Consider the eternal purpose of God, as He determines all in His mind, and know that His motive is to display His own perfections. It has been God's constant rule to lift up that which stands in Him and for Him. Be emptied of your own conceits, for then only are you in a fit state to be filled with His fulness, to live in His life, to be wise with His wisdom, and to be glorious in His glory. Fly ye to Christ, and then you shall stand in the judgment, and join in the anthem, "Hallelujah!"
Walk through the earth and you will find men superior and inferior in vigour, health, and fashion. Why hath God given to one man beauty and to another none? to one all his senses, and to another but a portion? On one Sabbath you go away refreshed by the preaching, and the next you get no good. There is Divine Sovereignty in all this, and we must learn to recognize and admire it. He that believeth in Christ alone shall be saved, but he who rejecteth Christ and believeth not in him, shall be damned.
The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. His divine Spirit wrought all your works in you, and here you are to say, "He hath delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." It is the Presence of God with us in Christ which is the ground of all our hope. Until our Lord's glorious Advent, the Presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church is our only dependence for success in all that we attempt. In His company we are happy and useful, but apart from Him we are miserable failures.
I do bless the day, now, that I fell in Adam, for it may be if I had never fallen in Adam I should have fallen in myself and then I must have been, like fallen angels, shut out forever from the Presence of God. Just as a piece of clay is on the potter's wheel and is made to revolve and is touched by the fingers of the potter and molded into what he wishes it to be, so must I lie passively in the hands of the Spirit of God and He must work in me to will and to do of His own good pleasure.
Certainly in me who have tasted of His infinite mercy, there was no presence of claim to His mercy. If He had left us in our sin, what complaint could we have brought against Him? In knowing that we are forgiven by Christ, let us be clear and decided in our forgiveness of others, not only in word, but in deed and in truth let us exhibit a forbearing spirit. Therefore my enemy shall pass by my castle in safety and I will say, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Do not attempt to deceive God!
Through Jesus He accepts our prayers and our efforts. And though we are very blundering servants He has not discharged us, but He still keeps us in His service and blesses us in it. May you realize in your lives and in your hearts the meaning of my text, "Your gentleness has made me great!"
The Israelites had for their Guide, Instructor and Tutor, in order to prepare them for Canaan, none other than Jehovah, Himself! He instructs us in the Truths of God and, meanwhile, it is also God, who, in the rulings and guiding of Providence, is our Instructor if we will but learn. If I love my own will and if I desire my own way in preference to God's way, I have made a god of my own wisdom, or my own affection, and I have not been true in my loyalty to the only living and true God, even Jehovah! Let us search, look and see if there is not some strange god with us. Let us, therefore, make a thorough search and then invite the Great King, Himself, to aid us. "Search me, O God, try me, and know my ways, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
When Satan cannot get a great sin in, he will let a little one in, like the thief who goes and finds shutters all coated with iron and bolted inside. At last he sees a little window in a chamber. He cannot get in, so he puts a little boy in, that he may go round and open the back door. This sentence of God has to be repeated many times in your experience, and mine. Our Brethren must continue in the theatres and in the streets, in the highway and in the byway, saying, not in so many words, but still in fact, "Thus says the Lord, let My people go, that they may serve Me."
Surely, in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. It will not go back to Him without having accomplished His Divine purpose of love and mercy! Jesus is drawing you, so yield to Him! Pray from your hearts the prayer, "Draw us; we will run after You." Then, in the glass of His decrees, Christ and His bride appeared as one! Her sin, by imputation, His, while she in spotless splendor shone. And they shall so glory that nobody shall be able to stop their glorying, for, when they are ridiculed, they shall only glory in that, also! And when others sneer at and try to depreciate their Lord, they shall only the more firmly believe and rejoice in Him who is All in All to them!
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
