The just shall live by faith!!

Faith and Grace
Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand . . . therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace . . . the just shall live by faith.  (Rom_5:2,  Rom_4:16, and Rom_1:17)

As noted previously, faith accesses the grace of God. "Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand." 
When we trusted in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we were born again and enjoyed our initial access to grace. God's intends for His children to continue accessing grace day by day throughout their years of growth and service here on earth. 

Every time that we face any matter in our lives with dependence upon the Lord Jesus, we are drawing from the bottomless ocean of God's grace. 
Thereby, His grace becomes our resource for living. 
The resources of God's grace cannot be earned, deserved, or produced by man. They must be freely provided by the Lord. From beginning to end, the saving, rescuing, transforming work of God's grace is "the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph_2:8-9). 
This truth highlights the strategic nature of faith. Only faith accords with grace. "Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace." Faith alone is compatible with grace. Any other approach will not fit with grace. 
This marks another profound distinction between law and grace. "Yet the law is not of faith, but 'The man who does them shall live by them' " (Gal_3:12). The law is about performance. Those who live by the law are left to their own resources to work up a life that measures up to the perfect standards of God. Those who daily put their faith in the Lord Jesus for the issues of life access grace for godly living. 
It is God's will that we live our entire lives by faith, which accesses grace. "The just shall live by faith." This truth is comprehensive. It applies to every aspect of our lives. When we arise in the morning, entrust the day into the Lord's care and guidance. 
As we communicate with our families, depend upon Jesus for love and patience. In our drive to the office, pray in faith concerning the opportunities and challenges that may await us. If a crisis develops unexpectedly, immediately cry out to the Lord for peace and direction. 
When times of Bible study and worship approach, exercise faith toward God to make them spiritually genuine and personally effective. Whatever, whenever, whoever," The just shall live by faith."
Dear faithful Lord, I long to live by faith more and more as each day dawns. I see that this is the only way I can access Your glorious grace. Lord, I need Your grace constantly. No other resource will suffice. Too often I am striving by my best performance. What weariness and failure always results. Show me the areas of my life where I am not trusting in You, that I might look to You anew. In Your gracious name I pray, Amen.

The Grace Awakening

The Grace Awakening

“The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to every man” (Tit_2:11).

The sun filled the morning sky as we made our made out from under the arch of the Ancient Library onto the Road leading to a place named Grace. Someone eagerly said, “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day!” (Pro_4:18)

That’s a great thought as we move forward this morning. For, like the sun above, Grace is not passive. It is full of dynamic energy. Grace empowers us with light and liveliness, fills our lives with warmth, growth, joy and beauty.

Some happy soul midway back in the pack let out with a song – “For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” (Psa_84:11).

Sun and Shield. We need both on this pilgrimage that we take; for the unmitigated cold could quench our resolve, and incessant attacks from unseen bandits could thwart our progress. The Lord’s presence and power insure that we are comforted and protected – the pillar of fire by night, and the cloud of covering by day. A sun above us, and a shield about us.

He gives Grace and Glory. The Lord gives Grace in this world, and Glory in the one to come! Grace empowers us to walk uprightly, and Glory awaits at our destination. Blessed are we to journey in such a mighty convoy! No good thing will He withhold from us as we press on in doing what is right and true.

In light of this bright sunshine let’s now consider Paul’s words – “For the grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Tit_2:11-14)

First, the grace of God brings salvation; that is, it does not leave us the way it finds us. We are changed by its power; changed from the inside out. “If any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold all things become new.” (2Co_5:17).

Second, this grace has appeared to all men –  appeared to all, yes; but not embraced by all. For those who do embrace it, the power of Grace empowers us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously and godly –in this present world.

Third, we live looking for the return of the Lord – redeemed from all iniquity, purified unto Jesus, a peculiar people zealous of good works.”

Imagine what our world could look like if this truth about God’s Grace took hold of the great, diverse Body of Christ – and then spread its redeeming power and presence to all men everywhere.

Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mat_5:16). Let’s do this by the grace of God.

The results of our faithful obedience would be nothing short of a Grace Awakening!

It is the victory that overcomes the world

The Perils of Middle Age
"The destruction that wastes at noonday." Psa_91:6
In all literature, the life of man is pictured under the symbol of a day. There is something in the rising and setting of the sun that compares so closely to life's start and close that the correspondence has been universally perceived. We speak of the morning of infancy or childhood; we describe the older age as the afternoon of life; the declining years are the evening of our day; and the final efforts as the lingering gleams of sunset. It is in such language, drawn from the sphere of day, that we imaginatively describe the facts of life. This being so, you will at once perceive the meaning we may attach to noonday. The noonday of life is the time of middle age when the morning freshness of youth has passed away. And so the destruction which wasteth at the noonday, whatever its literal significance, may be referred to as the peculiar temptations of that period.
This long stretch that we call middle life is a period often overlooked. In a hundred special sermons to young men, you will scarcely find one which addresses the middle age. No doubt there is something to be said for that, for youth is the time of impression and choice, and the preacher feels that if he can influence youth, the trend of the later period is determined. But along with this wise reasoning goes another, which is as unwise as it is false and which is specially cogent with young ministers. It is the thought that after the storms of youth, middle age is like a quiet haven. It is the thought that youth is very perilous and middle age comparatively safe. I think that nothing could be farther from the truth than that and no outlook more pernicious. I am convinced that of all moral perils, none are more deadly than the perils of the noonday. And could we only read the story of many Christians who in the sight of God have failed, I believe we would find that the sins of middle age have been more disastrous than the sins of youth.

A Man's Lifework Is Usually Determined by Middle Age
Now one of the great features of middle age is that by that time a man has found his lifework. No longer does he wonder what the future may hold. No longer does he turn to the left and right wondering what path he should pursue. But whether by choice or by necessity, or by what men might call an accident, he has taken up once and for all his calling and settled down to the business of his life.
When one stands amid the Alps in early morning, it is often impossible to tell the mountain peaks from the clouds. For the rising sun, touching the clouds with glory, so fashions them into fantastic pinnacles that it would take a practiced eye to tell which is a cloud and which is a snowcapped summit. But when noonday comes, there is no longer any difficulty. The clouds have separated and disappeared, and clear and bold into the azure sky there rises up the summit of the Alps. So in our morning hour it is often hard to tell which is the cloud-capped tower and which is the hill. But as the day advances and the sun mounts to noonday, that problem of the morning disappears. For clear above us rises the one summit—clear before us stretches our lifework. For better or worse, we now have found our lifework, nor are we likely to change it till the end.
Now with this settlement into a single task there generally comes a certain happiness. We are freed from many disquieting doubts that troubled us when we stood on life's threshold. Unless a man's work is abhorrent—so uncongenial as to be utterly abhorrent—there is a quiet pleasure in those very limitations that are the noticeable marks of middle age. The river no longer swirls among the rocks nor is there now any glory of a dashing waterfall, but in the tranquility there is a placid beauty and the suggestion of abiding peace. Even more, there is an ingathering of strength—the strength that always comes from concentration. No longer does a man dissipate his power trying to open doors that have been barred; but knowing his work and limitations, he gives himself with his whole heart to his one task, and so is a stronger man in middle age than he was in the happy liberty of youth.

The Narrowness of One's Lifework
But just here arises the danger of that period—one form of the destruction that wasteth at noonday—and it lies in the narrowness of the one groove in which the lifework runs. The eager expectancy of youth is gone, and absorbed in the business on which his living hangs, a man narrows into a businessman. Strong because he is concentrated in his life's work, he may become weak in that very concentration. Quietly happy because he has found his groove, he may be further from God than in his wayward youth.
There is a question which we often use. We ask of such and such a man, "What is he?" And you know the answer which we expect to get—he is a teacher, a doctor, or an engineer. Now if the end for which a man was born was to be a doctor or an engineer, happy indeed would be that narrowness which is so clear a feature of the noonday. But when we remember what man is and yet shall be; when we think of Him in whose image man is made (which image it is the lifework to restore), what an irony it is and what a condemnation of the noonday that we should say of a man that he is a draftsman, or of another he is an engineer. Has the promise of the morning come to this? Are these the feet that are set in a large room (Psa_31:8)? Have all the blessings of God been lavished on a man that he might become only a first-rate man of his business? No matter how successful he may be, if he is impoverished and narrowed by success, then in the sight of God he is in peril of the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
Enlarging Our Being
Faced, then, by that peril as we are, how may we reasonably hope to overcome it? One way is to have some consuming interest such as a hobby. It does not really matter what it is, if it is an avenue into a larger world. It tends to keep a person from being a mere machine and helps him through the perils of the noonday.
But there is something better than a hobby. It is the symmetry of the character of Jesus. It is the thought that there once moved on earth a Man who was perfect in the whole range of manhood. That is the value of fellowship with Christ in an age when specialism is inevitable. Christ touches every string upon the harp, for He vitalizes powers we would ignore. He came to give life, and to give it more abundantly, and so saves from the destruction of the noonday.

The Peril of Deadening Faith
Another peril of the noonday is the decay and deadening of faith. There is no period in the whole course of life in which it is so hard to walk by faith.
In childhood, faith is an abiding habit. A child has a perfect genius for trusting. Dependent for everything upon the care of others, to lean on others is totally natural and a sheer necessity. And so in youth is found the lovely habit of trustful reliance upon another's love which makes the child, no matter what his faults, a type of the citizen in Jesus' kingdom.

Then in old age when the sun is setting, faith surely must become easier again. Standing so near the margin of this world, has a man no gleams and visions of the next? So soon to make that plunge into the darkness and to leave forever the "old familiar faces," how utterly and hopelessly hardened must a person be who has no thought except for the things he sees!
 I do not say that faith is ever easy. It is the greatest of ventures and of victories. It is the victory that overcomes the world, and not to be won without a weary battle.
But in middle age, as you will see at once, these helps and encouragement's are missing. There is neither the stimulus of youth nor that of age to lead a man to trust in the unseen. We are self-dependent now and self-reliant; it is by the work of our own hands we live. Once we depended upon another's labor, but now our livelihood hangs on our own. Then, too, in the time of middle age there is generally a reasonable measure of good health. The days succeed each other at an even pace, and before us lies an unbroken stretch of road. Not yet do we discern the shades of evening nor feel on our cheek the chill wind of the twilight. We are far away from the brink of the beyond.
It is such facts as these that hint to us of the destruction that wasteth at noonday. No period is so prone to materialize the spirit or to blind a man to the range of the unseen. Then first relying on our personal effort and through that effort achieving some success; then awakening to the power of money and to all that money is able to procure; still un-visited by signs of dissolution and reasonably secure of many years yet to come, it is in middle age we run the tremendous peril of becoming worldly and materialized. Youth has its dangers, but they are those of passion and lack of control. But the sins of middle age, though not so patent, yet in the sight of God may be more deadly, for they lead to that encrustation of the spirit which the Bible calls the hardening of the heart.
Get a company of middle-aged men together and listen to their talk about their neighbors. Isn't it certain to come around to money—to their losses and successes and incomes? I do not imply that what they say is scandal, or even suggest it is uncharitable. I only say that they have materialized since the happy days when they were boys together. There is no time when it is harder to walk with God than in our middle age; no time when it is more difficult to keep alive the vision of the eternal and unseen. The sweet dependence of childhood has departed, and the heart has awaked to the power of the material, but the hand of death does not yet knock loudly. Brethren, who like myself have entered these midyears, remember that Christ is praying that your faith does not fail. He knoweth the arrow that flieth in the morning; He knoweth the destruction that wasteth at noonday. May Christ deliver us from the hard and worldly heart. May He give us the hope that is cast within the veil. Not slothful in business, but toiling at it heartily may we endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

The Danger of Losing Faith in Man
But not only is middle age the time when we are in peril of losing faith in God, it is also a time when we are in danger of losing faith in man. The two things indeed may be said to go together, the one making way for and drawing on the other, for between faith in man and faith in God there is a vital connection. In our days of childhood we believe in men with a romantic and splendid trust. We have not yet learned the motives that inspire them. It is from our father we take our ideas of manhood, and from our mother we take our ideas of womanhood. The father is always a hero to the child, and the mother is always worthy to be loved.
And then with middle age comes the awakening. We see how different men are from our imagination. The vision we had of them is rudely shattered, and with the shattering goes our faith. It may be that a young man goes to business under an employer who is a professing Christian. He may even be a pillar in the church in which the young man was baptized and trained. But in the business there are such shady tricks, such practices incompatible with honor, that in a year or two not all a father's pleading can prevail with his son to even take the Communion cup. It may be that a woman is deceived in love by someone of whom once she thought there was no better person in the world. It may be that a daughter comes to see that the mother whom she adored is but a worldly woman. Or it may be that, without sudden shock, we slowly discover the wheels within the wheels, the rottenness in much that is called business, the worship of power in much that is called the church. Very commonly it meets a man as youth expires and middle age begins. And it is this passage from the hopes of youth to the chilling experience of middle life that is so often attended by an eclipse of faith. Some men become utterly hard-hearted; others, tolerantly cynical. To some it is a positive relief to find the world no better than themselves. But to all it is a deadly peril—it is the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
There is only one help in that temptation—one help, yet it is all-sufficient. It is to remember that though He knew the worst, and  Christ never for an hour lost faith in man. Despised, deceived, rejected betrayed, still in the eyes of Christ man is precious. His own forsook Him on the way to Calvary, and yet He loved His own unto the end. Great is our need of Christ in time of youth if we are to steer our ship amid the shoals. Great is our need of Christ when we are old if we hope to enter the eternal city. But not less great is our need of Jesus Christ in the dusty levels of our middle age if we are to be saved from that destroying angel—"the destruction that wasteth at noonday."

PRESS ON TOWARDS THE GOAL!!

THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
"One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."-- Phi_3:13-14.

AN IDEAL is a mental conception of character after which we desire to shape our lives. It is the fresco which we paint on the walls of our soul, and perpetually look at in our lonely hours; and since the heart is educated through the eye, we become more and more assimilated to that which we admire.

Our Ideal should be distinctly beyond us. We must be prepared to strain our muscles and task our strength, attempting something which those who know us best never thought us capable of achieving. 
Like St. Paul, we must count the ordinary ambitions of men as dung, must forget the things which are behind and press forward to those before us.

We should choose as an objective some ideal which is manifestly, in our own judgment or that of others, within our scope. It is a mistake to set before our minds an ideal which is altogether out of harmony with the make-up of our nature. Therefore we should learn, to say with the Apostle: "I follow on to apprehend that for which I was apprehended by Christ Jesus." 
Be sure that God created and redeemed you for a definite purpose. Discover that purpose, and set yourself to make it good.
Our Ideal should give unity to life. Happy is the man who is able to prosecute his ideal through each hour of consciousness, and who can say: "This one thing I do!" Such people are the irresistible ones. Those who know one subject thoroughly, or who bend all their energies in the prosecution of one purpose, carry all before them. 
In every act and thought we may become more like Christ.The quest for a holy character may be prosecuted always and everywhere. 
The Christ ideal is the highest ideal. "That I may gain Christ, and be found in Him." 
But such an ideal will only be realized at the cost of self-denial. You must put aside your own righteousness to get His; you must be willing to count all things loss; you must ignore the imperious demands of passion. So shall you be prepared for the hour when even "the body of your humiliation" shall be transformed to the likeness of the glorious body of Christ. His working is on your side; in you and for you He will subdue all things to Himself.

PRAYER
Thou, O Christ, art all I want. May Thy grace abound towards me, so that having all sufficiency in all things, I may abound unto every good work. AMEN.

I have surely seen the affliction of My people

“I have surely seen the affliction of My people.”
Exo_3:1-8; Exo_3:10-20
Exo_3:1
Though a man of deep learning he did not disdain the shepherd’s calling. There is no disgrace in work, but great shame in idleness,
Exo_3:2-3
This is a standing emblem of the church, and often both friend and foe, like Moses, are puzzled to understand the marvel. It is wonderful that so poor and powerless a thing as a bush should survive the fires which try it so severely.
Exo_3:6
Kike his ancestor Jacob, he felt “how dreadful is this place.” Fear rather than joy prevailed.
Exo_3:11
The more fit a man is for God’s work the lower is his esteem of himself.
Exo_3:12
What an answer to all fears is that sweet word “Certainly I will be with thee.”
Exo_3:14
By these two names the immutability and self-existence of God are set forth. Our God for ever exists and is for ever the same.
Exo_3:15-17
Sooner or later the Lord will bless his people and deliver them. He may for awhile leave them under severe trial, but he is mindful of his covenant and will visit them at the set time.

Love’s presence keeps the bush alive,
Grace ‘mid the flames can make us thrive;
Nor need th’ afflicted saint despair,
Though in the fire, the Lord is there.

Who is on the Lord’s side?

“Who is on the Lord’s side.”
Exo_2:1-10
Exo_2:4
to wit or know
Faith watches to see what God will do.
Exo_2:5
Providence is manifest here. How was the ark kept from the crocodiles? Why did the princess come to that particular spot? How came her eye to light upon that little floating coffer hidden among the bulrushes? Why should she desire to look within it? Surely the Lord’s hand was in it all.
Exo_2:6
The providence which brought the princess to the spot, brought the tears into the babe’s eyes at the very moment when they would be seen, and aid in touching the beholder’s pity.
Exo_2:7-8
How graciously the Lord arranges for us.
Exo_2:9
Thus speaks the Lord to every godly mother. No service upon earth is so well repaid to a parent as the pious nurture of her children.
Heb_11:24-26
Heb_11:24
He had been so called in his youthful days, but when he could choose for himself he declined the highest rank as an Egyptian, and took his place with persecuted Israel.
Act_7:22-29
Act_7:22
His education, when sanctified by God’s Spirit, helped to prepare him for his eminent position as the leader and lawgiver of the tribes. No other prophet until our Lord came was mighty both in words and deeds.
Act_7:23
The life of Moses divides itself into three forties—forty at court, forty with Jethro, and forty in the wilderness.
Act_7:24-28
The mission of the greatest and best of men is not at once perceived.

Now for the love I bear His name,
What was my gain I count my loss;
My former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to His cross.

Yes, and I must and will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus’ sake:
Oh may my soul be found in Him,
And of His righteousness partake!

THE HOLY SPIRIT LIKE JESUS IS A PERSON

1 Thessalonians 5:19

Quench not the spirit. 

By which is meant, not the person of the Spirit, but either the graces of the spirit, which may be compared to light, and fire, and heat, to which the allusion is in the text; such as faith, which is a light in the soul, a seeing of the Son, and an evidence of things not seen; and love, which gives a vehement flame, which many waters cannot quench; and zeal, which is the boiling up of love, the fervency of it; and spiritual knowledge, which is also light, and of an increasing nature, and are all graces of the spirit: and though these cannot be totally extinguished, and utterly put out and lost, yet they may be greatly damped; the light of faith may become dim; and the flame of love be abated, and that wax cold; the heat of zeal may pass into lukewarmness, and an indifference of spirit; and the light of knowledge seem to decline instead of increasing; and all through indulging some sin or sins, by keeping ill company, and by neglecting the ordinances of God, prayer, preaching, and other institutions of the Gospel; wherefore such an exhortation is necessary to quicken saints, and stir them up to the use of those means, whereby those graces are cherished and preserved in their lively exercise; though rather the gifts of the Spirit are intended. The extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, bestowed on the apostles at the day of Pentecost, are represented under the symbol of fire, to which perhaps the apostle may here have respect; and the more ordinary gifts of the Spirit are such as are to be stirred up, as coals of fire are stirred up, in order that they may burn, and shine the brighter, and give both light and heat, 2Ti_1:6 and which may be said to be quenched, when they are neglected, and lie by as useless; when they are wrapped up in a napkin, or hid in the earth; or when men are restrained from the use of them; or when the use of them is not attended to, or is brought into contempt, and the exercise of them rendered useless and unprofitable, as much as in them lies. And even private persons may quench the Spirit of God, his gifts of light and knowledge, when they hold the truth in unrighteousness, imprison it, and conceal it, and do not publicly profess it as they ought.