THE HURTING POINT
Genesis 13:5-11; Genesis 14:14-16
The heart that responds to God always responds to another’s need to the hurting point, if need be. There’s a helping others that has little, if any, of the God-spirit in it. It’s the thing to do; others do it; it’s popular. The touchstone of the real thing is the willingness to do when it costs or hurts. It cost Abraham to help Lot. It cost Jesus to be our Saviour. It will cost to be a real Jesus-helper to others.
THE GREATEST GREATNESS
Mark 10:35-45
The way up is down. True greatness is not in position nor in possessions nor in achievements, but in what one is in himself when he’s alone in the dark. To feed a hungry man in sore need, who doesn’t appreciate your help, even when it means suffering and sacrifice for you—this is the real Christ-spirit. To be like Jesus himself in heart and spirit and action—this is the greatest greatness.
THE TIPTOE OF EXPECTANCY
Hebrews 11:1-10
Faith is being sure about the thing you hope for. Hope is more than desire; it is expectancy. The inner eye looks out and sees the thing in actual possession or realization before it really is. And so the life is held true to God. In spite of depression or of opposition one holds steady and quiet and true and keeps sweet. And the thing comes. God never fails. The fruits come, big and juicy.
THE ONE UNFAILING THING
Acts 7:1-8
The one unfailing quantity in life, and the only one, is—what? Banks fail, even with the Government guarantee back of them. Investments prove utterly unprofitable sometimes. Friends? Yes, they fail too, for lack of strength when not for lack of love. By the time a man gets the figure four at the beginning of his age, he finds that every thing and every one has failed sometime, with the rare exceptions that prove the truth of the statement. But God, Jesus—never yet.
Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Think about these questions as you meditate on the verse. What does this verse teach me? How does this verse apply to my Life?
CHOOSING GOD’S CHOICE
Genesis 17:1-8
God has his plan for each life. He needs us in his plan for the world. He asks for the use of our lives. He proposes a working agreement. It’s something quite apart from salvation. It’s the use of our lives in his great purpose in the earth. And the one condition that he requires is that we follow fully, not only in our choice of right, but in our choice of his plans.
