01.07. Rejoice In The Lord Alway

“Rejoice In The Lord Alway”

(Php 4:4) CHAPTER SEVEN

FULLNESS OF JOY
TO THE unsaved man or woman the Christian way of life seems gloomy and unhappy. In their opinion, when one becomes a Christian he gives up things which are pleasant and attractive and undertakes a life of long-faced monotony and pious misery.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Christian life is a way of happiness. Faith in Christ implants joy in the human heart. The Saviour came that men might have abundant life, and a life without joy is certainly not abundant; it is barren and empty. The Apostle Peter speaks of the Lord as the One in whom “believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

The heart of a child of God has every reason to rejoice. The Christian rejoices because of what Christ has given him and because of what He has taken away. He has been given salvation. He has passed from death into life. He has been given the assurance of God’s presence now and hereafter. From him has been removed a sense of guilt and a weight of sin. He has been freed from the domination of old habits and old impulses. He has been led out of darkness into light. Surely, this is enough to cause springs of joy to well up in the heart.
A day-by-day experience of God’s mercy develops the Christian’s joy. As he trusts his Lord for comfort in the time of sorrow and finds the comfort supplied, as he leans upon Him for strength in a moment of weakness and finds himself upheld, as he turns to Him in the hour of need and finds the need met, he cannot help rejoicing.
This joy is increased as the Lord speaks to him through His Word, the Bible. Christ Himself said to His disciples, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11), and from the Word of God a joy ever new and fresh comes to the Christian as he turns the holy pages. The command to rejoice seems almost superfluous as he is told to “rejoice in the Lord alway” (Php 4:4). When he walks with His Father, the Christian is always filled with joy.

Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts,
Thou fount of life, Thou light of men,
From all the bliss that earth imparts
We turn unfilled to Thee again.

Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood;
Thou savest those that on Thee call;
To them that seek Thee Thou art good,
To them that find Thee, all in all.
Our restless spirits yearn for Thee,
Where’er our changeful lot is cast;
Glad, when Thy gracious smile we see,
Blest, when our faith can hold Thee fast.

O Jesus, ever with us stay;
Make all our moments calm and bright;
Chase the dark night of sin away,
Shed o’er the world Thy holy light!

- Bernard of Clairvaux
HIS OWN GOD

DAVID was a man after God’s own heart, but he was not free from sorrow and suffering. His life was often in danger and he knew what it meant to be pursued by an enemy and lose temporal possessions. One of the occasions when, from the human standpoint, he should have been in the lowest emotional state is recorded in the thirtieth chapter of I Samuel. David had returned with his soldiers to his city of Ziklag to find it in ruins. The Amalekites had carried away their wives and their children and their possessions. His discouraged followers broke into open rebellion. There is no record that David was discouraged in this hour. On the contrary, we are told, “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6). God was real and personal to David. God was his God. Only the man who has established a personal relationship with God is prepared to meet the loss of loved ones and possessions as David met it. Only the man who has made God his own can encourage himself in God in such an hour.
The God whom David knew as his God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was the God of Israel, but most important of all to David, He was his God. It is well to recognize the existence of God in His universe, but we need to know Him personally. We need to make Him our God. He wants us each to come into personal relationship with Him. “But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29). The Lord Jesus Christ, who is God come in the flesh and the Way by which men may come to God, said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
The Amalekites took all David’s earthly possessions, but they could not take God away from him. In the midst of his loss he kept that which was most important-a personal grip on God. In the midst of causes for discouragement he had kept his source of encouragement-his God.

I love, my God, but with no love of mine, For I have none to give;
I love Thee, Lord, but all that love is Thine, For by Thy life I live.
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied and lost and swallowed up in Thee.

Thou, Lord, alone, art all Thy children need And there is none beside;
From Thee the streams of blessedness proceed; In Thee the blest abide,
Fountain of life and all-abounding grace,
Our source, our center and our dwelling-place!

- Madame Guyon
FAITH OR CONFIDENCE

SOME people confuse faith with confidence. In one sense, the two are not identical in their source, nor are they founded on a common spiritual basis.

Confidence may be born of a nature that is naturally optimistic and hopes for the best. A man may be confident that “things will turn out all right,” and think he has faith when he has only confidence.

Confidence may spring from a knowledge of the characteristics and potentialities which another possesses. A mother may have confidence in the qualities of her son’s character and take it for granted that because of them he will make a success of his life, and think she has faith.

Confidence may spring from reliance upon oneself. A man may evaluate his own gifts and talents and abilities and have confidence that he will be able to accomplish a certain task and think this is faith.

Faith is more than this. Faith is fixed in God. Faith is not merely an unreasoning hope, nor is it wishful thinking that God will do the thing we want Him to do. It is the assurance that He will keep His word and bring to pass that which He has promised to perform. Faith is founded in God who can because He is omnipotent, and who will because He promised. The surrendered Christian knows that God will lead him because he believes the Word of God which promises, “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass” (Psalms 37:5).

A godly mother has faith that her child will live right because she has done her best to bring him up in the fear of the Lord and because God has assured her in His Word, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Faith is superior to confidence as divine omnipotence is superior to mortal weakness. Confidence may enable a man to climb a mountain whose lofty peak challenges his efforts. Faith removes the mountain. Confidence helps a mariner to sail his boat safely through a stormy sea, but only faith can enable a man to walk on the waves. Faith has this foundation- the Word of God - and “the foundation [Word] of God standeth sure.”

Faith is a living power from heaven
That grasps the promise God hath given,
A trust that cannot be o’erthrown,
Fixed heartily on Christ alone.

Faith finds in Christ whate’er we need
To save or strengthen us indeed;
Receive the grace He sends us down,
And makes us share His cross and crown.

Faith in the conscience worketh peace
And bids the mourner’s weeping cease;
By faith the children’s place we claim,
And give all honor to one Name.

Faith feels the Spirit’s kindling breath
In love and hope that conquer death;
Faith worketh hourly joy in God,
And trusts and blesses e’en the rod.

We thank Thee, then, O God of heaven,
That Thou to us this faith hast given
In Jesus Christ Thy Son, who is
Our only fount and source of bliss.

- Petrus Herbert BE NOT AFRAID
ON TWO OCCASIONS (Mark 4:35-39; Matthew 14:22-27) the lord’s disciples were caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee. The first time Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat. In their fear they waked Him, asking, “Carest thou not that we perish?” He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Be still.” With the simple language of divine authority He silenced the tempest and calmed the sea. The waves, like little dogs that obey the command of their master, lay down and went to sleep.
On the other occasion the disciples were in the boat without Him, and in the midst of the tempest He came to them walking on the sea. This time He did not speak to the wind or the sea, but to them. “It is I; be not afraid.” He had demonstrated His power over the storm once. Now His very presence should bring them confidence.

Christ is still able to quiet the tempest and subdue storms. He can still work the miracle of bringing peace and quiet out of turmoil and discord, but it is not always His will to do so. When He permits the storm to rage, His very presence in the lives of those who know and love Him brings peace and confidence in the midst of the storm.

It is a wonderful thing to know the Saviour, who is able to settle strife and subdue discord and bring peace out of tumult. It is even more wonderful to have a Lord who can give inward peace and confidence to His followers in the midst of the storm it is not His divine will to subdue.

Into every life comes a time of tempest when the winds blow and the waves beat and the seas threaten to engulf. In such a time the very presence of the Saviour is able to impart within our souls a sense of security and calm in amazing contrast to the tempest about us. In the midst of the storm which He permits to rage, He comes to His own, walking on the very waves which would become still if He should so command. He does not address the raging elements. He speaks instead to the frightened and storm-tossed ones. Above the sound of the storm and the surge of the seas comes the melody of His voice, “It is I; be not afraid,” and all is quiet and peaceful within their breasts.

So amid the storms of our lives He speaks to His own, “My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:

I see heaven’s glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life - that in me hast rest,
As I-undying Life-have power in Thee!

- Emily Bronte
AS A STRING AROUND GOD’S FINGER
WHEN the flood was over, the waters had receded, and the Ark had settled on the dry ground, God made a covenant with Noah and his sons that never would “all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood.”

The word covenant is one of the wonderful words of the Bible and it means literally “a coming together.” It signifies a voluntary promise, a pledge made by God to His creatures. The very word speaks of divine mercy and grace and condescension.

God not only made a promise to Noah, but He also sets the sign of His covenant in the heavens for men of every generation to behold. Indeed, this covenant has been called the Rainbow Covenant, for God promised Noah that when the storm clouds gather His bow shall be set in the clouds and God said, “I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature” (Genesis 9:16). God pins the ribbon of the rainbow upon the breast of the storm cloud to remind Him of His covenant to man. Whenever God looks upon the rainbow it reminds Him of the promise that He made, though man may see the rainbow only as an arch of color across the sky, a thing of beauty, forgetting that it is a sign of God’s faithfulness.

Men forget God so easily. They accept the blessings which He gives with never a thought of the Giver. They live for themselves with no regard for the Author of life. Or, in times of trouble and distress and special conviction, they make promises to the Lord which they forget with the passing of the days. Men are faithless and forgetful, but God remembers and keeps His covenant. God’s promises are fixed and sure. However faithless we may prove, He is still the Faithful One.
The promises of God’s judgment are as sure as the covenant of His mercy. Just as surely as He will save and redeem -as He has promised to-those who trust Him, so surely will He keep His word by punishing those who mock sin and reject the atoning blood of His Son. When all Thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost In wonder, love and praise.

Unnumbered comforts to my soul Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived From whom those comforts flowed.
When worn with sickness, oft hast Thou
With health renewed my face, And, when in sins and sorrows sunk,
Revived my soul with grace.

Ten thousand, thousand precious gifts My daily thanks employ,
Nor is the least a cheerful heart That tastes those gifts with joy.

- Joseph Addison
“TIGHTWADS”

THERE are many people to whom the Bible refers whose names do not appear in the record. Often the casual reader fails to notice these minor actors in the great dramas of the Bible. Such are those individuals mentioned in connection with the procuring of the donkey upon which Christ rode into Jerusalem a few days before His crucifixion.

He sent the disciples into the village with the instructions that they would find “an ass tied, and a colt with her” (Matthew 21:2). They were to be loosed and brought to Him. Should any inquire what they were doing, the disciples were to answer, “The Lord hath need of them” (Matthew 21:3).

The disciples went and found the animals at a corner where two roads met. As they took them, some who stood by asked, “What do ye, loosing the colt?” (Mark 11:5), and when the disciples replied as the Lord had instructed, they let them go.
Who these bystanders may have been we do not know. Possibly the owner of the animals was one of them or they may have been members of his family or his servants or friends. They must have been acquainted with the disciples whom they had surely seen before with Christ. Evidently they at least knew who the disciples were. Certainly they were good men, for all they needed was to be told that the Lord needed the animals and they let them go willingly.

They are different from some folk I know, who refuse God the use of the very things which He has given to them. There are those who hold on to their money and refuse to support the work of the Lord. They deny God their time and their talents though every breath of their lives He supplies, and the power to make money, He endowed them with, and their talents He entrusted to them.

We do not know the name of the owner of the beast upon which Christ rode into Jerusalem, but we all know the names of some who under the same circumstances would have said, “But the animals belong to me. They are too valuable to give the Lord.”

What was his name? I do not know his name;
I only know he heard God’s voice and came,
Brought all he had across the sea
To live and work for God and me;
Felled the ungracious oak;
Dragged from the soil
With horrid toil
The thrice-gnarled roots and stubborn rock;
With plenty piled the haggard mountain side;
And at the end, without memorial, died.
No blaring trumpets sounded out his fame,
He lived-he died-I do not know his name.
And I? Is there some desert or some pathless sea
Where Thou, Good God of angels, wilt send me?
Some oak for me to rend; some sod,
Some rock for me to break;
Some handful of His corn to take
And scatter far afield,
Till it, in turn, shall yield
Its hundredfold Of grains of gold
To feed the waiting children of my God?
Show me the desert, Father, or the sea.
Is it Thine enterprise? Great God, send me.
And though this body lie where ocean rolls,
Count me among all faithful souls.

- Edward Everett Hale
“MY JOY . . . IN YOU”
ON THE night of the Last Supper, Jesus, as He spoke to His disciples about His relationship with the Father and their relationship with Him and as He discussed with them their attitude toward the world, said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).
When the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ is in a man’s heart his joy is always full, and there is no fullness of joy anywhere except in Christ. God has made the human heart so only He Himself can fill it. All the pleasures of the world, all the riches of earth, though they may bring a temporary thrill, leave unsatisfied the longing of the heart.

“My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God,” says the psalmist. The soul of man is immortal, and only God can satisfy the hunger of the soul and bring eternal joy. The immortal cannot be satisfied with the temporal, and the eternal with that which is transient. Some of the most unhappy people I have known have been people of wealth and fame-people successful from the viewpoint of the world. Some of the happiest people I know are those who have little of the material things of life, no fame and no prominence, but who possess the unsearchable riches of Christ. Of course, the Christian has his sorrows. He is grieved by the deaths of his loved ones, but he sorrows not “as those who have no hope,” and in the midnight of his sorrow sings the nightingale of hope bringing joy to his heart with the assurance that he shall see his dear ones again.
When the man without Christ loses his wealth and his friends and his family, he has lost everything. Let the Christian see his family taken from him, his temporal possessions swept away and his friends removed-he still has the abiding presence of Christ in whom his hope is fixed and who is the Author and Source of his joy.

The man whose affections are set on Christ has every reason to rejoice because he knows that all things work together for his good (Romans 8:28). The man who lives in daily fellowship with the Lord is in contact with the Source of joy eternal.

“In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalms 16:11).

Think- Of stepping on shore, and finding it heaven! Of taking hold of a hand, and finding it God’s hand. Of breathing a new air, and finding it celestial air. Of feeling invigorated, and finding it immortality. Of passing from storm and tempest to an unbroken calm. Of waking up, and finding it Home.

-Anonymous
LIGHT FOR OUR DARKNESS

NONE of the statements which the Lord Jesus made of Himself is more emphatic than this, “I am the light of the world.” No assurance which He gives to man is more positive than this, “he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness.”

He is Light and the Author of light. By Him were all things made. His hands lighted starry tapers, and at His word were born the blazing suns of the universe. In Him there is no darkness at all-no darkness of ignorance, for He knows the end from the beginning; no darkness of death, for He is the Light of Life; no darkness of sin, for He is the Sun of Righteousness; no darkness of error, for He is Truth Incarnate. Heaven itself finds in Him the source of its light.

John on the isle of Patmos catching a glimpse of the beauty and effulgent glory of the New Jerusalem, wrote, “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it” (Revelation 21:23-24).
The man who follows Christ never walks in darkness. He may walk in the midst of darkness, but his steps are lighted by the presence of the Saviour whom he follows, just as a man who walks on a dark night behind a guide with a lantern finds, in the midst of the darkness, light in the spot where he walks.

The man who follows Christ has the light of divine wisdom cast upon the problems which confront him, and in this light he is able to solve them. He may not be able to see the future or view the long way stretching ahead, but there is light where he needs it, when he needs it, in the very spot where he finds himself.

In the night of great sorrow the man who follows Christ finds the light of hope to cheer his way. Christ proves Himself the true light to all who follow Him.

Christ, whose glory fills the skies, Christ the true, the only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,

Triumph o’er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn Unaccompanied by Thee; Joyless is the day’s return,

Till Thy mercy’s beams I see,
Till thy inward light impart,
Glad my eyes and warm my heart.
Visit, then, this soul of mine, Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, Radiancy divine, Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more Thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.

- Charles Wesley

TIME MARCHES ON
THE armies of Israel were in the midst of a battle with the Ammonites. Victory seemed to be at hand, but there were not enough hours of daylight left in which to follow up the advantage they were gaining and destroy the Ammonite armies. Joshua, the leader chosen by God for Israel, confident in the strength of His Lord and assured that it was God’s will for Israel to wipe out her enemies, commanded the sun to stand still. In obedience to his command the progress of the sun toward the west was stayed. The day was lengthened and Israel was victorious.

How many times we have wished for Joshua’s power over the forces of nature! How often we have longed to lengthen the hours that have been full of joy and pleasure! Who has not wished for more time to complete his tasks and accomplish the purposes he has had to cram into hours all too short?
Who has not, at other times, wished that he could reverse the process and speed the fleeting hours? Time hangs heavily about a bed of pain. The minutes march with lagging steps through the dark valley of sorrow. For the lover the days limp like laggards along the lonely path of separation from the one he loves.
Who has not wished that he could reverse the journeyings of the sun and bring back again the days of childhood and hours long since lost in the sea of eternity? Who has not cried in his soul, “Backward, turn backward, O Time, in thy flight”?

We are not Joshuas. To us is not given to lengthen the day or to shorten it. We cannot recall lost hours, but we can fill each day.

We can pack into each hour and each moment faithful service and profitable accomplishment. We cannot lengthen the hours, but we must not waste the minutes. “Art is long and time is fleeting,” and some time we must give an account to God for the investment we have made of the days and the hours and the moments entrusted to us.

“Why sit’st thou by that ruined hall, Thou aged carle so stern and gray?
Dost thou its former pride recall, Or ponder how it passed away?”

“Know’st thou not me?” the Deep Voice cried:
“So long enjoyed, so oft misused- Alternate, in thy fickle pride, Desired, neglected, and accused!

Before my breath, like blazing flax, Man and his marvels pass away!
And changing empires wane and wax, Are founded, flourish and decay.

Redeem mine hours-the space is brief-
While in my glass the sand-grains shiver, And measureless thy joy or grief, When Time and thou shalt part forever!”

- The Antiquary
OUR ARMAMENTS AND HIS ARM

WISE words these from the book of Proverbs, “The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31). We have had abundant evidence of the folly of being unprepared for the attack of the aggressor. The Great War brought upon the freedom-loving nations of the world defeat after defeat because they were not prepared. Trained soldiers were lacking. Equipment was lacking. Armaments were lacking.

It is a wise thing for a nation to be prepared for war when it comes, but armies and arms do not themselves assure victory. “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). The God of battles oftentimes fights on the side which is weaker in numbers and equipment. The walls of Jericho did not go down under the bombardment of heavy artillery but before the blasts of priestly trumpets and the shouts of faith. Israel was not freed from the menace of the Egyptian by a blitzkrieg of mechanized troops but by the waters of the Red Sea, which God poured in upon Pharaoh’s army. Goliath was not destroyed by a veteran equipped with all the paraphernalia of war but by a shepherd lad with faith in his heart and a sling in his hand. Three hundred men under Gideon, the Lord’s captain, were victorious over an army of 135,000.

It is wise to be prepared, but it is foolish to trust only in arms and fail to take into account the power of God in whose strong arm victory resides. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). Our faith, our trust, our hope should be in the “Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” We should be as wise as David who said, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God” (Psalms 20:7). God has yet to fail those whose faith and trust is fixed in Him. It is our responsibility to do everything in our power to defeat the enemy and achieve victory. It is our privilege to trust in Him who is of nations as of men: Rock, Fortress, Deliverer, Strength, Buckler, Horn of Salvation and High Tower (Psalms 18:2).

I greet Thee, my Redeemer sure, I trust in none but Thee,
Thou who hast borne such toil and shame And suffering for me: Our hearts from cares and cravings vain And foolish fears set free.

Thou art the King compassionate, Thou reignest everywhere;
Almighty Lord, reign Thou in us, Rule all we have and are:
Enlighten us and raise to heaven, Amid Thy glories there.

Thou art the life by which we live; Our stay and strength’s in Thee;
Uphold us so in face of death, What time soe’er it be,
That we may meet it with strong heart, And may die peacefully.

Look Thou, our Daysman and High Priest, Upon our low estate;
Make us to see God’s face in peace Through Thee, our Advocate;
With Thee, our Saviour, may our feet Enter at heaven’s gate.

- John Calvin
PRAYER THAT GETS THROUGH
THE best prayer is not always the best-worded prayer. A man can build a rhetorical structure of phrase upon phrase ornamented with all the embellishments of language, address it to Deity, intone it solemnly and call it a prayer, and it may never go higher than the ceiling.

Real prayer gushes from the heart. It is the spontaneous outflowing of deep desire in petition to God. A child who greatly desires something asks his father for it without thinking particularly of the language he uses. He says simply, “Daddy, I want that. Give it to me.”

Waking frightened in the darkness, a child does not consider the tone of voice that he uses when he calls to his mother. Similarly, true prayer pours from the heart of our need and the depths of our desire to God.
An interesting verse in the Old Testament tells us that the men of Judah in the midst of a battle found themselves surrounded by their enemies and “they cried unto the Lord” (2 Chronicles 13:14).

There was no time to compose formal prayers. The soldiers of Judah needed help and needed it quickly, and they cried unto God. It may be doubted whether they were conscious of the words that they used. They may not have formed words at all, but the chapter tells us that God heard them and smote their enemies and delivered them into the hands of those busy, fighting Judeans, who cried out to Him in the midst of the battle.
The man in the heat of a battle praying for deliverance does not choose his words carefully. The man who is oppressed by a consciousness of his sin and need is not concerned with how he sounds when he cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” From ev’ry stormy wind that blows,
From ev’ry swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat;
‘Tis found beneath the mercy-seat.

There is a place where Jesus sheds
The oil of gladness on our heads,
A place than all beside more sweet;
It is the blood-bo’t mercy-seat.

There is a scene where spirits blend,
Where friend holds fellowship with friend;
Tho’ sundered far, by faith they meet
Around one common mercy-seat.

There, there on eagle’s wings we soar, And sin and sense seem all no more,
And heav’n comes down our souls to greet,
And glory crowns the mercy-seat.

- Hugh Stowell

“YE ASK AND RECEIVE NOT”

GOD, who is a God of law and order, has set certain conditions upon the fulfillment of which depends His promise to hear and answer our prayers.

First, we must have pure hearts. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Psalms 66:18).

This means that the man who continually practices sin and who has in his heart a purpose to commit sin, and who clings to sin, has no claim upon the ear of God.

Prayer that God promises to answer must come also from an unselfish heart. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).

Man has no right to ask God for something which he wants to use merely for the gratification of his own desires or for his own personal satisfaction.

Prayer to be heard must come from a yielded heart-a heart submissive to God’s will. “If we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us” (1 John 5:14).

A heart thus yielded will certainly be a heart that is pure and a heart that is unselfish. The life in which the will of God is foremost is a life which has no room for impurity and selfishness.

Prayer without faith God nowhere promises to answer. A believing heart is essential if we are to meet the conditions which God places upon our access to Him with our petitions. Jesus said to His disciples, “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matthew 21:22).
The Lord Jesus Christ said our prayers should be in His Name. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13).

- Only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are men saved.
- Only through His blood are sins washed away,
- Only in Him do we become children of God.

How proper, therefore, that our prayers to our Father should be in the Name and for the sake of Him who has made our sonship possible. In Christ’s Name we may bring our petitions to our Heavenly Father, and “he that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

There is an eye that never sleeps Beneath the wing of night;
There is an ear that never shuts When sink the beams of light.

There is an arm that never tires
When human strength gives way;

There is a love that never fails
When earthly loves decay.
That eye unseen o’erwatcheth all; That arm upholds the sky;
That ear doth hear the sparrow call; That love is ever nigh.

-James Cowden Wallace ~ end of chapter 7 ~