We have been placed
with him among the dead
through baptism into death:
so that as Christ came again from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we, in the same way,
might be living in new life.
Romans 6:3 BBE
* THE KEYNOTE of this inspiring paragraph is life in union with the Risen Christ. Behind us lies the Death of our Lord, which severed for His people their fellowship with the world. As the voice of praise or blame cannot reach the dead, but are arrested at the fast-closed ears, so it is intended that the murmur of the world should not affect us, but that we should be set only on the Will of God.
It is not wise, however, to dwell always on the negations of the Christian life. It is true that they are always present, but to dwell on them is to miss the power by which self-sacrifice and self-denial become easy. Do not live on the dying but the risen side of the Savior’s work. Behold Him as He goes forth upon His upward way to the Throne of Glory. Seek to experience union with Him in the likeness of His resurrection.
There ought to be a finality in our experience. It is good for us to recognize the break with our past life. It must be clearly defined; we must have done with it forever. It is possible that we may be tempted, and come temporarily beneath the dominion of old sins; but in principle, like the Israelites, we have passed from Egypt, never to return to it, and the Red Sea of Christ’s redemption severs us from our former condition.
We do not reckon ourselves to be dead to sin in the sense that our nature is henceforth incapable of sinning. If we think thus, we shall soon be disillusioned, and find that tendencies and strivings are within us which prove the contrary. But we must reckon that we have died to sin, and whenever temptation comes, that it has no claim upon us.
The Apostle says that we are to present our members as instruments of righteousness to God. Do not look at the tempter, but at Christ; yield the eyes, ears, heart, and mind to Him, that He may make the best possible use of them; and that which becomes the habitual practice of the outward life will inevitably affect the soul and spirit.
* F.B. Meyer / e-Sword
Can human beings really be pure?
Can mere men really be right with God?
God doesn’t trust his holy angels.
Even the heavens aren’t pure in his sight.
So he’ll certainly find fault
with human beings.
After all, they are evil and sinful.
They drink up evil as if it were water.
Job 15:14-16 NIrV
* Separating these words, for a moment, from any connection with either Job or his friends, what strong and forcible truths do they contain. How sure and certain? How just and humbling?
But, Reader! do not overlook what sweet testimonies they carry with them to the truth of the gospel! If men be unclean; if saints can find no trust from GOD; if the heavens are not clean in GOD’S sight; judge, Reader, the vast necessity and importance of a righteousness in which GOD will put trust.
And where shall we find that, or in whom, but in JESUS?
Make one observation more on this interesting passage. Though JEHOVAH puts no trust in angels, yet, in JESUS his dear and ever blessed Son, as the sinners’ Surety, he doth; and while the heavens are not clean in his sight, he says concerning JESUS, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Reader! do not overlook this, I beseech you. I know not what your feelings are; but I can tell you for myself, I have, upon numberless occasions, found great comfort, and an holy joy, when going to GOD my FATHER in prayer, I have been enabled to tell him of the purity and spotlessness of JESUS, and his righteousness as my covering.
* Robert Hawker / e- Sword
Have the same attitude among yourselves that was also in the Messiah Jesus
Philippians 2:5 ISV
* FAITH IS not simply an intellectual experience of a statement of fact, but it is our personal trust and confidence in Him of whom the fact is true. We are not saved merely because we believe that Jesus Christ died for us on the Cross, but because we trust in Him who died. It is the personal touch between Christ and ourselves that causes His life to pass into our nature, making us sound and healthy, as well as secure and safe.
What does the Cross mean to you and me? Does it not mean that there our Lord gave Himself absolutely to the Father’s will? Never in any way did He make Himself the origin and fountain of His action, but was ever the empty channel through which God poured Himself.
“He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.”
It seemed as if He went down lower and lower, on rung after rung of the ladder until He reached Hades, giving up everything only to follow the Will of God; but out of the lowest depths God raised Him to the Eternal Throne.
In each one of us there is strong self-will. You say, “I am resolved to be a good man or woman, to live a noble life, to give up bad habits–I will.” But it can never be accomplished in that way. It is only when we are willing to see ourselves, our own energy, our good self as well as our bad self, brought to an end on the Cross of Jesus, that we shall be able to enter into and live His eternal life.
At this moment I would summon you to stand beneath the Cross and to see there One who entirely yielded up His own will. More than that, I want you to see your self-life nailed there, and turn from it to God in adoration, saying that you are prepared to be weak and helpless so far as your own energies are concerned, that He may put forth in your life the mighty energy of that power which raised Christ from the dead. It is only when we are weak that we are really strong; it is only when we surrender ourselves to the power of the Cross, so that we realize that we have been crucified with Christ that we are able to share in His eternal victory over the devil and the power of evil.
* F.B. Meyer / e-Sword
And blessed is the one
who is not offended by me.
Matthew 11:6 ESV
* The blessedness of those who have not seen and yet have believed; of those who trust Him though they are slain; of those who wait the Lord’s pleasure; and of those who cannot understand His dealings, but rest in what they know of His heart.
This is the beatitude of the unoffended, of those who do not stumble over the mystery of God’s dealings with their life.
This Blessedness is within our reach also. There are times when we are overpowered with the mystery of life and nature. The world is so full of pain and sorrow, strong hearts seem breaking under an intolerable load. God’s children are sometimes the most bitterly tried. For them the fires are heated seven times; they suffer, not only at the hand of man, but the heavens seem as brass to their cries and tears. The enemy of souls has reason to challenge them with the taunt,
“Where is now your God?”
You and I have perhaps been in this plight. We have said, “Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?” We are tempted to stumble; we are prone to fall over the mysteries of God’s dealings with us.
But it is then that we have the chance of inheriting this new beatitude. If we refuse to bend under the mighty hand of God–questioning, chafing, murmuring at His appointments–we miss the door which would admit us into rich and unalloyed happiness; we fumble about the latch, but it is not lifted. But if we will quiet our souls like a weaned child, anointing our heads and washing our faces, then light will break in on us from the eternal morning. The peace of God will keep our hearts and minds, and we shall enter upon this blessedness of which our Lord speaks.
* F.B. Meyer / e-Sword
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself.
Ephesians 5:25-28 NIV
* Here is a grand rule, according to which every husband is called to act: Love your wife as Christ loved the Church.
But how did Christ love the Church? He gave himself for it – he laid down his life for it. So then husbands should, if necessary, lay down their lives for their wives: and there is more implied in the words than mere protection and support; for, as Christ gave himself for the Church to save it, so husbands should, by all means in their power, labor to promote the salvation of their wives, and their constant edification in righteousness.
Thus we find that the authority of the man over the woman is founded on his love to her, and this love must be such as to lead him to risk his life for her.
As the care of the family devolves on the wife, and the children must owe the chief direction of their minds and formation of their manners to the mother, she has need of all the assistance and support which her husband can give her; and, if she performs her duty well, she deserves the utmost of his love and affection. * …Adam Clarke / e-Sword
** Here the apostle begins his exhortation to the discharge of relative duties. As a general foundation for these duties, he lays down that rule [in] Ephesians 5:21. There is a mutual submission that Christians owe one to another, condescending to bear one another’s burdens: not advancing themselves above others, nor domineering over one another and giving laws to one another.
Paul was an example of this truly Christian temper, for he became all things to all men. We must be of a yielding and of a submissive spirit, and ready to all the duties of the respective places and stations that God has allotted to us in the world. In the fear of God, that is, so far as is consistent with the fear of God, for his sake, and out of conscience towards him, and that hereby we may give proof that we truly fear him. Where there is this mutual condescension and submission, the duties of all relations will be the better performed.
From Ephesians 5:22 to the end he speaks of the duties of husbands and wives; and he speaks of these in a Christian manner, setting the church as an example of the wife’s subjection, and Christ as an example of love in husbands.
** …Matthew Henry / e-Sword
Then he [Jesus] told the people to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves of bread and the two fish. He looked into the sky and thanked God for the food. Then he broke the bread into pieces, which he gave to the followers, and they gave the food to the people. Matthew 14:19 ERV
* This is the only miracle recorded in each of the four Gospels, and we must take that as a token of the profound impression which it made.
Jesus and His disciples cross the lake, and steer for the quiet hills by the north shore. Alas! There was to be little rest that day. The folk had seen them launching. They hurry round by the north end of the lake, meeting and mingling with the pilgrim-companies making for Jerusalem to keep the Passover.
And as the prow of the boat grates on the beach, and Jesus and His disciples step ashore, God’s great cathedral of the mountainside, whose roof is heaven and whose organ music is the sea, is thronged with a vast and eager congregation.
Then Jesus heals, and teaches, and in the evening feeds them. Which done, the stars come out, and the crowds are scattered, and the disciples are rowing homeward to Capernaum, and Jesus is on the mountainside in prayer.
Note first that this miracle had its roots in Christ’s compassion. It set Him healing, teaching, feeding hungry men, and it still draws Him to the same service.
Jesus’ miracles were acted parables, not wrought to amaze, but to instruct. And so He takes what the disciples give Him, and uses that to feed the crowd. It is often Christ’s way to help the world through men. It is His plan to bring the Kingdom in through us. And if we take our gifts, however poor and humble, and lay them freely at the feet of Jesus, He will so bless and multiply and use them that we shall be amazed, and recognize His hand.
Note that Jesus was very careful of the fragments. One would have thought that Jesus was too rich to trouble Himself about the fragments. Surely it was but labor lost, to sweat and stoop and stumble in the dark, to fill their wicker baskets with the scraps. But Jesus is imperious. “Gather the fragments that remain,” is His command. And the twelve disciples, who a little before had been sent out to heal and teach and preach the Gospel, had now, in the presence of the thousands, to set about sweeping the crumbs. It was a splendid discipline.
Someone has said that if two angels came to earth, the one to rule an empire, and the other to sweep a crossing, they would never seek to interchange their tasks.
* George H. Morrison / e-Sword
My Bible studies & devotions 
race against horses
Jeremiah, if running in a race against men makes you tired, how will you race against horses? If you trip and fall in a safe place, what will you do in a dangerous place? What will you do in the thorn bushes that grow along the Jordan River?
Jeremiah 12:5 ERV
* Jeremiah, a young man facing opposition and growing increasingly impatient in the process, complained to the Lord about the injustice in life — the wicked prosper, and the righteous suffer, and God seems to sit back in silence. “Lord, I have a problem here – why do the wicked prosper, and the faithless always succeed?”
Have you ever wanted to say something to God along those lines? Before you do, you should hear how He answered young Jeremiah’s complaint.
“Jeremiah,” the Lord said, “if you get tired in a race against people, how can you possibly run against horses? And if you complain in fields of ease, what will happen when your encounter the high tides of the turbulent Jordan?”
What on earth does this mean? He is telling Jeremiah that tough times are ahead, and these present difficulties are only preparing him for the steeper climb. And the question God puts to him is the same we ourselves must answer in our ever darkening world.
And even though the wicked may seem to have it made now; in that day when their world comes crashing down around them, will you have what it takes to stand?
If we cannot handle the inconvenience of the smaller thing, then how shall we meet the challenge of the greater thing? If we stumble over that which is now before us, how shall we advance to that which is yet beyond us?
To be sure, the Lord wants us to make measured moves to greater levels of opportunity and responsibility, but the climb is beset with necessary challenges that can only be mounted by an unflinching faith.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. said, “Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.”
None but those who contend with horses.
* Rylisms / James Ryle / e-Sword