My Desire is . . . 1. To exalt the grace of God. 2. To proclaim salvation alone through the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. 3. To declare the sinfulness, helplessness, and hopelessness of man in a state of nature. 4. To describe, as far as I am able, the living experience of the saints of God in their trials, temptations, and sorrows--and in their consolations and blessings. --J. C. Philpot ************************************************************* “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death” (Revelation 12:11). ************************************************************** Psalm 29 Author: Thomas Sternhold (1562) Tune: Amazing Grace (N. Johnson)
1. Ascribe to God, ye sons of men, Ascribe with one accord, All praise and honor, might and strength To Him the living Lord!
2. Give glory to His holy name, And honor Him alone; Give worship to His majesty, And bow before His throne.
3. The Lord doth sit upon the floods, Their fury to restrain; He reigns above, both Lord and King, And evermore shall reign.
4. The Lord shall give His people strength, And bid their sorrows cease; The Lord shall bless His chosen race With everlasting peace. *********************************************************************** His Jewels!
Malachi 3:17 “And they shall be Mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” “They shall be Mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up My jewels!”
The promise of God is that His saints shall be as the jewels of a crown - yes, they shall shine in the Royal diadem! The Lord delights to call them His jewels! What a price has been paid for the saints - the Son of God purchased them with His own blood! Are they not valuable in His sight? How precious are those whom Jehovah calls His jewels! Bought with such an inestimable price!
But the saints are likened unto jewels, also because our souls need cutting and purifying. A diamond seems to be a mere pebble - until the jeweler’s hands give it shape and smoothness. Skill and patient toil so transform it, that everyone takes pleasure it its beauty and brightness.
Likewise is it with our souls. Divine grace removes defects, and beautifies. The sharp edge of affliction, directed by the hand of Infinite Love - makes perfect. No longer rough and unsightly, but beautiful and glorious - the precious workmanship of God becomes His delight. It is made fit for the Royal diadem, in which it will shine throughout eternity - reflecting all-gloriously the majesty of the King of Kings! --William Purton “Lessons of Peace in the School of Affliction” 1868 ********************************************************** What a Sight! O the beauty of the person of Jesus, when seen with the eye of faith by the illumination of the Holy Spirit! As the light of the morning, when the sun arises, “as a morning without clouds,” is our Well-Beloved unto us. The sight of the burning bush made Moses put off his shoes, but the transporting vision of Jesus makes us put off all the world!
When once He is seen, we can discern no beauties in all other creatures in the universe. He, like the sun, has absorbed all other glories into His own excessive brightness. This is the pomegranate which love feeds upon, the flagon wherewith it is comforted.
A sight of Jesus causes such union of heart with Him, such goings out of the affections after Him, and such meltings of the spirit towards him, that its expressions often appear to carnal men to be extravagant and forced; when they are nothing but the free, unstudied, and honest effusions of its love. Carnal men are themselves ignorant of the divine passion of love to Jesus and, therefore, the language of the enraptured heart is unintelligible to them. They are poor translators of love’s celestial tongue who think it to be at all allied with the amorous superfluities uttered by carnal passions. Jesus is the only One upon whom the loving believer has fixed his eye, and in his converse with his Lord, he will often express himself in language which is meant only for his Master’s ear, and which worldlings would utterly scorn could they but listen to it. The pious feelings at which they jeer are as much beyond their highest thoughts as the sonnets of angels excel the ‘gruntings of swine.’ --C.H. Spurgeon ******************************************* Daily Readings March 1-7 1- Numbers 20-22; Mark 7:1-13 2- Numbers 23-25; Mark 7:14-37 3- Numbers 26-28; Mark 8 4- Numbers 29-31; Mark 9:1-29 5- Numbers 32-34; Mark 9:30-50 6- Numbers 35-36; Mark 10:1-31 7- Deuteronomy 1-3; Mark 10:32-52
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