Discipline

Fresh as the Sunrise

October 24, 2017 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning; for You have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble” (Psalm 59:16).
“Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, for in You do I trust; cause me to know the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my soul to You” (Psalm 143:8).

The poet J. E. Raneim wrote:

Are you weary, are you heavy hearted?
Are you grieving over joys departed?
Do the tears flow down your cheeks unbidden?
Have you sins that to men’s eyes are hidden?
Do you fear the gathering clouds of sorrow?
Are you anxious what shall be tomorrow?
Are you troubled at the thought of dying?
For Christ’s coming Kingdom are you sighing?
Tell it to Jesus,
Tell it to Jesus,
He is a friend that’s well known.
You’ve no other such a friend or brother,
Tell it to Jesus alone.

We would do well, when we rise in the morning and look into the mirror, to ask ourselves, “In whom is my trust this morning?”

If we look within, we’ll be distressed. If we look back, we’ll be defeated. If we look around, we’ll be distracted. We would do well to have a higher view of life. To be dismayed, we should look before. To be delivered, we should look to Christ. To be delighted, we should look up… up to the Face of our Lord Jesus Christ for:

Salvation from our sins: “Look unto Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God and there is none else (Isaiah 45:22).
Forgiveness for our many offenses: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).
Knowledge of God’s working in us: “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
Assurance of God’s presence with us: “For He Himself said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
The supply of everything we need: “And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
Protection until Christ returns: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thessalonians 5:23).
Receiving us to Himself and our home in Heaven: “Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

Let each of us, every morning, say with our whole heart;

When the sun rises over the hills, I will look to You (Matthew 28:20).
When my spirit seems void Your presence, I will speak to You (John 16:24).
When my prayers seem unheard, I will know You are listening (Jeremiah 33:3).
When temptations try to lure me, I will seek Your aid to resist (James 4:7-8).
When bad memories persist, I will know You can cleanse my memory (Heb. 9:14).
When my faith seems weaker, I will ask You for stronger faith (Luke 17:5).
When my weakness plagues my efforts, I will ask for Your grace (2 Cor. 12:9).
When I feel alone, I will know You are with me (John 14:18).
When I seem defeated, You will give me victory (Philippians 4:13).

The old German hymn, if we let it, will cause us to praise like this:

When morning guilds the skies, my heart awaking cries,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
Alike at work and prayer… to Jesus I repair …
May Jesus Christ be praised.
When sleep her balm denies, my silent spirit sighs,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
When evil thoughts molest…with this I shield my breast,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
Does sadness fill my mind, a solace here I find,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
Or fades my earthly bliss, my comfort still is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
In heaven’s eternal bliss, the loveliest strain is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
The powers of darkness fear, when this sweet chant they hear,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
Be this, while life is mine, my canticle divine,
May Jesus Christ be praised.
Be this the eternal song, through all the ages on,
May Jesus Christ be praised.

Will we ever learn to rise in the morning and look beyond our mirror to see the living Christ of the Universe waiting for us to come to Him in prayer? Will we lift our spirits to the presence of the Father where Christ is waiting as our intercessor—our attorney—to plead our cause and give to us the mercy and grace to bountifully supply for us our deepest needs?

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews. 4:15-16).

To Ponder:

Are you struggling to find God’s help with trials that seem to surround you?
Do you lack the spiritual strength to rise above and beyond your trials?
Are you searching in God’s Word to gain the strength you need from Him?
Are you memorizing and trusting His promises to you?
Will you commit to being totally yielded to His will for every hour of your life?

To Pray:

Father in Heaven, every morning please convict me, give me the grace to repent and turn from my many weaknesses and sins; please cleanse me, fill me, and by Your Spirit’s grace and power use me today to reach others with Your wonderful Gospel of salvation. I ask this for Your glory in Jesus’ Name.

To Remember:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, for Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:35-37).

A Thorn, You Say?

September 20, 2017 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me – to keep me from exalting myself.” (2 Corinthians 12:7)

Why do we always wonder about someone else’s thorn? Theologians and Bible expositors have done that for years. What was Paul’s “thorn”? Was it his eyesight? Was it a mother-in-law? Was it some awful weakness he had in that fleshly part of his old nature? Those aren’t the questions we should be asking. The problem is not with Paul’s thorn; I think we need to be thinking about our own thorns.

What is a thorn, anyway? The Greek word for “thorn” is SKOLOPS (σκολοψ). It can mean anything pointed and is used as a metaphor for a thorn or a plague. And that tells our story. What is our thorn? Could it be a physical weakness, an ailment, a physical handicap, or could it be a weakness in our very nature – something like the “sin which so easily entangles us” that we find in Hebrews 12:1? You know, that sin of omission or commission that seems to war against us in our climb up that steep hill on our pilgrim journey to the Celestial City? Is it that sin we are exhorted to despise, lay aside and from which we should run? It unmercifully plagues us! Could it actually be our ill temper, our cursing, or some baser lust of our old, fleshly nature?

One thing is sure about Paul’s thorn: God allowed Satan to use it to attack Paul. The word “buffet” comes from KOLAPHIDZO (κολαφιζω). It can mean to beat with a fist (Jesus beating in Matt. 16:67), to treat roughly (Paul, in I Cor. 4:11), or to punish or treat harshly in general (I Peter 2:20). Those aren’t very comforting prospects, are they? But God in His providence allows it for good reasons.

In Paul’s case it was to keep him from getting the “big head” for learning some very special, heavenly, godly truths. The truths were great; but the beating he was getting from Satan to entice him to think of himself as a fantastically smart guy was something from which he wanted to be delivered. He supplicated the Lord three times for relief; but God gave him His remedy. It was the remedy that sustained Paul all the way the headman’s axe in Rome, under the sentence of that evil emperor Nero, in 67 A.D. God answered him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). [Read more…]

The Morning Hour

February 25, 2017 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

I sometimes wonder why we insist on rising in the morning, getting dressed and hurrying into the day, quite often without much thought of God. It’s a habit of our flesh to be undisciplined and slothful in truly important spiritual duties and opportunities. The Tempter likes that; the Spirit grieves about it.
John Bunyan, that amazing preacher of righteousness, was quite convicting when he wrote,

“He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day!”

I’m not sure he wrote that during a pastor’s busy day or whether in Bedford Jail, where he was incarcerated for preaching the Gospel; but it really makes serious, convicting sense to anyone wondering whether prayer is a valid way of communicating with God. And I love the words of the poet Ralph Spaulding Cushman who said,

“I met God in the morning when the day was at its best,
And His presence came like sunrise, like a glory in my breast.
All day long the Presence lingered, all day long He stayed with me,
And we sailed in perfect calmness o’er a very troubled sea.
Other ships were blown and battered, other ships were sore distressed,
But the winds that seemed to drive them brought to me a peace and rest.
Then I thought of other mornings, with a keen remorse of mind,
When I too had loosed the moorings, with the Presence left behind,
So I think I’ve found the secret, learned from many a troubled way,
You must seek Him in the morning if you want Him through the day!”

In my latter years my sleep habits find me in my recliner in the early morning, with a cup of decaf, reading and praying as I thumb though my prayer journal, looking into the pictures of so many friends and loved ones. What a deep spiritual joy it is to spend morning hours with my Savior, who intercedes for me at God’s Throne; and also to know the Holy Spirit is aiding my spirit in praise and requests to our Father in Heaven.

Yes, one secret to a truly joy-filled day, no matter what circumstances arise, is to:

“Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone;
By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.”

Oh, to take that time, to be that individual!

Tomorrow I have lunch with two friends. One is a Vietnam Veteran, a U.S. Marine and Roman Catholic; the other is a professed atheist and nihilist. I’ve been witnessing to them for almost five years. How I need prayer for these two!

Try it! I urge you to remember that our ability to live for God outside the prayer closet will be determined by our discipline to live with the Triune God in those secret times, hopefully in the morning before the sun rises to heat our day with busyness.

A closing thought from Leonard Ravenhill: “No man is greater than his prayer life; The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying!”

And from Samuel Chadwick, “Prayer is the acid test of devotion.”

David Livingstone – Giant of the Faith

February 14, 2016 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

David Livingstone In 1873, the Apostle to Africa, was found dead in the jungle, on his knees, as if in prayer. For 33 years in Africa he had walked, crawled, climbed, waded, canoed, had ridden and been carried some 40,000 miles through the “white man’s grave.” He took notes and made maps every step of the way. He told every African he saw the good news about Jesus Christ.

It took natives 9 months to carry his body to the coast, where it could be prepared for shipment to England. When his body arrived, it was examined by pathologists; they found scars and bone damage where he had at one time been mauled by a lion. His heart and internal organs lie buried in Africa under an mvula tree. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey, among the legends of Britain.

When a teenager, he wrote this prayer in his journal: “Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me; Lay any burden upon me, only sustain me; Sever any tie, but the tie that binds me to Thy service and Thy side!”

Livingstone said he was sustained by the promise of a gentleman of sacred character who said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

When I consider the life of David Livingstone, I am convicted of being a spiritual failure – a pigmy, as compared to this Giant of the Faith. Perhaps it might be my privilege, when in the New Heaven on the New Earth, to be assigned as one of the gardeners, working among the flowers in the garden that surrounds his estate throughout eternity. What an honor that would be!

I wonder if we see the Celestial City, as David Livingstone saw it!

A Kind Of Shapeless Idleness

February 8, 2016 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
(John 15:27)

What Jesus said to His disciples in the upper room has applied to every believer regenerated by the Holy Spirit from that day until Jesus returns to take us to be with Him at His second coming. It is my studied conviction that the devolution of American culture can be traced to the apathy and fruitlessness of American believers who have failed to be ambassadors for Christ to our post-Christian culture. We are His witnesses. We have been with Him from our choice by the Triune God before the foundation of the universe to be His witnesses to our time and place in His world.

Statisticians tell us that less than five percent of professing evangelicals have ever sat with a repentant sinner to whom they have witnessed the life-saving good news of Christ’s gospel. Too few have heard in their spirit the singing of angelic beings rejoicing in the conversion of a sinner saved by God’s amazing grace in response to their witnessing on behalf of their Lord.

A gifted writer and attorney said:

“To live our lives and miss that great purpose we were designed to accomplish is truly a sin. It is inconceivable that we could be bored in a world with so much wrong to tackle, so much ignorance to teach and so much misery we could alleviate. It seems that ambition and avarice know no boundaries. Yet life goes on with too many living in a kind of shapeless idleness. Recreation becomes the goal in life. Pubs abound, sports are perpetually proliferating, gambling consumes many, and almost any form of entertainment is pursued to fill the void created by a meaningless life. Year after year goes by in unprofitable pursuit. Young and old alike live for things that do not satisfy and ignore the very things that bring fulfillment. We are not criminals or murderers or thieves. Our sin is not so obvious. We live according to the standards of society, drifting along on this world’s ideas of living, oblivious to the consequences.”[1]

That statement was not uttered recently. It was stated in 1797 by William Wilberforce, the Christian, English attorney and graduate of Cambridge University, who died three days before he learned that Parliament would pass the law abolishing from the British Empire the dreaded slavery trade. He knew what it meant to be a witness for his Savior!

The imperative of personal evangelism has been erroneously centered in the professional clergy. From Acts 8, verses 1 through 4, we learn that it was the witness of the laity that turned the world upside down by being “scattered abroad going everywhere preaching the Word.”

The Evangelical Church in America must return to the spiritual purpose, the imperative of personal evangelism. Jesus said, “As My Father has sent Me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). Until the clergy starts preaching the Whole Counsel of God and the laity starts witnessing the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, the church will be historically noted as the “age of shapeless idleness.” We will indeed be spoken of as the “Laodicean” church of Revelation 3, the lukewarm church deserving to be spit out of the mouth of God’s stated purpose.

To Ponder:

Do you believe that it is your responsibility to be a witness for Jesus Christ to those God has placed in your path of life?
Does your pastor or preacher teach the imperative of personal witnessing on behalf of Christ?
Have you ever knelt with an individual to hear them open their heart to God in repentance and confession, placing their trust in the work of Christ for the salvation of their life?
Are you willing to take another look at the imperative or Christian witnessing?
Will you ask God to place before you people who need Jesus Christ and give you the courage to “say a word for Jesus”?

To Pray:

“Father in Heaven, please forgive me for my failure to be your ambassador to my friends and neighbors…my unsaved loved ones. Please teach me to be an effective witness of your saving grace to others who desperately need you. Please teach me the joy of seeing my life be a light to those in darkness, to those lost and without hope in this dying culture. I ask this for Your glory alone and the praise of your Son’s substitutionary death on my behalf. Please, blessed Spirit of God, cleanse me of my self and use me for the glory of the Kingdom of God.”

“Give me a passion for souls, dear Lord, a passion to save the lost;
O that Thy love were by all adored, and welcomed at any cost.
Though there are dangers untold and stern confronting me in the way,
willingly still would I go, nor turn, but trust Thee for grace each day.
How will this passion for souls be mine? Lord, make Thou the answer clear;
help me to throw out the old life-line to those who are struggling near.
Jesus, I long, I long to be winning men who are lost and constantly sinning;
O may this hour be one of beginning the story of pardon to tell.”[2]

[1] William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1973), pp. 71-72.
[2] Herbert G. Tovey, Special Voices, No. 3 (Kansas City: Lillenas Publishing, 1914).