John 1:35-47
Jesus winning five men one after another into personal friendship—how like him and his Father! For God loves the personal touch. When he created man he gave a bit of himself, his breath. When man lost touch he gave his only Son to get us back in touch. And Jesus gave his own very self, his life, in doing it. Let us keep in close, personal touch with Jesus, and help somebody get in touch, too.
Isaiah 42:1-8
God carries an ideal in his heart. Eden pictures that ideal most winsomely—God and man walking and working in a garden as closest friends. Sin broke the ideal. God gave his Son to heal the hurt of sin and woo us back to the garden-life. Both prophecy and gospel tell how practical and winsome his wooing was. God’ll never rest content till his ideal has become real. Let us make it real today.
Hebrews 4:14-16; Hebrews 5:1-9
Jesus was the Brother of man as well as the Son of man. He shared our experiences. He trod the same rough road, and knew the same tight corners. He was tempted as we are, and he was tempted first, and he was tempted most. The path’s never so rough for our feet. His have smoothed it down. He understands. He can help; he knows by experience. And he will help, and we shall have victory today.
Matthew 3:16-17; Matthew 4:1-11
Jesus was tempted, really tempted. No one was ever tempted so cunningly and repeatedly. The tempter did his best and worst. And Jesus felt the temptations keenly. Many a time his brow was moist and his jaw set. But every temptation met its full match in him. He overcame by his set will and his Father’s grace. And so may we, by his victory and his help. Temptation is a chance for victory through Jesus.
Mark 1:12-20
Jesus touched every side of human life. He did it by giving a bit of his own life. He took a decisive stand in the Jordan with God’s messenger. He was tempted. He came into personal friendship with men. He took men into close partnership in his blessed ministry. He revealed the resistless power of God helping human need. And he still does. He will begin this sort of thing in us as we let him.
“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” — Ecclesiastes 7:8
Look at David’s Lord and Master; see his beginning. He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Would you see the end? He sits at his Father’s right hand, expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. “As he is, so are we also in this world.” You must bear the cross, or you shall never wear the crown; you must wade through the mire, or you shall never walk the golden pavement. Cheer up, then, poor Christian. “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” See that creeping worm, how contemptible its appearance! It is the beginning of a thing. Mark that insect with gorgeous wings, playing in the sunbeams, sipping at the flower bells, full of happiness and life; that is the end thereof. That caterpillar is yourself, until you are wrapped up in the chrysalis of death; but when Christ shall appear you shall be like him, for you shall see him as he is. Be content to be like him, a worm and no man, that like him you may be satisfied when you wake up in his likeness. That rough-looking diamond is put upon the wheel of the lapidary. He cuts it on all sides. It loses much-much that seemed costly to itself. The king is crowned; the diadem is put upon the monarch’s head with trumpet’s joyful sound. A glittering ray flashes from that coronet, and it beams from that very diamond which was just now so sorely vexed by the lapidary. You may venture to compare yourself to such a diamond, for you are one of God’s people; and this is the time of the cutting process. Let faith and patience have their perfect work, for in the day when the crown shall be set upon the head of the King, Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, one ray of glory shall stream from you. “They shall be mine,” saith the Lord, “in the day when I make up my jewels.” “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.”
