A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear? ((Proverbs 18:14)) This world is not the Garden of Eden, and you cannot make it to be so. It is like that garden in this respect, that the serpent is in it, and the trail of the serpent is over everything…
“If the righteous will be rewarded in the earth, How much more the wicked and the sinner!” ((Proverbs 11.31)) All of us are working towards a final payday. Every day of our lives we are chipping into an eternal pension fund. For those of us who are born again, we are laying up treasures in heaven.…
“What the wicked fears will come upon him,But the desire of the righteous will be granted.” ((Proverbs 10.24)) The wicked can only live in fear. Notice their responses to the recent terrorist attacks in Europe. They may have a lot of loud words and get busy with security, but down deep there is fear. When a…
The fatherly care and tender love of our Lord Jesus Christ was eminently displayed in that pleading prayer he poured out for his people at his parting with them. It belonged to the priest and father of the family to bless the rest, especially when he was to be separated from them by death. This…
“Delight thyself also in the Lord; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; Trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” ((Psalm 37:4–5)) Delight in this verse means “enjoy, be fond, i.e., take pleasure and enjoyment in an object, implying desirability of the…
Without delight we are not fit to receive a mercy. Delight in a mercy wanted makes room for desire, and large desires make room for mercy. If no delight in begging, there will be no delight in enjoying. If there is no cheerfulness to enliven our prayers when we need a blessing, there will be…
Time is limited. Earthly life ends with a period or even an exclamation point, not with an ellipsis. We are granted threescore and ten years, or, if strong enough, fourscore. Anything beyond that is an excess of superabundance. Eighty years. That number lends each person 29,200 days. If a day were a dollar, we would…
When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas. ((2 Timothy 4:13)) We are taught in this passage how similar one child of God is to another.56 We look on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being great and blessed—we think that they lived in a higher region than we do. We…
Because people delight in that in which they trust, [turn] from all other objects of delight to God as the true object. “Delight yourself in the Lord”; place all your pleasure and joy in him. Trust is the spring of joy and of supplication. When we trust him for sustenance and preservation, we will receive…
“Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” ((Colossians 4:6)) Words are powerful. They can hurt or help. Some words are gracious, others are angry. Some words are spoken graciously, others are tinged with a bad attitude. Some words are judiciously chosen,…
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.” ((Matthew 27:46-47)) I find in [Jesus Christ] the loneliness of grandeur.45 Jesus was supremely lonely, because he…
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. ((Psalm 73:26)) I find in [Mary] the loneliness of love.41 The mother of Jesus was the bride of loneliness. Had her husband, Joseph, been spared to her through the years, it might have been very different…