer a humane path into depth. Its structure helps cultivate small, repeatable acts of focus—reading, reflecting, praying—that gradually shape perception and character. The selections encourage resilience without bravado, compassion without naivety, and conviction without stridency. They press questions that remain urgent: How do we sustain faith over time? What does hope look like between promise and fulfillment? How might ordinary work become worship? In offering measured wisdom rather than quick fixes, the devotional becomes a companion suited to both quiet mornings and crowded days.
Approaching this work is simple: read slowly, return often, and let each page open a conversation with Scripture that continues into the tasks ahead. Some will keep a journal to trace patterns of prayer and gratitude; others will pair the readings with communal discussion for mutual encouragement. The entries do not replace broader study or congregational life, but they steady both with daily nourishment. Whether taken as a yearlong guide or visited in shorter seasons, Days of Heaven Upon Earth offers a gracious cadence for spiritual formation—unhurried enough to listen, honest enough to challenge, and hopeful enough to help ordinary days bear the weight of eternity.
Synopsis
Days of Heaven Upon Earth is a year-long devotional by A. B. Simpson, arranged as 365 brief readings intended for daily use. Each entry typically pairs a Scripture text with a concise meditation, practical counsel, and a closing prayer, guiding readers through a structured pattern of reflection. The book’s purpose is to describe how ordinary days may be lived with a sense of God’s presence, borrowing its title from a biblical phrase about heavenly days on earth. Simpson develops recurring themes across the calendar, building a cumulative argument for steady trust, disciplined devotion, and a life shaped by Christ’s indwelling power.
The opening pages set the tone for the year by emphasizing consecration and fresh beginnings. January readings focus on surrender to God’s will, confidence in salvation, and the formation of daily habits such as morning prayer and Scripture meditation. Simpson underscores the importance of handing over anxieties and responsibilities, presenting reliance on Christ as the basis for rest. The entries also outline practical steps for obedience, encouraging immediate, simple responses to known duties. This early foundation introduces the book’s central method: entering each day with a settled posture of trust, expecting God’s guidance in ordinary tasks and believing promises as directives for action.
Following the initial dedication, the early months examine sanctification and the exchanged life, a pattern in which Christ’s life is understood as the believer’s strength for holy living. Simpson highlights the fullness of the Holy Spirit as both cleansing and empowerment, linking inner renewal with outward fruitfulness. Readings contrast self-effort with quiet dependence, proposing that spiritual growth proceeds by faith rather than strain. The devotional tone remains practical, often returning to small decisions, guarded thoughts, and consistent prayer as means of grace. These sections frame holiness not as achievement but as continual reception, sustained by close fellowship with Christ.
Spring readings develop themes of prayer, praise, and the practical use of biblical promises. Simpson groups texts to illustrate how requests align with God’s character and timing, and how praise reinforces trust. The entries address temptation and spiritual conflict, portraying trials as contexts for learning dependence. Counsel on guidance emphasizes simple obedience to clear duties while waiting for further light, avoiding anxiety about unknown details. Scripture is presented as both anchor and provision, furnishing words for prayer and standards for conduct. Across these months, the book integrates inner devotion with outward choices, showing how daily petitions pair with vigilant, hopeful expectation.
Midyear sections turn toward service and witness. The readings consider gifts, opportunities, and the stewardship of time and resources, encouraging readiness for tasks close at hand. Attention is given to the needs of others, the value of encouragement, and perseverance in good works. Simpson includes reflections on bodily weakness and divine healing, setting them within a larger call to compassion and prayer for the sick. Guidance is framed as God’s opening and closing of doors rather than private impulse alone. The material presents usefulness as a byproduct of abiding in Christ, linking practical help to steady faith and obedience.
Later readings address suffering, patience, and the refining of character. Simpson portrays trials as fatherly discipline that shapes humility and steadiness. Entries explore fear, anxiety, and discouragement, directing attention to promises of peace and to the practice of gratitude. Community themes emerge in counsel on forgiveness, unity, and peacemaking, with an emphasis on gentle speech and thoughtful actions. The tone remains pastoral but concrete, offering brief, repeatable prayers for difficult days. This portion of the book highlights endurance, not as resignation, but as active trust that continues in duty, expecting God’s sufficiency in unresolved situations and prolonged challenges.
Autumn meditations develop the imagery of harvest and fruit. The fruit of the Spirit, growth in love, and the quiet strength of faithfulness receive repeated attention. Simpson returns to the daily cross, self-denial in small matters, and the cumulative effect of hidden obedience. Providential care is a recurring theme, encouraging contentment and simplicity. Holiness is described in ordinary settings—work, family, and neighborhood—where patience, integrity, and kindness mature. These readings connect inward renewal to measurable outcomes, suggesting that abiding results in character that blesses others. The emphasis falls on steady progress rather than dramatic experiences or exceptional achievements.
As the year closes, eschatological hope and watchfulness come to the foreground. The readings consider Christ’s return, the brevity of life, and the stewardship of remaining days. Simpson links hope with purity and diligence, urging readiness without speculation. There are calls to review the year, confess failures, and give thanks for mercies received. Sabbath rest, worship, and quietness are revisited as sustaining rhythms. Passages on heaven and resurrection frame present duties within a larger horizon. The closing entries seek to knit past, present, and future, encouraging calm confidence and renewed consecration as the calendar turns and fresh responsibilities begin.
Taken together, Days of Heaven Upon Earth presents a daily pattern for practicing God’s presence through Scripture, prayer, trust, and obedience. The book’s central message is that the life of Christ, received by faith and sustained by the Spirit, enables ordinary people to live with stability, joy, usefulness, and hope. Its cumulative outline moves from consecration to abiding, from inner renewal to outward service, through endurance to maturity, and finally to watchful expectation. Without argument or polemic, the entries assemble a practical theology of daily holiness, proposing that a foretaste of heaven is available in consistent, Christ-centered living.
Historical Context
Days of Heaven Upon Earth, a yearbook of daily devotions by A. B. Simpson, emerged from the religious and social climate of the late 1890s in New York City, where Simpson led the Gospel Tabernacle and the Missionary Training Institute. The book reflects the rhythms of Gilded Age urban life rather than a fictional plot, drawing on the author’s ministry among immigrants, laborers, and middle-class parishioners. Simpson wrote from Manhattan and, after 1897, from Nyack, New York, as his training school relocated upriver. The era bridged the Gilded Age and the early Progressive Era, shaped by industrial expansion, revivalism, holiness teaching, and a global surge in Protestant missions.
The devotional tone of the work stands on the long arc of American revivalism reaching back to the businessmen’s prayer revival of 1857–1858, centered at Fulton Street in New York under Jeremiah Lanphier. Those midday prayer meetings multiplied nationally amid the Panic of 1857 and the approach of the Civil War, with contemporary reports claiming hundreds of thousands of conversions by 1859. A. B. Simpson, born in 1843 in Prince Edward County, Ontario, came of age during this atmosphere and later ministered in Louisville, Kentucky, and then in New York from 1879. The book mirrors that revival heritage through its emphasis on prayer, repentance, and daily consecration.
The most shaping forces behind the book were the Holiness and Higher Life movements and the related wave of faith healing that coursed through Britain and North America after the Civil War. Phoebe Palmer’s Tuesday Meetings for the Promotion of Holiness in New York (from the 1830s) prepared the ground, and a national network coalesced with the first National Camp Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness in Vineland, New Jersey, in 1867. Across the Atlantic, the Keswick Convention began in 1875 in Cumbria, England, with leaders such as H. W. Webb-Peploe and Evan H. Hopkins teaching a crisis of surrender and a life of Spirit-empowered obedience. William E. Boardman’s The Higher Christian Life (1858) popularized these ideas, while Hannah Whitall Smith’s 1875 work carried them into American parlors and churches. Within this matrix, a distinct current of divine healing arose. Charles Cullis in Boston organized faith-cure ministries in the 1870s; A. J. Gordon of Boston published The Ministry of Healing in 1882; and the Bethshan faith house in London (founded in 1881 under William and Mary Baxter) drew international attention. Simpson testified to a personal healing experience in the early 1880s, a turning point after which he proclaimed Christ as Healer alongside Savior and Sanctifier. He articulated this integrated vision as the Fourfold Gospel by 1890, preached it in annual deeper-life and healing conventions up and down the Atlantic seaboard, and disseminated it through his periodicals. Days of Heaven Upon Earth carries this imprint in entries that link daily holiness to physical restoration, presenting sanctification and healing as practical matters for urban believers facing fatigue, illness, and constant economic pressure. Structurally, the devotion’s cadence of daily texts and short meditations reflects Keswick’s emphasis on moment-by-moment dependence on Christ. Historically, it functions as a lay manual shaped by specific transatlantic currents between 1867 and 1895, translating camp-meeting and convention preaching into a portable regimen for the household and the factory floor alike.
Rapid urbanization and immigration formed the social backdrop of the book’s New York milieu. The city’s population expanded from roughly 942,000 in 1870 to more than 3.4 million by 1900, accelerated by the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898 and the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. Tenement crowding, tuberculosis, and sweatshop labor provoked reform campaigns and new charitable methods. Nationally, labor unrest marked the era, from Haymarket (Chicago, 1886) to Homestead (1892) and the Pullman Strike (1894). The Panic of 1893 produced mass unemployment. Simpson’s devotionals, written amid rescue missions and relief work, exhort readers to daily dependence on God in the face of these urban dislocations.
A global missionary surge in the late nineteenth century decisively shaped Simpson’s aims. Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission (founded 1865) modeled inland, faith-based missions; Africa Inland Mission followed in 1895; and the Student Volunteer Movement, launched at Mount Hermon in 1886 under leaders like John R. Mott, adopted the watchword the evangelization of the world in this generation. Simpson founded the Missionary Training Institute in New York in 1882, relocating it to Nyack in 1897 to prepare workers for Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Days of Heaven Upon Earth constantly ties daily sanctification to world evangelization, echoing the logistical realities of steamship travel, the Suez Canal (opened 1869), and new openings to interior regions.
The prophecy and Bible conference movement provided the eschatological horizon for Simpson’s piety. The Niagara Bible Conference met repeatedly from the mid-1870s through the 1890s, with figures such as James H. Brookes and C. I. Scofield systematizing a premillennial reading of history and emphasizing the imminent return of Christ. That outlook spread through periodicals and conference networks and intersected with geopolitical tremors such as the Spanish–American War of 1898, which projected the United States into the Caribbean and the Pacific. The book’s steady refrain about the Coming King translates those currents into daily vigilance and hope, framing spiritual readiness as the proper posture amid accelerating change.
Debates over social reform shaped the book’s urban address. The Social Gospel, articulated by Washington Gladden in Applied Christianity (1886) and later by Walter Rauschenbusch in Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), advanced structural remedies for tenements, wages, and public health. New York’s Charities Organization Society (founded 1882) and tenement reform culminating in the 1901 Tenement House Act signal that agenda. Simpson’s ministries overlapped in compassion through rescue homes and immigrant outreach, yet his devotional presses personal conversion, holiness, and healing as the engine of social renewal. It stands as an evangelical alternative to purely legislative solutions, speaking into the crowded streets of Midtown and the Lower East Side.
As social and political critique, the book opposes the Gilded Age’s materialism, class antagonisms, and chronic insecurity by proposing sanctified daily life as counterculture. Its stress on the Fourfold Gospel confronts a medicalized and mechanized age with the claims of divine healing and moral transformation; its missionary insistence challenges rising nationalism by locating ultimate allegiance in a transnational kingdom. Against labor-capital polarization and urban squalor, it urges everyday charity, prayer, and temperance rather than coercive solutions. And against imperial triumphalism after 1898, it frames world events under the imminent return of Christ, exposing the era’s confidence in progress as spiritually inadequate.
Days of Heaven Upon Earth
The Days Of Heaven
[pg 007]
January 1.
“Redeeming the time” (Eph. v. 16).
Two little words are found in the Greek version here. They are translated “ton kairon[1]” in the revised version, “Buying up for yourselves the opportunity.” The two words ton kairon mean, literally, the opportunity.
They do not refer to time in general, but to a special point of time, a juncture, a crisis, a moment full of possibilities and quickly passing by, which we must seize and make the best of before it has passed away.
It is intimated that there are not many such moments of opportunity, because the days are evil; like a barren desert, in which, here and there, you find a flower, pluck it while you can; like a business opportunity which comes a few times in a life-time; buy it up while you have the chance. Be spiritually alert; be not unwise, but understanding what the will of God is. “Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, buying up for yourselves the opportunity.”
Sometimes it is a moment of time to be saved; sometimes a soul to be led to Christ; sometimes it is an occasion for love; sometimes for patience: sometimes for victory over temptation and sin. Let us redeem it[1q].
[pg 008]
January 2.
“I will cause you to walk in My statutes” (Eze. xxxvi. 27).
The highest spiritual condition is one where life is spontaneous and flows without effort, like the deep floods of Ezekiel's river[2], where the struggles of the swimmer ceased, and he was borne by the current's resistless force.
So God leads us into spiritual conditions and habits which become the spontaneous impulses of our being, and we live and move in the fulness of the divine life.
But these spiritual habits are not the outcome of some transitory impulse, but are often slowly acquired and established. They begin, like every true habit, in a definite act of will, and they are confirmed by the repetition of that act until it becomes a habit. The first stages always involve effort and choice. We have to take a stand and hold it steadily, and after we have done so a certain time, it becomes second nature, and carries us by its own force.
The Holy Spirit is willing to form such habits in every direction of our Christian life, and if we will but obey Him in the first steppings of faith, we will soon become established in the attitude of obedience, and duty will be delight.
[pg 009]
January 3.
“Watch and pray” (Matt. xxvi. 41).
We need to watch for prayers as well as for the answers to our prayers. It needs as much wisdom to pray rightly as it does faith to receive the answers to our prayers.
We met a friend the other day, who had been in years of darkness because God had failed to answer certain prayers, and the result had been a state bordering on infidelity.
A very few moments were sufficient to convince this friend that these prayers had been entirely unauthorized, and that God had never promised to answer such prayers, and they were for things which this friend should have accomplished himself, in the exercise of ordinary wisdom.
The result was deliverance from a cloud of unbelief which was almost wrecking a Christian life. There are some things about which we do not need to pray, as much as to take the light which God has already given.
Many persons are asking God to give them peculiar signs, tokens and supernatural intimations of His will. Our business is to use the light He has given, and then He will give whatever more we need.
[pg 010]
January 4.
“Blessed is the man that walketh not” (Ps. i. 1).
Three things are notable about this man:
1. His company. “He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”
2. His reading and thinking. “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night.”
3. His fruitfulness. “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
The river is the Holy Ghost; the planting, the deep, abiding life in which, not occasionally, but habitually, we absorb the Holy Spirit; and the fruit is not occasional, but continual, and appropriate to each changing season.
His life is also prosperous, and his spirit fresh, like the unfading leaf. Such a life must be happy. Indeed, happiness is a matter of spiritual conditions. Put a sunbeam in a cellar and it must be bright. Put a nightingale in the darkest midnight, and it must sing.
[pg 011]
January 5.
“I know him that he will do the law” (Gen. xviii. 19).
God wants people that He can depend upon. He could say of Abraham, “I know him, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham all that He hath spoken.” God can be depended upon; He wants us to be just as decided, as reliable, as stable. This is just what faith means. God is looking for men on whom He can put the weight of all His love, and power, and faithful promises. When God finds such a soul there is nothing He will not do for him. God's engines are strong enough to draw any weight we attach to them. Unfortunately the cable which we fasten to the engine is often too weak to hold the weight of our prayer, therefore God is drilling us, disciplining us, and training us to stability and certainty in the life of faith. Let us learn our lessons, and let us stand fast.
[pg 012]
January 6.
“The body is not one member, but many” (I. Cor. xii. 14).
We have a friend who has a phonograph for his correspondence. It consists of two parts. One is a simple and wonderful apparatus, whose sensitive cylinders receive the tones and then give them out again, word for word, through the hearing tube. The other part is a common little box that stands under the table, and does nothing but supply the power through connecting wires.
Now, the little box might insist upon being the phonograph, and doing the talking; but if it should, it would not only waste its own life but destroy the life of its partner.
Its sole business is to supply power to the phonograph, while the latter is to do the talking. So some of us are called to be voices to speak for God to our fellow-men, others are forces to sustain them, by our holy sympathy and silent prayer. (Some of us are little dynamos under the table, while others are phonographs that speak aloud the messages of heaven.)
Let each of us be true to our God-given ministry, and when the day comes our work will be weighed and the rewards distributed.
[pg 013]
January 7.
“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling” (Jude 24).
This is a most precious promise. The revised translation is both accurate and suggestive. It is not merely from falling that He wants to keep us, but from even the slightest stumbling.
We are told of Abraham that he staggered not at the promise. God wants us to walk so steadily that there will not even be a quiver in the line of His regiments as they face the foe. It is the little stumblings of life that most discourage and hinder us, and most of these stumblings are over trifles. Satan would much rather knock us down with a feather than with an Armstrong gun. It is much more to his honor and keen delight to defeat a child of God by some flimsy trifle than by some great temptation.
Beloved, let us watch, in these days, against the orange peels that trip us on our pathway, the little foxes that destroy the vines, and the dead flies that mar, sometimes, a whole vessel of precious ointment. “Trifles make perfection,” and as we get farther on, in our Christian life, God will hold us much more closely to obedience in things that seem insignificant.
[pg 014]
January 8.
“It is I, be not afraid” (Mark vi. 50).
Someone tells of a little child with some big story of sorrow upon its little heart, flying to its mother's arms for comfort, and intending to tell her the story of its trouble; but as that mother presses it to her bosom and pours out her love, it soon becomes so occupied with her and the sweetness of her affection that it forgets to tell its story, and in a little while even the memory of the trouble is forgotten. It has just been loved away, and she has taken its place in the heart of the little one.
This is the way God comforts us Himself. “It is I, be not afraid,” is His reassuring word. The circumstances are not altered, but He Himself comes in their place, and satisfies every need of our being, and we forget all things in His sweet presence, as He becomes our all in all.
[pg 015]
January 9.
“Not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt. xxvi. 39).
“To will and do of His good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 13).
There are two attitudes in which our will should be given to God.
First. We should have the surrendered will. This is where we must all begin, by yielding up to God our natural will, and having Him possess it.
But next, He wants us to have the victorious will. As soon as He receives our will in honest surrender, He wants to put His will into it and make it stronger than ever for Him. It is henceforth no longer our will, but His will. And having yielded to His choice and placed itself under His direction, He wants to put into it all the strength and intensity of His own great will and make us positive, forceful, victorious and unmovable, even as Himself. “Not My will, but Thine be done.” That is the first step. “Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me.” That is the second attitude. Both are divine; both are right; both are necessary to our right living and successful working for God.
[pg 016]
January 10.
“Charity doth not behave itself unseemly” (I. Cor. xiii. 5).
In the dress of a Hindu woman, her graceful robe is fastened upon her person entirely by means of a single knot. The long strip of cloth is wound around her person so as to fall in graceful folds like a made garment, and the end is fastened by a little knot, and the whole thing hangs by that single fastening. If that were loosed the robe would fall. And so in the spiritual life, our habits of grace are likened unto garments; and it is also true that the garment of love, which is the beautiful adorning of the child of God, is entirely fastened by little nots.
If you will read with care the thirteenth chapter of I. Corinthians, you will find that most of the qualities of love are purely negative. “Love envieth not, love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave herself rudely, seeketh not her own, is not provoked, thinketh no evil.” Here are “nots” enough to hold on our spiritual wardrobe. Here are reasons enough to explain the failure of so many, and the reason why they walk naked, or with rent garments, and others see their shame. Let us look after the nots.
[pg 017]
January 11.
“Hold fast till I come” (Rev. ii. 25).
The other day we asked a Hebrew friend how it was that his countrymen were so successful in acquiring wealth. “Ah,” said he, “we do not make more money than other people, but we keep more.” Beloved, let us look out this day for spiritual pickpockets and spiritual leakage. Let us “lose nothing of what we have wrought, but receive a full reward”; and, as each day comes and goes, let us put away in the savings bank of eternity its treasures of grace and victory, and so be conscious from day to day that something real and everlasting is being added to our eternal fortune.
It may be but a little, but if we only economize all that God gives us, and pass it on to His keeping, when the close shall come we shall be amazed to see how much the accumulated treasures of a well spent life have laid up on high, and how much more He has added to them by His glorious investment of the life committed to His keeping.
Oh, how the days are telling! Oh, how precious these golden hours will seem sometime! God help us to make the most of them now.
[pg 018]
January 12.
“Ask and it shall be given you” (Matt. vii. 7).
We must receive, as well as ask. We must take the place of believing, and recognize ourselves as in it. A friend was saying, “I want to get into the will of God,” and this was the answer: “Will you step into the will of God? And now, are you in the will of God?” The question aroused a thought that had not come before.
The gentleman saw that he had been straining after, but not receiving the blessing he sought.
Jesus has said, “Ask and ye shall receive.” The very strain keeps back the blessing. The intense tension of all your spiritual nature so binds you that you are not open to the blessing which God is waiting to give you. “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
[pg 019]
January 13.
“Thou shalt be to him instead of God” (Ex. iv. 16).
Such was God's promise to Moses, and such the high character that Moses was to assume toward Aaron, his brother. May it not suggest a high and glorious place that each of us may occupy toward all whom we meet, instead of God?
What a dignity and glory it would give our lives, could we uniformly realize this high calling! How it would lead us to act toward our fellow-men! God can always be depended upon. God is without variableness or shadow of turning. God's word is unchangeable, and we can trust Him without reserve or question. Oh, that we might so live that men can trust us, even as God!
Again, God has no needs or wants to be supplied. He is always giving. “Rich unto all that call upon Him.” The glory of His nature is love, unselfish love, and beneficence toward all His creatures. The Divine life is a self-forgetting life, a life that has nothing to do but love and bless.
Let us so live, representing our Master here, while He represents us before the Throne on high.
[pg 020]
January 14.
“Unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. iv. 13).
God loves us so well that He will not suffer us to take less than His highest will. Some day we shall bless our faithful teacher, who kept the standard inflexibly rigid, and then gave us the strength and grace to reach it, and would not excuse us until we had accomplished all His glorious will.
Let us be inexorable with ourselves. Let us mean exactly what God means, and have no discounts upon His promises or commandments. Let us keep the standard up, and never rest until we reach it. “Let God be true and every man a liar.” If we fail a hundred times don't let us accommodate God's ideal to our realization, but like the brave ensign who stood in front of his company waving the banner, and when the soldiers called him back he only waved it higher, and cried, “Don't bring the standard back to the regiment, but bring the regiment up to the colors.”
[pg 021]
January 15.
“As ye have received Christ Jesus so walk in Him” (Col. ii. 6).
It is much easier to keep the fire burning than to rekindle it after it has gone out. Let us abide in Him. Let us not have to remove the cinders and ashes from our hearthstones every day and kindle a new flame; but let us keep it burning and never let it expire. Among the ancient Greeks the sacred fire was never allowed to go out; so, in a higher sense, let us keep the heavenly flame aglow upon the altar of the heart.
It takes very much less effort to maintain a good habit than to form it. A true spiritual habit once formed becomes a spontaneous tendency of our being, and we grow into delightful freedom in following it. “Let us not be ever laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, but let us go on unto perfection; and whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same things.”
Every spiritual habit begins with difficulty and effort and watchfulness, but if we will only let it get thoroughly established, it will become a channel along which currents of life will flow with divine spontaneousness and freedom.
[pg 022]
January 16.
“Prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. xii. 2).
There are three conditions in which the water in that engine may be. First, the boiler may be full and the water clean and clear; or, secondly, the boiler may not only be full but the water may be hot, very hot, hot enough to scald you, almost boiling; thirdly, it may be just one degree hotter and at the boiling point, giving forth its vapor in clouds of steam, pressing through the valves and driving the mighty piston which turns the wheels and propels the train of cars across the country.
So there are three kinds of Christians. The first we will call cold water Christians, or, perhaps better, clean water Christians.
Secondly, there are hot water Christians. They are almost at the boiling point.
One degree more, we come to the third class of Christians, the boiling water Christians. The difference is a very slight one; it simply takes one reservation out, drops one “if,” eliminates a single touch, and yet it is all the difference in the world. That one degree changes that engine into a motive power, not now a thing to be looked at, but a thing to go.
[pg 023]
January 17.
“It is God which worketh in you” (Phil. ii. 13).
God has not two ways for any of us; but one; not two things for us to do which we may choose between; but one best and highest choice. It is a blessed thing to find and fill the perfect will of God. It is a blessed thing to have our life laid out and our Christian work adjusted to God's plan. Much strength is lost by working at a venture. Much spiritual force is expended in wasted effort, and scattered, indefinite and inconstant attempts at doing good. There is spiritual force and financial strength enough in the hands and hearts of the consecrated Christians of to-day to bring the coming of Christ, to bring about the evangelization of the world in a generation, if it were only wisely directed and utilized according to God's plan.
Christ has laid down a definite plan of work for His Church, and He expects us to understand it, and to work up to it; and as we catch His thought, and obediently, loyally fulfil it, we shall work to purpose, and please Him far better than by our thoughtless, reckless, and indiscriminate attempts to carry out our ideas, and compel God to bless our work.
[pg 024]
January 18.
“That take and give for Me and thee” (Matt. xvii. 27).
There is a beautiful touch of loving thoughtfulness in the account of Christ's miracle at Capernaum in providing the tribute money. After the reference to Peter's interview with the tax collector, it is added, “When he came into the house Jesus prevented him,” that is, anticipated him, as the old Saxon word means, by arranging for the need before Peter needed to speak about it at all, and He sent Peter down to the sea to find the piece of gold in the mouth of the fish.
So our dear Lord is always thinking in advance of our needs, and He loves to save us from embarrassment, and anticipate our anxieties and cares by laying up His loving acts and providing before the emergency comes. Then with exquisite tenderness the Master adds: “That take and give for Me and thee.” He puts Himself first in the embarrassing need and bears the heavy end of the burden for His distressed and suffering child. He makes our cares His cares, our sorrows His sorrows, our shame His shame, and “He is able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”
[pg 025]
