Thank you for your prayers. Our day in court went well. God is so good to never leave us or forsake us!
Shalom, Robert
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Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
by C. H. Spurgeon
Thursday Morning, April 14
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head.
Psalm 22:7
Mockery was a great ingredient in our Lord's woe. Judas mocked him in the garden; the chief priests and scribes laughed him to scorn; Herod set him at nought; the servants and the soldiers jeered at him, and brutally insulted him; Pilate and his guards ridiculed his royalty; and on the tree all sorts of horrid jests and hideous taunts were hurled at him. Ridicule is always hard to bear, but when we are in intense pain it is so heartless, so cruel, that it cuts us to the quick. Imagine the Saviour crucified, racked with anguish far beyond all mortal guess, and then picture that motley multitude, all wagging their heads or thrusting out the lip in bitterest contempt of one poor suffering victim! Surely there must have been something more in the crucified One than they could see, or else such a great and mingled crowd would not unanimously have honoured him with such contempt. Was it not evil confessing, in the very moment of its greatest apparent triumph, that after all it could do no more than mock at that victorious goodness which was then reigning on the cross? O Jesus, despised and rejected of men, how couldst thou die for men who treated thee so ill? Herein is love amazing, love divine, yea, love beyond degree. We, too, have despised thee in the days of our unregeneracy, and even since our new birth we have set the world on high in our hearts, and yet thou bleedest to heal our wounds, and diest to give us life. O that we could set thee on a glorious high throne in all men's hearts! We would ring out thy praises over land and sea till men should as universally adore as once they did unanimously reject.
Thy creatures wrong thee, O thou sovereign Good! Thou art not loved, because not understood: This grieves me most, that vain pursuits beguile Ungrateful men, regardless of thy smile.
Evening, April 14
Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him.
Isaiah 3:10
It is well with the righteous always . If it had said, Say ye to the righteous, that it is well with him in his prosperity, we must have been thankful for so great a boon, for prosperity is an hour of peril, and it is a gift from heaven to be secured from its snares: or if it had been written, It is well with him when under persecution, we must have been thankful for so sustaining an assurance, for persecution is hard to bear; but when no time is mentioned, all time is included. God's shalls must be understood always in their largest sense. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, from the first gathering of evening shadows until the day-star shines, in all conditions and under all circumstances, it shall be well with the righteous. It is so well with him that we could not imagine it to be better, for he is well fed, he feeds upon the flesh and blood of Jesus; he is well clothed, he wears the imputed righteousness of Christ; he is well housed, he dwells in God; he is well married, his soul is knit in bonds of marriage union to Christ; he is well provided for, for the Lord is his Shepherd; he is well endowed, for heaven is his inheritance. It is well with the righteous--well upon divine authority; the mouth of God speaks the comforting assurance. O beloved, if God declares that all is well, ten thousand devils may declare it to be ill, but we laugh them all to scorn. Blessed be God for a faith which enables us to believe God when the creatures contradict him. It is, says the Word, at all times well with thee, thou righteous one; then, beloved, if thou canst not see it, let God's word stand thee in stead of sight; yea, believe it on divine authority more confidently than if thine eyes and thy feelings told it to thee. Whom God blesses is blest indeed, and what his lip declares is truth most sure and steadfast.
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MORNING THOUGHTS, or
DAILY WALKING WITH GOD
By Octavius Winslow
"Somebody has touched me." Luke 8:46
We must acknowledge that the mortification of sin infinitely transcends the mightiest puttings forth of creative power. "If you through the Spirit do mortify." This He does by making us more sensible of the existence of indwelling sin- by deepening our aspirations after holiness- by shedding abroad the love of God in the heart. But, above all, the Spirit mortifies sin in the believer by unfoldings of the Lord Jesus. Leading us to the cross, He would show us that as Christ died for sin, so we must die to sin- and by the self-same instrument too. One real, believing sight of the cross of Jesus!- oh, what a crucifying power it has! Paul, standing beneath its tremendous shadow, and gazing upon its divine victim, exclaimed, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Get near the Savior's cross, if you would accomplish anything in this great and necessary work of mortification. The Spirit effects it, but through the instrumentality of the Atonement. There must be a personal contact with Jesus. This only is it that draws forth His grace. When the poor woman in the Gospel touched the Savior, we are told that multitudes thronged Him. And yet, in all that crowd that pressed upon His steps, one only extracted the healing virtue. Thus do multitudes follow Christ externally; they attend His courts, and approach His ordinances, and speak well of His name, who know nothing by faith of personal transaction with the Lord. They crowd His path, and strew their branches in His way, and chant their hosannas; but of how few can Christ say, "Somebody has touched me"! Oh, let us have more personal dealing with the Lord Jesus. He delights in this. It pleases, it glorifies Him. He bids us come and disclose every personal feeling, and make known every need, and unveil every grief, and confide to His bosom each secret of our own. The crowd cannot veil us from His eye. He sees the poor and contrite; He marks the trembling and the lowly; He meets the uplifted glance; He feels the thrill of the gentle, hesitating, yet believing touch. "Somebody has touched me." Who? Is it you, my reader?
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