During this morning’s Quiet Time, I was finishing a book by F. B. Meyer entitled The Christ-life for Your Life, and his final chapter is entitled “Heart-Rest.”  As Christians, wrote Meyer, we should have perpetual rest in our souls and spirits, and he uses two analogies from nature to describe it.  It is a…

Rest that is full of work; but like the cyclone, all the atoms of which revolve in turbulent motion around the central cavity of rest, so do all the activities of God revolve around His deepest heart which is tranquil and serene.

And it is possible, if you and I learn the lesson amid anxiety and sorrow and trial and pressure of work always to carry a heart so peaceful, so still, so serene as to be like the depth of the Atlantic which is not disturbed by the turbulent winds that sweep its surface.

As we grow in Christ and increasingly learn to rest in Him, those word-pictures become more and more real in our experience.  It wonderful to enjoy rest that’s full of work.

PS – If you want to view last Sunday’s sermon in Jackson, Mississippi, clink here and select the sermon, “The Lord’s My Shepherd—That’s Enough.”

From the writings of missionary pioneer Mary Slessor:

My life is one long daily, hourly record of answered prayer.  For physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given marvelously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the Gospel subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed, for everything that goes to make up life and my poor service.  I can testify, with a full and often wonder-stricken awe, that I believe God answers prayer.  I know God answers prayer.

Recently while preaching on the subject of guidance, I said that the Lord guides us as we spend time between the covers of His book.  That doesn’t mean we always find a specific verse telling us specifically what to do.  It means that as we fellowship with Him in the Scripture, very often certain verses will impart the necessary wisdom we need.  Last night in my bedtime reading I came across an excellent explanation of this.  Dr. V. Raymond Edman, in his little book, He Leadeth Me, pointed out that we can never find a specific verse to guide us in a specific way when we’re looking for it.

The Bible is not a kind of fetish or oracle into which we can glance for a word on guidance.  The Lord may lead us by the first verse we read upon opening the Book, but not necessarily so at all.  In fact, it is the common experience of devout and deeply-taught Christians that to seek a verse on guidance is never to find it. Rather, it is as we read and meditate upon the Word, perhaps in some relatively obscure portion thereof, that we are taught by the Holy Spirit and are led aright in the light thereof. ¹

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it’s such a nice change from being young.

–Dorothy Canfield Fisher

–Quoted by Jan Karon in A Continual Feast (NY: Viking Press, 2005), unnumbered page.

The next time you think you have an excuse why God can’t use you, consider the following:  Noah was a drunkard, Abraham was too old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses was a murderer, Gideon was afraid, Samson had long hair, Rahab was a prostitute, Timothy was too young, David had an illicit affair, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached naked, Job was bankrupt, John the Baptist ran around in a loin-cloth and ate locusts, Peter has hot-tempered, John was self-righteous.  The disciples fell asleep while praying, Martha fretted about everything, Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed, the boy with the fish and five rolls of bread was too obscure, the Samaritan woman was divorced more than once, Zacchaeus was too small, Paul was too religious, and Lazarus was dead.  No more excuses!

Author unknown, quoted (quoted by Jan Karon in A Continual Feast (NY: Viking Press, 2005), unnumbered page).

(Preaching) may be slow work; it often is; it is a long-term policy.  But my whole contention is that it works, that it pays, and that it is honoured, and must be, because it is God’s own method.  This is the thing to which He calls us, it is the thing into which He thrusts us forth, and therefore He will honour it.  He has always honoured it, and still honours it in the modern world, and after you have tried these others methods and schemes, and found that they will come to nothing, you will be driven back to this ultimately.  This is the method by which churches have always come into being.  You see it in the New Testament, and you see it in the subsequent history of the Church, and you can see it in this modern world.

Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Preaching & Preachers (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1971), 51-52.

The other day I pulled a book off the shelf of my library that I hadn’t opened for over 35 years.  When I’d first read it as a college student, it’d made a big impression on me.  Now, over three decades later, I find it no less insightful.  It’s Preaching & Preachers by the Welsh expositor, Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

I’ve been re-reading it in the evenings.  As usual, the good doctor has a few peculiar ideas sprinkled among the rest.  But I love his high view of preaching.  Here are some excerpts:

The preaching of the Gospel from the pulpit, applied by the Holy Spirit to the individuals who are listening, has been the means of dealing with personal problems of which I as the preacher knew nothing…

It is quite astonishing to find that in expounding the Scriptures you are able to deal with a variety of differing conditions all together in one service…. It saves the pastor a lot of time.  If he had to see all these people one by one his life would be impossible, he could not do it; but in one sermon he can cover quite a number of problems at one and the same time.

It is preaching that lays down the essential principles by which alone personal help can be given…. I maintain that ultimately the only true basis for personal work, unless it is to degenerate into purely psychological treatment, is the true and sound preaching of the Gospel.

From Preaching & Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), quotes from pages 37-40.

To live content with small means; to see elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common – this is my symphony.

 – William Henry Channing, clergyman & reformer (1810-1884), quoted by Jan Karon in A Continual Feast (NY: Viking Press, 2005), unnumbered page.

PS – The Christian Life Doesn’t Have to be Complicated.  Check out my book, SIMPLE.

Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God. – Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest, entry for August 23.

James 5:16 says:  “The effecive, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

It is not the arithmetic of our prayers, how many they are; not the rhetoric of our prayers, how eloquent they may be; nor the geometry of our prayers, how long they may be; nor the music of our prayers, how sweet our voice may be; nor the logic of our prayers, how argumentative they may be; nor the method of our prayers, how orderly they may be; nor even the divinity of our prayers, how good the doctrine may be;–which God cares for.  Fervency of spirit is that which availeth much.
Bishop Joseph Hall

Quoted by D. L. Moody in Prevailing Prayer (Chicago:  F. H. Revell, 1884), 81.  I’ve also included this quote in my own book, My All in All.  Click here for more details.

PS – The noted Christian scholar and preacher, Spiros Zodhiates, passed away this week.  For his obituary, click here.