Days of Heaven on Earth

Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Holy Spirit is the only one who can kill us and keep us dead. Many Christians try to do this disagreeable work themselves, and they are going through a continual crucifixion but can never accomplish the work permanently. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and when we really yield ourselves to the death, it is delightful to find how sweetly He can execute the sentence.

They tell us that by the touch of the electric spark life is extinguished almost without a quiver of pain. However this may be in natural things, we know the Holy Spirit can touch with celestial fire the surrendered thing, after it is really yielded up to the sentence of death, and slay it in a moment. The yielding is our business, and it is God's business to execute the sentence and to keep it constantly operative.

May we not live in the pain of perpetual and ineffective suicide, but reckoning ourselves dead indeed, let us leave ourselves in the hands of the blessed Holy Spirit. He will slay whatever rises in opposition to His will and keep us true to our heavenly reckoning and filled with His resurrection life.

Scripture

If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live—Romans 8:13

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, October 11, 2013

The Holy Spirit becomes to the consecrated heart the Spirit of intercession. We have two Advocates. We have an Advocate with the Father, who prays for us at God's right hand. We also have the Holy Spirit, the Advocate within who prays in us, inspiring our petitions and presenting them, through Christ, to God.

We need this Advocate. We know not what to pray for and we know not how to pray as we ought, but He breathes in the holy heart the desires that we may not always understand, the, groanings which we could not utter.

God understands, and He, with a loving Father's heart, is always searching our hearts to find the Spirit's prayer and to answer it. He finds many a prayer there that we have not discovered, and answers many a cry that we never understood. And when we reach our heavenly home and read the records of life, we shall better know and appreciate the infinite love of that Divine Friend who has watched within as the Spirit of prayer and breathed out our every need to the heart of God.

Scripture

And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God—Romans 8:2

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, October 12, 2013

The life of Jesus Christ brought into our heart s by the Holy Spirit operates there as a new law of divine strength and vitality. it counteracts, overcomes and lifts us above the old law of sin and death.

Let us illustrate these two laws by a simple comparison. By the law of gravity my hand naturally falls upon the desk and lies there, attracted downward by that natural law which makes heavy bodies fall to the earth.

But there is a stronger law than the law of gravity-my own life and will. Through the operation of this higher law-the law of vitality-I can defy the-law of gravity, lift my hand and hold it above its former resting place and move it at my will. The law of vitality has freed me from the law of gravity.

Precisely so the indwelling life of Christ Jesus, operating with the power of a new law, lifts me above and counteracts the power of sin in my fallen nature.

Scripture

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free—Romans 8:2

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, October 13, 2013

The flesh is incurably bad. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. It can never be any better. It is no use trying to improve the flesh. We may educate it all we please. We may train it by the most approved methods, we may set before it the brightest examples, we may pipe to it or mourn before it we may treat it with encouragement or severity. But its nature will always be incorrigibly the same.

The wild hawk which the little child captures in its infancy and tries to train in the habits of the dove will fasten its cruel beak upon the gentle fingers that caress it, showing the old wild spirit of fear and ferocity. So the flesh is a hawk by nature, and it can never be made a dove. For the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

The only remedy for human nature is to destroy it and receive instead the divine nature. God does not improve man. He crucifies the natural life with Christ and creates the new man in Christ Jesus.

Scripture

The carnal mind is enmity against God—Romans 8:7

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, October 14, 2013

If when it seems your old self has come back, you listen to it, fear it, believe it, it will have the same influence upon you as 'f it were not dead. It will control you and destroy you. Instead, simply ignore it and say: "You are not I, you are Satan trying to make me believe that my old self is not dead. I refuse you. I treat you as a demon power outside of me, I detach myself from you." The evil thing will disappear, the shadow will vanish, the wand of faith will dispel the troubling spirit and send it back to the abyss. In its place we will find Christ there instead with His risen life to back up our confidence and seal our victory.

Satan can stand anything better than neglect. If we ignore him he becomes disgusted and disappears. Jesus turned His back upon him and said, Get thee behind me, Satan. So let us refuse him, and we shall find that he will be compelled to act according to our faith.

Once I believed I must always be stumbling

For my old nature was poisoned with sin;

Now there's a mightier Power upholds me,

Cleansing and keeping and dwelling within.

Scripture

Get thee behind me, Satan—Matthew 16:23

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

True faith drops its letter in the post office box and lets it go. Distrust holds onto a corner of it and wonders why the answer never comes.

In my desk are some letters that I wrote weeks ago. But there was some slight uncertainty about the address or the contents so they are yet unmailed. As yet they have not done me or anyone else any good. They will never accomplish anything until I let them go out of my hands and trust them to the postal system.

This is the case with true faith. it hands its case over to God and then He works.

There is an appropriate verse in Psalm 37: Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he [worketh] (v. 5). But He never works until we commit.

Faith is a receiving-or still better-a taking of God's proffered gifts. We may believe and come and commit and rest, but we will not fully realize all our blessing until we begin to receive and come into the attitude of abiding and taking.

Scripture

Faith is . . . the evidence of things not seen—Hebrews 11:1

Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Abraham's faith reposed in God Himself. He knew the God he was dealing with. It was a personal confidence in One whom he could utterly trust.

The real secret of Abraham's whole life was in his friendship with God. He knew God to be his great, good and faithful Friend. Taking Him at His word, he stepped out from all that he knew and loved and went forth upon an unknown pathway with none but God.

In addition to trusting in the Word of God, have we learned to lean our whole weight upon God, the God of infinite love and power, our covenant God and everlasting Friend?

We are told that Abraham glorified God by this life of faith. The truest way to glorify God is to let the world see what He is and what He can do. God does not so much want us to do things as to let people see what He can do. God is not looking for extraordinary characters as His instruments, but He is looking for humble instruments through whom He can be honored throughout the ages.

Scripture

Abraham believed God—Romans 4:3


Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, October 18, 2013

The literal translation of that phrase in Hebrews is, "all things are stripped and stunned." Such is the force of the Greek words. The figure is that of an athlete in the Coliseum who has fought his best in the arena, and has at length fallen at the feet of his adversary, disarmed and broken down in helplessness. There he lies, unable to strike a blow or lift his arm. He is stripped and stunned, disarmed and disabled, and there is nothing left for him but to lie at the feet of his adversary and appeal to him for mercy.

Now this is the position to which God wants to bring us, where we shall cease our struggles and our attempts at self-defense or self-improvement and throw ourselves helplessly upon the mercy of God. This is the sinner's only hope, and when he thus lies at the feet of mercy, Jesus is ready to lift him up and give him that free salvation which is waiting for all.

This, too, is the greatest need of the Christian who seeks a deeper and higher life-to come to a full realization of his nothingness and helplessness and to lie down, stripped and stunned, at the feet of Jesus.

Scripture

All things are naked and opened unto the eyes Of him with whom we have to do—Hebrews 4:13

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Let us say no to the flesh, the world and the love of self, and learn the holy self-denial of which so much of the life of obedience consists. We must make no provision for the flesh, give no recognition to our lower life. We must say no to everything earthly and selfish. How very much of the life of faith consists in simply denying ourselves.

We begin with one great yes to God, and then we conclude with an eternal no to ourselves, the world, the flesh and the devil.

Nearly every commandment of the Decalogue is a Thou shalt not. In First Corinthians 13, with its beautiful picture of love, most of the characteristics of love are in the negative-what love does not, thinks not, says not, is not. And so you will find that the largest part of the life of consecration is really saying no.

I am not my own,

I belong to Him.

I am His alone,

I belong to Him.

Scripture

Denying ungodliness—Titus 2:12

 Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, October 20, 2013

If Paul could only know the consolation and hope that he has ministered to the countless generations who have marched along the pathway from the cross to the kingdom above! He would be willing to go through a thousand lives and a thousand deaths such as he endured for the blessing that has followed since his noble head rolled in the dust by the Ostian Gate of Rome.

And if the least of us could only anticipate the eternal issues that will probably spring from our humblest services of faith, we should only count our sacrifices and labors unspeakable heritages of honor and opportunity. We would cease to speak of trials and sacrifices made for God.

The smallest grain of faith is a deathless and incorruptible germ that will yet plant the heavens and cover the earth with harvest of imperishable glory. Let us lift up our heads, for the horizon is wider than the little circle we can see. We are living, we are suffering, we are laboring, we are trusting for the ages yet to come!

Scripture

Let us not be weary in well-doing—Galatians 6:9

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, September 23, 2013

It is very reasonable that God should expect us to trust Him for our bodies as well as our souls. If our faith is not practical enough to bring us temporal relief, how can we be schooled to depend upon God for anything that involves serious risk?

It is all very well to talk about trusting God for the distant and future prospect of salvation after death. There is scarcely a sinner in a Christian land who does not trust to be saved some day, but there is no grasp in faith like this. It is only when we come face to face with positive issues and overwhelming forces that we can prove the reality of divine power in a supernatural life. As an education to our spirits as well as a gracious provision for our temporal bodies, God has always trained His people to recognize Him as the supply of all their needs, and to look to Him as the Physician of their bodies and the Father of their spirits. Have we learned the meaning of Jehovah-rophi? (see Exodus 15:23-27). Has it changed our Marah of trial into an Elim of blessing and praise?

Scripture

I am the Lord that healeth thee—Exodus 15:26

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Word of God creates what it commands. When Christ says to any of us Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken unto you (John 15:3), we are clean. When He says no condemnation (Romans 8:1) there is none, though there may have been a lifetime of sin before. And when He says, mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds (2 Corinthians 10:4), then the weak are strong. This is faith's part-to make it real.

A French commander thanked a common soldier who had saved his life and called him captain. Although he was only a private, the man took the commander at his word, accepted the new name and was thereby constituted indeed a captain.

Why not take God's creating words of justification, sanctification, power and deliverance and thus make real the mighty promise, He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. . . . But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:29, 31).

Scripture

God . . . calleth those things which be not as though they were—Romans 4:17

Days of Heaven on Earth

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Let us learn the secret of our faith. It is the faith of Christ, springing in our hearts and trusting in our trials. So shall we always sing, The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20). If we keep looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), we shall discover that instead of struggling to appropriate the promises of God, we shall lie down upon them in blessed repose, and be borne up by them with the faith which is no more our own than the than the promises upon which it rests. Each new need will find us leaning again on Him for the grace to trust and to overcome.

Further, we see here the true spirit of prayer. It is the Spirit of Christ in us. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee (Psalm 22:22). Christ still sings these praises in the trusting heart and lifts our prayers into songs of victory! This is the true spirit of prayer.

Paul and Silas in the prison at Philippi turned prayer into praise, night into day-the night of sorrow into the morning of joy. When Jesus, the spirit of faith is in us, He will also become the spirit of praise.

Scripture

The faith of the Son of God—Galatians 2:20

Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, September 26, 2013

We often ask the question, "Why didn't God help me sooner?" It is not His order. He must first adjust us to the situation and cause us to learn our lesson from it. His promise is, I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. He first must be with us in the trouble until we grow quiet. Then He will take us out of it. This will not come until we have stopped being restless and fretful about it and have become calm and trustful. Then He will say, "It is enough."

God uses trouble to teach His children precious lessons. They are intended to educate us. When their good work is done, a glorious recompense will come to us through them. He does not regard them as difficulties but as opportunities. They have come to give God a greater interest in us and to show how he can deliver us from them. Without difficulties we cannot have a mercy worth praising God for. God is as deep, and long, and high as our little world of circumstances.

Scripture

I will be with him in trouble—Psalm 91:15

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, September 27, 2013

Are you above self and self-pleasing in every way? Have you risen above circumstances so that you are not influenced by them? Are you above sickness and the evil forces around that would drag down your physical life into the quicksands? These forces are all around and if yielded to would quickly swamp us. God does not destroy sickness or its power to hurt, but He lifts us above it.

Are you above your feelings, moods, emotions and states? Can you sail immovable as the starsthrough all sorts of weather?

A harp will give out sweet music or discordant sounds as different fingers touch the strings. If the devil's hand is on your harp strings what hideous sounds they will produce. But let the fingers of the Lord sweep over them, and they will breathe out celestial music.

Are you lifted above people, so that you are not bound by or to anyone except in the Lord? Are you standing free in His glorious life?

I am risen with Christ, I am dwelling above;

I am walking with Jesus below,

I am shedding the light of His glory and love

Around me wherever I go.

Scripture

The glorious, liberty of the children of God—Romans 8:21

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, September 28, 2013

0ur trials are great opportunities. Too often we look on them as great obstacles. It would be a heaven of rest if each of us would recognize every difficult situation as one of God's chosen ways of proving to us His love and power. It would be an inspiration of unspeakable power if, instead of calculating upon defeat, we should begin to look around for the messages of His glorious manifestations. Then indeed every cloud would become a rainbow and every mountain a path of ascension and a scene of transfiguration.

If we will look upon the past, many of us will find that the very time our heavenly Father has chosen to do the kindest things for us and give us the richest blessings has been the time when we were under great pressure and hemmed in on every side. God's jewels are often sent to us in rough packages, but within we find the very treasures of the King's palace and the Bridegroom's love.

Fire of God, thy work begin,

Burn up the dross of self and sin;

Burn off my fetters, set me free,

And through the furnace walk with me.

Scripture

The trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold—1 Peter 1:7

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, September 29, 2013

We can bring Christ into common things as fully as into what we call religious services. It would seem that the highest application of divine grace is to bring it down to the ordinary matters of life. God is, therefore, far more honored in this than even in things that are more especially sacred.

In Romans 12, which is the manual of practical consecration, just after the apostle speaks of ministering in sacred things, he begins to discuss the common, social and secular affairs into which we are to bring our consecration principles. We read: Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord (vv. 10-11).

God wanted the Levites scattered all over the cities of Israel. He wants our workshops, factories, kitchens, nurseries, editors' rooms and printing offices as much as our pulpits and prayer closets. He wants us to be just as holy at high noon on Monday or Wednesday as in the sanctuary on Sunday morning.

Scripture

Call not thou common-Acts 10:15. There is nothing unclean of itself—Romans 14:14

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, September 30, 2013

The dove is in the cleft of the rock-the riven side of our Lord. There is comfort and security there. It is also in the secret places of the stairs. It loves to build its nest in the high towers to which men mount by winding stairs for hundreds of feet above the ground. What a glorious vision is there obtained of the surrounding scenery. It is a picture of ascending life.

To reach our highest altitudes we must find the secret places of the stairs. That is the only way to rise above the natural plane. Our lives should be ones of quiet mounting with occasional resting places; but we should be mounting higher, step by step. Not everyone finds this way of secret ascent. It is only for God's chosen. The world may think we are going down. We may not have as much public work to do as formerly. Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). It is a secret, hidden life. We may be hardly aware that we are growing, until one day a test comes and we find we are established.

Have you arrived at the place where Christ is keeping you from willful disobedience? Does the consciousness of sin make you shudder? Are you lifted above the world?

Scripture

0 my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs—Song of Solomon 2:14

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Christ's great purpose for His people is to train them to know the hope of [their] calling, and . . . the riches of the glory of their inheritance, . . . and what . . . the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe (Ephesians 1:18-19).

Let us prove, in all our varied walks of life and scenes of conflict, the fullness of His power and grace, and thus shall we know in the ages to come . . . the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Are we thus following our Teacher in the school of faith, and finishing the education which is to fit us for a far more exceeding and eternal weight, of glory? (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Little can we now dream what these lessons will mean for us some day when we sit with Him on His throne and share with Him the power of God and the government of the universe. Let us be faithful students now, and soon with Him we, too, will have endured the cross, despising the shame, and shall sit down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).

Scripture

That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace—Ephesians 2:7

Days of Heaven on Earth

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

The procedure was very significant. God gave the land to the other tribes of Israel, but He gave Himself to the Levites. There is such a thing in the Christian life as an inheritance from the Lord, and there is such a thing as having the Lord Himself for our inheritance.

Some people receive a sanctification from the Lord that is of much value, but variable and often impermanent. Others have learned the higher lesson of taking the Lord Himself to be their keeper and their sanctity, and abiding in Him they are kept above the vicissitudes of their own states and feelings.

Some receive from the Lord large measures of joy and blessing and times of refreshing. Others, again, learn to take the Lord Himself as their joy.

Some people are content to have peace with God, but others have taken the peace of God, which passeth all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

Some have faith in God, while others have the faith of God. Some have many touches of healing from God, others have learned to live in the very health of God Himself.

Scripture

Moses gave not any inheritance: the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them—Joshua 13:33

Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, October 03, 2013

There are some things good without being perfect. You do not need to have a whole regiment firing outside your room to wake you. It is quite enough that your alarm clock rings. it is not necessary to fret about everything; it is quite enough if the devil gets your mind rasped with one little worry, one little thought which destroys your perfect peace.

It is like the polish on an exquisite table top. One scratch will destroy it; and the finer it is, the smaller the scratch that will deface it. And so your rest can be destroyed by a very little thing. Perhaps you have trusted in God about your future salvation; have you trusted Him about your present business or earthly cares, your money and your family?

What is meant by the peace [that] passeth all understanding? (Philippians 4:7). It does not mean a peace no one can comprehend. It means a peace no amount of reasoning will bring. You cannot get it by thinking. There may be perfect bewilderment and perplexity all around the horizon, yet your heart can rest in perfect security because God knows, He loves, He leads.

Scripture

The little foxes, that spoil the vines—Song of Solomon 2:15

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, October 04, 2013

God's sweetest memorial is the transformed thorn and thistle blooming with flowers of peace and goodness where once recriminations grew.

God is waiting to make just such memorials in your life out of the things that are hurting you most today. Take the grievances, the separations, the strained friendships and the broken ties which have been the sorrow and heartbreak of your life and let God heal them. Allow Him to give you grace that can make you right with all those with whom you have been wrong. You will wonder at the joy and, blessing that will come out of the things that have caused you nothing but regret and pain.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9). The everlasting employment of our blessed Redeemer is to reconcile the guilty and the estranged from God. The highest and most Christlike work that we can do is to be like Him.

Shall we go forth to dry the tears of a sorrowing world, to heal the brokenhearted, to bind up the wounds of human lives, and to unite heart to heart and earth to heaven?

Scripture

Instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree—Isaiah 55:13

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, October 05, 2013

God calls us to victory. Have you given up the conflict, have you surrendered? Have you said, "This thing is too much?" Have you said, "I can give up anything else but this?"

If you have, you are not in the land of promise. God intends that you accept every difficult thing that comes into your life. He has started with you, knowing every difficulty, and if you dare to let Him, He will carry you through not only to be a conqueror but "more than conquerors."

Are you looking for all the victory God has for you? God gives His children strength for the battle and watches over them with a fond enthusiasm. He longs to fold you close and say to you, "I have seen thy conflict, I have watched thy trials, I have rejoiced in thy victory; thou hast honored Me." Remember what he told Joshua at the beginning, There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee (Joshua 1:5). And again, His word to us is, Fear . . . not, for I am with thee (Isaiah 41:10).

Scripture

He that triumphed gloriously—Exodus 15:1

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, October 06, 2013

It is a great thing to learn to take God first. Then He can afford to give us everything else without the fear of its hurting us.

As long as you want anything very much, especially more than you want God, it is an idol. When you become satisfied with God, however, everything else so loses its charm that He can give it to you without harm. Then you can take just as much as you choose and use it for His glory.

There is no harm whatever in having money, houses, lands, friends and children if you do not value these things or ones for themselves.

If you have been separated from them in spirit and become satisfied with God Himself, then they will become to you channels to be filled with God and to bring Him nearer to you. Then every little lamb around your household will be a tender cord to bind you to the Shepherd's heart. Then every affection will be a golden cup filled with the wine of His love. Then every bank, stock and investment will be but a channel through which you can pour out His benevolence and extend His grace.

Scripture

Epbraim, he hath mixed himself—Hosea 7:8

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, October 07, 2013

How much grace it requires to bear a misunderstanding rightly and to receive an unkind judgment in holy sweetness! Nothing tests the Christian character more than to have some evil thing said about us. This is the file that soon proves whether we are electroplate or solid gold. If we could only know the blessings that lie hidden in our lives, we would say like David, when Shimei cursed him, Let him curse; . . . It may be the Lord will . . . requite me good for his cursing this day (2 Samuel 16:11-12).

Some people get easily turned aside from the grandeur of their life work by pursuing their own grievances and enemies. Soon their lives become one little whirl of petty warfare. It is like a nest of hornets. We may disperse the hornets, but we will probably get terribly stung and get nothing for our pains, for even their honey is not worth a search.

God give us more of Jesus' Spirit. When he was reviled, [he] reviled not again; . . . but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2:23).

Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself (Hebrews 12:3).

Scripture

He opened not his mouth—Isaiah 53:7

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Some day even you, trembling faltering one, shall stand upon those heights that Joshua knew. As you look back upon all you have passed through, all you have narrowly escaped, all the perils through which He guided you, the stumblings through which He guarded you and the sins from which He saved you; you will shout, with a meaning you cannot understand now, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb (Revelation 7:10).

Some day He will sit down with us in that glorious home, and we shall have all the ages in which to understand the story of our lives. He will read over again this marked old Bible with us, He will show us how He kept all these promises, He will explain to us the mysteries that we could not understand, He will recall all the finished story. Then I am sure we will cry: "Blessed Christ! you have been so true, you have been so good! Was there ever love like this?" And then the great chorus will be repeated once more-There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken; . . . all came to pass.

Scripture

There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken—Joshua 21:45

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Some things have their cycle in an hour and some in a century. Long or short, God's plans shall complete their cycle. The tender annual which blossoms for a season and dies, and the American aloe which develops in a century-each is true to its normal principle. Many of us desire to pluck our fruit in June rather than wait until October, and so, of course, the fruit is sour and immature. But God's purposes ripen slowly and fully, and faith waits while it tarries knowing it will surely come and will not tarry too long.

It is perfect rest to fully learn and wholly trust this glorious promise. We may know without a question that His purposes shall be accomplished when we have fully committed our ways to Him and are walking in watchful obedience to His every prompting. This faith will give a calm and tranquil poise to the spirit and save us from restless fretting and trying to do too much ourselves.

Wait, and every wrong will righten,

Wait, and every cloud will brighten,

If you only wait.

Scripture

Though it tarry, wait for it; for it will surely come, and will not tarry—Habakkuk 2:3

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, September 16, 2013

It is most cheering to know that although we err and bring upon ourselves many troubles that might easily have been averted, yet God does not forsake even His mistaken child, but on his humble repentance and supplication is ever ready both to pardon and deliver.

Let us not give up our faith because we have perhaps stepped out of the path in which He would have led us. The Israelites did not follow when He called them into the Land of Promise, yet God did not desert them. During the forty years of their wandering He walked by their side, bearing their backsliding with patient compassion, waiting to be gracious to them when another generation came. In all their affliction he afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; . . . he bare them, and carried them all the days of old (Isaiah 63:9). So it is today, while our wanderings bring us many sorrows and lose us many blessings, to the heart that truly chooses His, He has graciously said: I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Scripture

I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee—Hebrews 13:5

nspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

This is what the term consecration properly means. It is the voluntary or self-offering of the heart, by the constraint of love, to be the Lord's. Its glad expression is, I am my beloved's (Song of Solomon 6:3).

Surrender must spring, of course, from faith. There must be the full confidence that we are safe in this abandonment, that we are not falling over a precipice or surrendering ourselves to the hands of a judge but we are sinking into a Father's arms and stepping into an infinite inheritance!

It is an infinite privilege to be permitted to relinquish ourselves to One who pledges Himself to make us all that we would love to be, yes, all that His infinite wisdom, power and love will delight to accomplish in us. It is the clay yielding itself to the potter's hands that it may be shaped into a vessel of honor meet for the Master's use. It is the poor street waif consenting to become the child of a prince in order that he may be educated, provided for and prepared to inherit all the wealth of his guardian.

Scripture

The people shall be [a freewill offering] in the day of thy power—Psalm 110:3

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

There are heavenly notes which have power to break down adamant walls and dissolve difficult mountains. The song of Paul and Silas burst the fetters of the Philippian jail; the choir of Jehoshaphat put to flight the armies of the Ammonites. Even so the song of faith will disperse our adversaries and lift our sinking hearts into strength and victory.

Is this a dark hour in your life? Is it the winter of barrenness and gloom? Remember that it is God's chosen time for the education of faith, and that He conceals beneath the surface precious and untold harvests of unthought-of fruit! It will not always be night. And when the morning comes and spring spreads its verdant mantle over the barren fields, then we shall be glad that we did not disappoint our Father in the hour of testing, but our faith had already claimed and seen in the distance the glad fruition which sight now beholds.

Lord, help me to believe when I cannot see and to learn from my trials to trust Thee more.

Scripture

We walk by faith, not by sight—2 Corinthians 5:7

nspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, September 19, 2013

If the least of us could only anticipate the eternal issues that will probably spring from the humblest services of faith, we would count our sacrifices and labors occasions of honor and opportunity and would cease to speak of trials and sacrifices for God.

The smallest grain of faith is a deathless and incorruptible germ which will yet plant the heavens and cover the earth with harvests of imperishable glory. Let us lift up our heads, for the horizon is wider than the little circle that we can see. We are living, we are suffering, we are laboring, we are trusting for the ages yet to come. Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. With tears of pure rapture we shall cry some day, Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! (Psalm 31:19).

Lord, help me today to live under the powers of the world to come and to live as one in heaven yet walking upon the earth.

Scripture

In due season we shall reap, if we faint not—Galatians 6:9

nspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, September 20, 2013

0ften God calls us aside from our work for a season and bids us be still and learn before we begin again to minister. Especially is this so when there has been some serious break, some sudden failure or some radical defect in our work. There is no time lost in such waiting hours.

Fleeing from his enemies, the ancient knight found that his horse needed to be reshod. Prudence seemed to urge him on, but higher wisdom taught him to halt a few minutes at the blacksmith's forge to have the shoe replaced. Though he heard the feet of his pursuers galloping hard behind, yet he waited those minutes until his charger was refitted for his flight. Then, leaping into his saddle just as they appeared a hundred yards away, he dashed away from them with the fleetness on the wind. He knew that his halting had hastened his escape.

So often God bids us tarry and fully recover ourselves for the next great stage of our journey and work.

Lord, teach me to be still and know that Thou art God, and all this day to walk with Thee.

Scripture

They shall not be ashamed that wait—Isaiah 49:23

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, September 21, 2013

It is a good thing to learn to depend upon God to work through our feeble resources and yet, while so depending, to be absolutely faithful and diligent and not allow our trust to deteriorate into indolence.

We find no sloth or negligence in Gideon or his three hundred; though they were weak and few, they were completely loyal, and everything in them-down to their last breath-was ready for God to use. Faint, yet pursuing was their watchword as they followed and finished their glorious victory. They did not rest until the last of their enemies was destroyed, and even their false friends were punished for their treachery and unfaithfulness.

God still calls the weakest instruments. When, however, he chooses and enables them, they are no longer weak but mighty through God (2 Corinthians 10:4) and faithful through His grace to every trust and opportunity. "They trust," as Dr. Chalmers used to say, "as though all depended upon God, and work as though all depended upon themselves."

Teach me, my blessed Master, to trust and obey.

Scripture

Faint, yet pursuing—Judges 8:4

Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, August 29, 2013

0ur healing is represented as a special recompense for obedience. If, therefore, we would please the Lord and have the reward of those who please Him, there is no service so acceptable to Him as our praise.

Let us ever meet Him with a glad and thankful heart, and He will reflect it back in the radiance of our countenance and the buoyant life and springing health which are but the echo of a joyful heart.

Further, thankfulness is the best preparation for faith. Trust grows spontaneously in the praiseful heart. Thankfulness takes the sunny side of the street and looks at the bright side of God, and it is only thus that we can ever trust Him. Unbelief looks at our troubles and, of course, they seem like mountains, and faith is discouraged by the prospect. A thankful disposition will always find some cause for cheer and a gloomy one will find a cloud in the brightest sky and a fly in the sweetest ointment. Let us cultivate a spirit of cheerfulness, and we shall find so much in God and in our lives to encourage us that we shall have no room for doubt or fear.

Scripture

To obey is better than sacrifice—1 Samuel 15:22

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, August 30, 2013

You little know the rest that comes from the yielded will, the surrendered choice, the meek and lowly heart that lets the world go by and knows that it shall inherit the earth which is has refused. You little know the relish that it gives to the blessing to hunger and thirst after righteousness and to be filled with a satisfaction that worldly delight cannot afford. You little know what it is to then rise to the higher blessedness of the merciful, the forgiving, the hearts that have learned that it is "more blessed to give than to receive," and the lives that find that "letting go is twice possessing" and blessing other is to be doubly blessed.

There is yet one jewel brighter than all the rest in this crown of beatitudes. It is the teardrop crystallized into the diamond, the blood drop transfigured into the ruby of heaven's eternal crown. It is the joy of suffering with Jesus and then forgetting all the sorrow in the overflowing joy until with the heavenly Pascal we know not which to say first and so we say them both together, "Tears upon tears, joy upon joy."

Scripture

Happy are ye if ye do them—John 13:17

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, August 31, 2013

There is often apparently but little difference in two distinct lives between the person in constant victory and the one in frequent victory. But that little difference constitutes a world of success or failure. The one is the divine, the other is the human; the one is the everlasting way, the other the transient and the imperfect way. God wants to lead us to the way everlasting and to establish us and make us immovable as He.

We little know the seriousness of the slightest infraction of our surrender to God. It is but the first step in the downward progression, and only God knows where it shall end. Let us be not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39).

Our victory today is preparing the way for a greater victory tomorrow; but our small compromise today is opening the door for a more terrible defeat in the days to come. Let us, therefore, whatever we have claimed from our blessed Master commit it to His keeping and take Him to establish us and hold us fast in the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

Scripture

Lead me in the way everlasting—Psalm 139:24

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, September 01, 2013

God often has to bring us not only into the place of suffering, and the bed of sickness and pain, but also into the place where our righteousness breaks down and our character falls to pieces in order to humble us in the dust and show us the need of entire crucifixion to all our natural life. Then, at the feet of Jesus we are ready to receive Him, to abide in Him, depend upon Him alone and draw all our life and strength each moment from Him, our Living Head.

It was thus that Peter was saved by his very fall and had to die to peter that he might live more perfectly to Christ. Have we thus died, and have we thus renounced the strength of our own self-confidence?

We begin life with the natural, next we come into the spiritual; but then, when we have truly received the kingdom of God and His righteousness, the natural is added to the spiritual, and we are able to receive the gifts of His providence and the blessings of life without becoming centered in them or allowing them to separate us from Him.

Scripture

Afterward that which is spiritual—1 Corinthians 15:46

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, September 02, 2013

The oak comes out of the acorn, the eagle out of that little egg in the nest, the harvest out of the seed. Thus the glory of the coming age is coming out of the Christ-life now, even as the majesty of His kingdom was all wrapped up that night in the baby in Bethlehem.

Let us take Jesus for our total lives. Let us be united to His person and His risen body. Let us know what it is to say, The body is . . . for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body (1 Corinthians 6:13). We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones (Ephesians 5:30).

He who gave that little infant, His only begotten Son, on that dark winter night to the arms of a cruel and ungrateful world will not refuse to give Him to us in all His fullness if we will but open our hearts and give Him right of way and full ownership and possession. Then we shall know in measure His quickening life, even as our hope shall reach its full fruition when we sit with Him on His throne with every fiber of our immortal beings even as He.

Scripture

Who hath despised the day of small things—Zechariah 4:10

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

The little plant may grow out of a pile of refuse and be surrounded by filth and covered with the dust that floats on the breeze, but its white roots are separated from the unclean soil, and it leaves and flowers have no affinity with the dust that settles upon them. After a show of summer rain they throw off every particle of defilement and look up as fresh and spotless as before. Their intrinsic nature cannot have any part with these defiling things.

This is the separation which Christ requires and which He gives. There is no merit in my staying from the theater is I want to go. There is no value in my abstaining from the foolish novel or the intoxicating bottle if I am continually wishing I could have them. My heart is there, and my soul is defiled by the desire for evil things. It is not the world that stains us, but the love of the world. The true Levite is separated from the desire for earthly things, and even if he could, he would not have the forbidden pleasures which others prize.

Scripture

The God of Israel hath separated you—Numbers 16:9

Days of Heaven on Earth

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

0ne of the greatest hindrances to spirituality is the lack of waiting upon God. We cannot go through 24 hours with just the breaths of air we inhale as we sip our morning coffee. We must, rather, live in the atmosphere and breathe it all day long.

Christians do not wait upon God enough. It requires hours and hours daily of spiritual communion with the Holy Spirit to keep our vitality healthful and full. Every moment should find us breathing out ourselves into Christ, and breathing afresh His life.

God is waiting to send us the Holy Spirit. He is longing to bless us. His one business is to quicken and sustain our spiritual life with His infinite and great resources. Let us receive Him. Let us live in Him. Let us give to Him the joy of knowing that His infinite grace has not been bestowed in vain, but that we appreciate and appropriate the blessings He bestows.

Lord, help me this day to dwell in Thee as the flower in the sunshine, as the fish in the sea, living in Thy love as the atmosphere and element of my being.

Scripture

Come ye yourselves apart—Mark 6:31

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The true way to glorify God is for God to show His glory through us, to shine through us as empty vessels, reflecting His fullness of grace and power.

The sun is glorified when it has a chance to show its light through the crystal window, or in reflection from the spotless mirror or the glassy sea.

There is nothing that glorifies God so much as for a weak and helpless man or woman to be able to triumph through His strength in places where the highest human qualities will fail us and to carry on in divine power through every form of toll and suffering. A spirit naturally weak, irresolute, selfish, and sinful, transformed into sweetness, purity and power and standing victorious amid circumstances from which its natural qualities must utterly unfit it brings glory to God. A mind not naturally wise or strong, yet directed by a divine wisdom and carried along the path of a great and mighty plan, being used to accomplish stupendous results for God and man-this glorifies God.

Father, let me glorify Thee this day and adorn Thy doctrine in all things I do.

Scripture

Herein is my Father glorified—John 15:8

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, August 21, 2013

The thing is to count the battle God's. The battle is not yours but God's. We shall not need to fight in this battle. As long as we count our dangers and responsibilities, we shall be distracted with fear. But when we realize God is bound to take care of us as His property and His representatives, we shall feel infinite relief and security.

If I send my employee on a long journey, I am responsible for his expenses and protection; if God sends me anywhere, He is responsible. If we belong to God and put our life, our family, and our all in His hands, we may know He will take care of us.

If our body belongs to God, it is His interest to keep us well, just as much as it is for the interest of the shepherd to have his sheep well fed, well cared for and a credit to him.

Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph (2 Corinthians 2:14).

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,

Stand in His strength alone;

The arm of flesh will fail you,

Ye dare not trust your own.

Scripture
The battle is not yours—2 Chronicles 20:15

Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, August 22, 2013

Thousands of people get stranded after they have embarked on the great voyage of holiness because they have depended upon the experience rather than on the Author of it. They had supposed that they were thoroughly and permanently delivered from all sin, and in the ecstasy of their first experience they imagined that they never would be tried and tempted as before.

When, therefore, they step out into the actual facts of Christian life and find themselves failing and falling, they are astonished and perplexed, and they conclude that they must have been mistaken in their experience. Then they make a new attempt at the same thing, and again fall, until at last, worn out with the experiment, they conclude that the experience is a delusion, or at least that it was never intended for them. Thus they fall back into the old way, and their last state is worse than the first.

Men and women today need to know not sanctification as a state but Christ as a living Person.

Lord Jesus, give me Thy heart, Thy faith, Thy life, Thyself.

Scripture

I the Lord, the first, and with the last—Isaiah 41:4



Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, August 23, 2013

God is now aiming to reproduce in us the pattern which has already appeared in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Christian life is not an imitation of Christ, but a direct new creation in Christ, and the union with Christ is so complete that He imparts His own nature to us and lives His own life in us. This, then, is not an imitation but simply the outgrowth of the nature implanted within.

We live Christlike because we have the Christ-life. God is not satisfied with anything less than perfection. He required that from His Son. He requires it from us, and He does not, in the process of grace, reduce the standard, but He brings us up to it. He does not let down the righteousness of the law, but He requires of us a righteousness that far exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and then He imparts it to us. He counts us righteous in sanctification, and He says of the new creation, He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous (I John 3:7).

Lord, live out Thy very life in me.

Scripture

Even as he is pure—1 John 3:3

Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, August 24, 2013

The very test of consecration is our willingness not only to surrender the things that are wrong, but to surrender our rights, to be willing to be subject. When God begins to subdue a soul, He often requires us to yield the things that are of little importance in themselves and thus breaks our necks and subdues our spirits.

No Christian worker can ever be used of God until the proud self-will is broken and the heart is ready to yield to God's every touch, no matter through whom it may come.

Many people want God to lead them in their way, but they will endure no authority or restraint. They will give their money, but they want to dictate how it shall be spent. They will work as long as you let them please themselves, but let any pressure come and you immediately run up against not the grace of resignation but a letter of resignation. They may withdraw from some important trust, and arouse a whole community of criticizing friends, who are equally disposed to have their own opinions and their own way. Such attitudes are destructive of all real power.

Scripture
Let your moderation be known unto all men—Philippians 4:5

Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, August 25, 2013

This state spoken of by Ezekiel is much more than a new heart. It is a heart filled with the Holy Spirit, the Divine Spirit, the power that causes us to walk in God's commandments.

This is the greatest crisis that comes to a Christian: when into the spirit that was renewed in conversion, God Himself comes to dwell, to make it His abiding place, and to hold it by His mighty power in holiness and righteousness.

After this occurs, one would suppose that we would be lifted up into a much more hopeful and exuberant spirit, but the prophet gives a very different picture. He says when this comes to pass we shall loathe ourselves in our own eyes.

The revelation of God conveys a profound sense of our own nothingness and worthlessness and lays us on our face in the dust in self-denial. The incoming of the Holy Spirit displaces self and disgraces self forever. The highest holiness is to walk in self-renunciation.

Scripture
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them—Ezekiel 36.27

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, August 26, 2013

Elisha asked the widow, "What hast thou in the house?" And she said, "Nothing but a pot of oil." But that pot of oil was adequate all her needs, had she only known how to use it. In truth it represented the Holy Spirit, and the great lesson of the incident is that the Holy Spirit is adequate for all our needs, if we only know how to use Him.

All the widow needed was to get sufficient vessels to hold the overflow, and then pour out until all were filled. Even so the Holy Spirit is limited only by our capacity to receive Him, and when God wants us to have a larger fullness, he has to make room for it by creating greater needs.

God sends us new vessels to be filled with His Holy Spirit in the needs that come to us and the trials that meet us. These are God's opportunities to give us more of Himself. As we meet them He comes to us in larger fullness for each new necessity.

Lord, help me to see Thee in all my trying situations and to make them vessels to hold more of Thy grace.

Scripture
Thine handmaid hath riot anything in the house, save a pot of oil—2 Kings 4:2

Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Lord is still using the things that are despised. The very names of Nazarene and Christian were once epithets of contempt. No man can have God's highest thought and be popular with his immediate generation. The most abused men are often the most used.

There are far greater calamities than to be unpopular and misunderstood. There are far worse things than to be found in the minority. Many of God's greatest blessings are lying behind the devil's scarecrows of prejudice and misrepresentation. The Holy Spirit is not ashamed to use unpopular people. And if He uses them, what need they care for men?

Oh, let us but have God's recognition and man's notice will count for little, and God will give us all we need of human help and praise. Let us only seek God's will, His glory, His approval. Let us go for Him on the hardest errands and do for Him the most menial tasks. It will be honor enough that He sends us and uses us. Let us not fear in this day to follow Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. By-and-by he will own our worthless name before the myriads of earth and heaven.

Scripture
Take no thought for your life—Matthew 6:25

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, August 28, 2013

When we reach the place of union with God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we come into the inheritance of external blessing and enter upon the land of our possession. Then our health and physical strength come to us through the power of our interior life. Then the prayer is fulfilled that we shall be in health and prosper as our soul prospers. Then, with the kingdom of God and His righteousness within us all things are added unto us.

God's external working always keeps pace with the power that works in us. When God is enthroned in a human soul, the devil and the world soon find it out. We do not need to advertise our power. Jesus could not be hid, and a soul filled with divine power and purity should become the center of attraction to hungry hearts and Suffering lives.

Let us receive Him and recognize Him in His indwelling glory, and then will we appropriate all that it means for our life in all its fullness.

Lord, give me the "hiding of thy power," and let Christ be glorified in me.

Scripture
According to the power that worketh in us—Ephesians 3:20

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, August 12, 2013

Your Christian influence, your reputation as a worker for God and your standing among your brethren may be an idol to which you must die before you can be free to live for Jesus alone.

If you have ever noticed the type on a printed page, you must have seen that the little "i" always has a dot over it. It is that dot that elevates it above the other letters in the line.

Now, each of us is a little i, and over every one of us there is a little dot of self-importance, self-will, self-interest, self-confidence, self-complacency-or something to which we cling and for which we contend. But it just as surely reveals self-life as if it were a mountain of real importance.

This i is a rival of Jesus Christ. It is the enemy of the Holy Spirit and of our peace and life. God has therefore decreed its death, and the Holy Spirit, with His flaming sword, is waiting to destroy it that we may be able to enter through the gates and come to the Tree of Life.

Lord, crowd me out by Thy fullness, even as the glory of the Lord left no room for Moses in the tabernacle.

Scripture

Not ourselves, but Christ Jesus—2 Corinthians 4:5

Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The presence of clouds upon your sky and trials in your path are the very best evidence that you are following the pillar of cloud and walking in the presence of God. The disciples had to enter the cloud before they could behold the glory of the transfiguration. A little later that same cloud became the chariot to receive the ascending Lord, and it is still waiting as the chariot that will bring His glorious appearing.

Still it is true that while clouds and darkness are round about him, mercy and truth are ever in their midst and shall go before thy face (Psalm 89:14).

Perhaps the most beautiful and gracious use of the cloud was to shelter Israel from the fiery sun. Like a great umbrella, that majestic pillar spread its canopy above the camp and became a shielding shadow from the burning heat in the treeless desert. One who has never felt an oriental sun cannot fully appreciate how much this means-a shadow from the heat.

So the Holy Spirit comes between us and the fiery, scorching rays of sorrow and temptation.

Scripture

Clouds and darkness are round about him—Psalm 97:2

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, August 14, 2013

I would rather play with the forked lightning than to speak a reckless word against any servant of Christ. I would rather take in my hands live wires with their fiery current than to idly repeat the slanderous darts which thousands of Christians are hurling at others to the hurt of their own souls and bodies.

You may wonder why your sickness is not hea1ed, why your spirit is not filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, why your life is not blessed and prosperous. It may be that some dart which you have flung with angry voice or in an idle hour of thoughtless gossip is pursuing you on its way. It is describing the circle which always brings back to the source from which it came every shaft of bitterness and every idle and evil word.

Let us remember that when we persecute or hurt the children of God, we are but persecuting Him and hurting ourselves far more.

Lord, make me as sensitive to the feelings and rights of others as I have often been to my own, and let me live and love like Thee.

Scripture

Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm—Psalm 105:15

Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, August 15, 2013

The Holy Spirit does not come to give us extraordinary manifestations but to give us life and light. The nearer we come to Him the more simple will His illumination and leading be. He comes to guide [us] into all truth. He comes to shed light upon our own hearts and to show us ourselves. He comes to reveal Christ, to give, and then to illumine the Holy Scriptures and to make divine realities vivid and clear to our spiritual apprehension. He comes as a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, to enlighten the eyes of our understanding, that we may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power (Ephesians 1:18-19).

Spirit of Power! with heavenly fire,

Our souls endue, our tongues inspire;

Stretch forth Thy mighty hand,

Thy Pentecostal gifts restore,

The wonders of Thy power once more

Display in every land.

Scripture

He will guide you into all truth—John 16:13

Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, August 16, 2013

Oh, how it helps and comforts us in the plodding of life to know that we have with us the Christ who spent the first thirty years of His life swinging a hammer in the carpenter shop at Nazareth, covered with sweat and grimy dust, physically weary as we often are, and able to understand all our experiences of drudgery and labor! Moreover, He still loves to share our common tasks and equip us for our difficult undertakings of hand and brain.

Yes, housewife, He will help you at the kitchen range and sink as gladly as at the hour of prayer. Yes, busy laborer, He will go with you and help you to swing the hammer, or handle the saw, or hold the plow in the soil of life. You will be a better mechanic, a more skilled workman, a more successful man because you take His wisdom for the common affairs of life.

There is no place or time where Jesus is not able and willing to walk by our side, to work through our hand and minds, and to unite Himself in loving and caring partnership with all our needs and tasks and trials. In this way He proves Himself our all-sufficiency for all things.

Scripture

I am with you always—Matthew 28:20

Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, August 17, 2013

The Holy Spirit is very sensitive, as love always is. You can conquer a wild beast by blows and chains, but you cannot conquer a woman's heart that way, or win the love of a sensitive nature; that must be wooed by the delicate touches of trust and affection. So the Holy Spirit has to be taken by a faith as delicate and sensitive as the gentle heart with whom it is coming in touch. One thought of unbelief, one expression of impatient distrust or fear will instantly check the perfect freedom of His operations as much as a breath of frost would wither the petals of the most sensitive rose or lily.

Speak to the Rock do not strike it. Believe in the Holy Spirit and treat Him with the most tender confidence and unwavering trust, and He will meet you with instant response and confidence.

Have you come to the rock in Kadesh? (Numbers 20:1-8). Have you opened all your being to the fullness of the Spirit, and then, with the confidence of the child to the mother, the bride to the husband, the flower to the sunshine, have you received by faith, and are you drinking of His blessed life?

Scripture

Speak ye unto the rock—Numbers 20:8

Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, August 18, 2013

We little dream sometimes what a hasty word, a thoughtless speech, an imprudent act, or a confession of unbelief and fear may do to hinder our highest usefulness or turn it aside from some great opportunity which God has been preparing for us.

Although the Holy Spirit uses weak men, He does not want them to be weak after He chooses and calls them. Although He uses the foolish things to confound the wise, He does not want us to be foolish after He comes to give us His wisdom and grace. He uses the foolishness of preaching, but not necessarily the foolishness of preachers. Like the electric current which can supply the strength of a thousand men, it is necessary that it should have a proper conductor, and a very small wire is better than a very big rope.

God wants fit instruments for His power-wills surrendered, hearts trusting, lives consistent and lips obedient to His will. Then He can use the weakest weapons and make them mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

Scripture

The three hundred blew the trumpets—Judges 7:22

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, August 19, 2013

God requires of us a perfect faith, and He tells us that if we believe and doubt not, we shall have whatsoever we ask. The faintest touch of unbelief will neutralize our trust.

But how shall we have such perfect faith? Is it possible for human nature? No, but it is possible to the divine nature; it is possible to the Christ within us. It is possible for God to give us faith, and He does. But Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith, and He bids us have the faith of God. As we have faith through the imparting of the Spirit of Christ, we believe even as He.

We pray in His name and in His very nature, and, [we] live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved [us], and gave himself for [us] (Galatians 2:20). The love that He requires of us is not mere human love, or even the standard of love required in the Old Testament, but something far higher. The new commandment is to love one another (John 13:34), not as ourselves but as He has loved us

How shall such love be made possible? Our love is simply His love working in us and imparted to us through the Spirit.

Scripture

Have faith in God—Mark 11:22

Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, August 10, 2013

The blessed Holy Spirit who possesses the consecrated heart is intensely concerned for our highest life and watches us with a sensitive and even a jealous love. Very beautiful is the true translation of that ordinary passage in James 4:5, The Spirit that dwelleth in us loveth us to jealousy.

The heart of the Holy Spirit is deeply concerned in preserving us from every stain and blemish and in bringing us into the very highest possibilities of the will of God.

The heavenly Bridegroom would have His Church not only free from every spot, but also from every wrinkle, or any such thing. The spot is the mark of sin, but the wrinkle is the sign of weakness, age and decay; Jesus wants no such defacing touch upon the holy features of His beloved. So the Holy Spirit, who is the Executor of His will and the Divine Messenger whom He sends to call, separate and bring home His Bride, is jealously concerned in fulfilling in us all the Master's will.

Lord, take from me every blemish and mark of weakness and decay and make me Thy spotless Bride.

Scripture
There is no spot in thee—Song of Solomon 4:7

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, August 11, 2013

The actual provisions of God's grace come from the inner vision.

He who gives to the bird the instinct to cross the continent in search of summer sunshine in a southern climate is too good to deceive it. And just as surely as He has put the instinct in the breast of the bird, so has He also put the balmy breezes and the vernal sunshine there to meet it when it arrives.

He who gave to Abraham the vision of the Land of Promise also said in infinite truth and love: All the land that thou seest will I give thee. He who breathes into our hearts the heavenly hope will not deceive or fail us when we press forward to its realization. There is nothing unfaithful in Him who has said: If it were not so, I would have told you (John 14:2), and we may know that God never will deceive us or fail us, but all that He reveals by His Holy Spirit He will make our own as we press forward and enter into its realization.

Lord, give me first the vision and then the victory. Show me all my inheritance, and then give it all to me in Christ Jesus.

Scripture
All the land which thou seest—Genesis 13:15

Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, August 08, 2013
Speech is one of the supreme distinctions between man and the lower animals. The power of expressing thought in articulation and written language is one of the high prerogatives of rational beings.

A man's conversation is the real test of his character and if any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain (James 1:26). An unbridled tongue is a sure sign of an unsanctified spirit. On the other hand, if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. It is a sign that he is under the government of his conscience, his will and the Holy Spirit. This is a most heart-searching test.

It was a foolish word that lost Moses the Land of Promise. He would have taken it back if he could have, but it was too late. Though he was taken to heaven, he could not lead Israel into the promised land.

Many men and women of great potential ruin their whole lives by an uncontrolled tongue. It settles our character and influence here. How much more in the sight of Him who has said, By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned (Matthew 12:37).

Scripture
If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body—James 3:2

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, August 07, 2013

It is purely a matter of faith. Faith and sight always differ. To your senses it does not seem to be so, but your faith must still reckon it so. This is a very difficult attitude to hold, and only as we thoroughly believe God can we thus reckon upon His Word and His working. But as we do so, faith will convert it into fact, and it will become reality.

These two words "yield" and "reckon" are passwords into the resurrection life. They are like the two edges of the "Sword of the Spirit" through which we enter into crucifixion with Christ.

This act of surrender and this reckoning of faith are recognized in the New Testament as marking a very definite crisis in the spiritual life. It does not mean that we are expected to be going through a continual dying, but that there should be one very definite act of dying, and then a constant habit of reckoning ourselves as dead and meeting everything from this standpoint.
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:11)
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified—Romans 6.6

Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Sometimes people fall because they lack confidence in the Physician. The very first requirement for your healing is that you trust the Physician, and trust Him implicitly-so implicitly that you go forward on His bare word and act as if you had received His healing the moment you claimed His promise.

You must also do what the Great Physician tells you, if you expect Him to make you whole. The pills prescribed by your doctor would do you no good if left on the cupboard shelf.

You cannot expect to be healed if you are living in sin, any more than you could expect the best physician to cure you while you lived in a malarial climate or inhaled poison with every breath. So you must move from doubt into the pure air of trust and obedience before Christ can make you whole. And then if you will trust Him and respond to His directions, you will find that there is balm in Gilead and a Great Physician there.

Scripture
If thou wilt diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, . . . and wilt keep all his statutes—Exodus 15:26

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Why should God have to lead us through troubles and allow the pressure to be so hard and constant?

In the first place, it shows His all-sufficient strength and grace much better than if we were exempt from pressure and trial. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Also, it makes us more conscious of our dependence upon God. God is constantly trying to teach us our dependence and to hold us absolutely in His hand and hanging upon His care.

This was the place where Jesus Himself stood and where He wants us to stand, not with a self constituted strength, but with a hand ever leaning upon His, and a trust that dares not take one step alone.

Troubles teach us trust. There is no way of learning faith except by trial. It is God's school of faith, and it is far better for us to learn to trust God than to escape trials.

The lesson of faith, once learned, is an everlasting acquisition and an eternal fortune made. Without trust even riches will leave us poor.

Scripture
We were troubled on every side—2 Corinthians 7:5

Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, August 02, 2013

The blessed Comforter is gentle, tender and full of patience and love. How gentle are God's dealings even with sinners. How patient His forbearance. How tender His discipline with His own erring children. How He led Jacob, Joseph, Israel, David, Elijah and all His ancient servants until they could truly say, Thy gentleness hath made me great.

The heart in which the Holy Spirit dwells will always be characterized by gentleness, lowliness, quietness, meekness and forbearance. The rude, sarcastic spirit, the brusque manner, the sharp retort, the unkind cut-all of these belong to the flesh and have nothing in common with the gentle teaching of the Comforter.

The Holy Dove shrinks from the noisy, tumultuous, excited and vindictive spirit and finds His home in the peaceful soul. The fruit of the Spirit is . . . gentleness, . . . meekness.

Lord, make me gentle. Hush my spirit. Refine my manner. Let me have Christ in my bearing and my very tones, as well as in my heart.

Scripture
Thy gentleness hath made me great—Psalm 18:35

Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, August 03, 2013

The pressure of hard places makes us value life. Every time we come through such a trial, it is like a new beginning, and we learn better how much life is worth and make more of it for God and man. The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others and fits us to help and sympathize with them.

There is a shallow, superficial nature that gets hold of a theory or a promise and talks very glibly about the distrust of those who shrink from every trial. But the man or woman who has suffered much never does this. Knowing what suffering really means, he or she is very tender and gentle.

This is what Paul meant when he said, Death worketh in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians 4:12). Trials and hard places are needed to press us forward, even as the furnace fires in the hold of the mighty steamship give the force that moves the Piston, drives the engine and propels that great vessel in the face of winds and waves.

Scripture
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God—1 Peter 5:6

Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, August 04, 2013

A spiritual man is not so much a man possessing a strong spiritual character as a man filled with the Holy Spirit. So the apostle Paul said: Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

The glory of the new creation, then, is not only that it recreates the human spirit, but that it fits it for the abode of God Himself, and makes it dependent upon the Son, as the child upon the mother. The highest spirituality, therefore, is the most utter helplessness, the most total dependence and the most complete possession of the Holy Spirit. The beautiful act of Christ in breathing upon His disciples and imparting to them from His own lips the very Spirit that was already in Him expressed in the most vivid manner the crowning glory of the new creation. And when the Holy Spirit thus possesses us, He fills every part of our being.

Scripture
Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his—Romans 8:9

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, August 05, 2013

Some of us are starving and wondering why the Holy Spirit does not fill us. We have plenty coming in, but we do not give it out. Give out the blessing you have, start larger plans for service and blessing and you will soon find that the Holy Spirit is before you. He will prevent [precede] you with blessings of goodness (Psalm 21:3) and give you all that He can trust you to give away to others.

There is no music so heavenly as an Aeolian harp. The Aeolian harp is nothing but a set of stretched strings arranged in harmony and then left to be touched by the unseen fingers of the wandering winds. As the breath of heaven floats over the chords, notes almost divine float out upon the air as if a choir of angels were wandering around and touching the strings.

And so it is possible to keep our hearts so open to the touch of the Holy Spirit that He can play upon them at will, as we quietly wait in the pathway of His service.

Scripture
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

Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, August 06, 2013

The blessed Holy Spirit is our Guide, our Leader and our Resting-place. There are times when He presses us forward into prayer, into service, into suffering, into new experiences, new duties, new claims of faith and hope and love. Then there are times when He arrests us in our activity and rests us in the secret place of the Most High. He teaches us some new lessons, breathing into us some deeper strength or fullness and then leading us on again, at His bidding alone.

The Holy Spirit is the true Guide of the saint, and the true Leader of the Church. He is our wonderful Counselor, our unerring Friend. He who would deny the personal guidance of the Holy Spirit in order that he might honor the Word of God as our only guide must dishonor that other word of promise, that His sheep shall know His voice, and that His listening and obedient children shall hear a voice behind them saying, this is the way, walk ye in it (Isaiah 30:20).

Scripture
As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God—Romans 8:14

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, August 07, 2013

It is purely a matter of faith. Faith and sight always differ. To your senses it does not seem to be so, but your faith must still reckon it so. This is a very difficult attitude to hold, and only as we thoroughly believe God can we thus reckon upon His Word and His working. But as we do so, faith will convert it into fact, and it will become reality.

These two words "yield" and "reckon" are passwords into the resurrection life. They are like the two edges of the "Sword of the Spirit" through which we enter into crucifixion with Christ.

This act of surrender and this reckoning of faith are recognized in the New Testament as marking a very definite crisis in the spiritual life. It does not mean that we are expected to be going through a continual dying, but that there should be one very definite act of dying, and then a constant habit of reckoning ourselves as dead and meeting everything from this standpoint.

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:11).

Scripture
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified—Romans 6.6

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Why have you not received all the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Do you not long to be anointed with the rest of the oil? (Leviticus 14:17-18). Look around you at your situation. Are you not conscious of many needs at this very moment and almost overwhelmed with difficulties, trials and emergencies? These are all divinely provided vessels for the Holy Spirit's filling. If you would only understand their meaning, they will become opportunities for receiving new blessings and deliverances which you can obtain in no other way.

Bring these vessels to God. Hold them steadily before Him in faith and prayer. Keep still. Cease your own restless working until He begins to work. Do nothing that He does not Himself command you to do. Give Him a chance to work, and He will surely do so. Then the very trials that threatened to overcome you with discouragement and disaster will become God's opportunity for the revelation of His grace and glory in your life, as you have never known Him before. Bring them [all needs] to me.

Scripture

Bring them hither to me—Matthew 14:18

Days of Heaven on Earth

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

In our earlier experiences we know the Holy Spirit only at a distance, in things that happen in a providential direction or in the Word alone. But after a while we receive Him as an inward Guest, and He dwells in our hearts. He speaks to us in the innermost chambers of our being. The external working of His power does not cease; rather, it increases and seems even more glorious. The Power that dwells within us works outside us, answering prayer, healing sickness, overruling providences, doing exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us (Ephesians 3:20).

There is a double presence of the Lord for the consecrated believer. He is present in the heart and is mightily present in the events of life. He is the Christ in us and the Christ of all our days, with all power in heaven and earth.

The Holy Spirit is our wonder-worker, our all-sufficient God and Guardian. And He is waiting in these days to work as mightily in the affairs of men as in the days of Moses, of Daniel and of Paul.

Scripture

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us—Romans 8:4


 Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, July 25, 2013

God can only use us while we are trusting Him completely. Satan cared far less for Peter's denial of his Master than for the use he made of it afterwards to destroy his faith. So Jesus said to him, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not (Like 22:32). It was Peter's faith Satan attacked, and so it is our faith that he contests. The trial of your faith, being much more precious that of gold that perisheth (1 Peter 1:7).

Whatever else we let go, let us go, let us hold steadfastly to our trust. Cast not away therefore your confidence (Hebrews 10:35), and hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end (Hebrews 3:6). And if you would hold your trust, hold your sweetness, your rightness of spirit, your obedience to Christ, your victory in every way.

Whatever comes, regard it as of less consequence than that you should triumph and remain steadfast. Accept every circumstance as something God is pleased to allow. Wave the4 banner of your victory in the face of every foe. Go on, shouting in Jesus' name, Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14).

Scripture

He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God—Romans 14:18

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, July 26, 2013

We must recognize the true character of our self-life and its real virulence and vileness. We must consent to its destruction, and we must take it ourselves, as Abraham did Isaac, and lay it at the feet of God in willing sacrifice.

This is a seemingly impossible task for the natural heart, but the moment the will is yielded and the choice is made, we are astonished to find that the agony is over and death is accomplished.

Usually the crisis in such cases hangs upon a single point. God does not need to strike us in a hundred places to inflict a death wound. There is one point that touches the heart and that is the Point God usually strikes. It will likely be the dearest thing in our lives, the decisive thing in our plans, the citadel of our wills, the center of our hearts. And when we yield there, there is little left to yield anywhere else. But when we refuse to yield at that point, a spirit of evasion and compromise enters into all the rest of our lives. Let us take Him to enable us to will His will in all things in our lives.

Scripture

Now mine eyes seeth thee—Job 42:5

 Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, July 27, 2013

God is preparing His heroes. When the opportunity comes He can fit them into their places in a moment, and the world will wonder where they came from. Let the Holy Spirit prepare you by all the discipline of life. When the last finishing touch has been given to the marble, it will be easy for God to put it on the pedestal and fit it into its niche.

There is a day coming, when, like Othniel (see judges 3:9-11) we too shall judge the nations and rule and reign with Christ on the millennial earth. Before that glorious day can be, we must let God prepare us as He did Othniel at Kirjath-Sepher (Judges 1:11-13) amid the trials of our present life and in the little victories the significance of which, perhaps, we little dream. We may be sure of this, that if the Holy Spirit has an Othniel ready, the Lord of heaven and earth has a throne prepared for him.

Is it for me to be used by His grace,

Helping His kingdom to bring?

Is it for me to inherit a place,

E'en on the throne of my King?

Scripture

Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—Ephesians 4:13

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Jesus who once suffered in Gethsemane will be our strength and our victory, too. We may fear, we may also sink, but let us not be dismayed, and we shall yet praise Him and look back from a finished course and say, Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord [our] God spake concerning [us] (Joshua 23:14).

But in order to do this, we must, like Jesus, meet the conflict, not with a defiant but with a submissive spirit. He had to say, Not my will, but thine be done, but in saying it He gained the very thing He surrendered. The submission of Gethsemane is not a blind and dead submission of a heart that abandons all its hope, but it is the free submission that bows the head in order to get double strength through faith and prayer.

We let go in order that we may take a firmer hold. We give up in order that we may more fully receive. We lay our Isaac on Mount Moriah, and we receive him back, no longer our Isaac, but God's Isaac and infinitely more secure because he is returned to us in resurrection life.

Scripture

Not my will, but thine—Luke 22:42

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, July 29, 2013

Christ's Church is overrun with captains. It is in great need of a few more privates. A few rivers run into the sea, but a larger number run into other rivers. We cannot all be Pioneers, but we can all be helpers. No man is fitted to go in first place until he has learned well how to go second.

A spirit of self-importance is fatal to all work for Christ. The biggest enemy of true spiritual power is spiritual self-consciousness. Joshua had to die to human plans and strategy before Jericho could fall.

God often has to test His chosen servants by putting them into a subordinate place before He can bring them to the front. Joseph had to learn to serve in the kitchen and to suffer in prison before he could rise to the throne. As soon as he was ready for the throne, the throne was waiting for Joseph. God has more places than accepted candidates. Let us not be afraid to go into the training class and even take the lowest place, for we shall soon move up if we really deserve to.

Lord, use me so that Thou shalt be glorified and I shall be hidden from myself and others.

Scripture

My helpers in Christ Jesus—Romans 16:3

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, July 22, 2013


Beloved, are you ministering to Christ? Arc you doing it with your hands? Are you doing it with your substance and with your gifts? Is He getting the best at your table? And when He does not come to fill the chair, is it free to His representative, His poor and humble children? Your words and wishes are cheap if they do not find expression in your actual gifts. Even Mary did not put Him off with the incense of her heart. Rather, she laid her costliest gift at His feet.


Busy person, you who work so hard to dress your children and furnish your home and table, what have your hands earned for the Master? What have you done or sacrificed for Jesus?


"Can you afford it?" was the question asked of an earnest woman as she promised a costly offering for the Master's work.


"No," was her noble reply, "but I can sacrifice it."


Let us today look around us and see what we are presently doing. Then let us give more to the loving Savior, who gave up His whole life for us.


Scripture


Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering—Romans 12:7





Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, July 21, 2013



Let us think for a moment of the blessedness of faith. Our own littleness and nothingness sometimes becomes bondage. We are so small in our own eyes we dare not claim God's mighty promises. We say: "If I could be sure I was in God's will I could trust."



This is all wrong. Self-consciousness is a great barrier to faith. Get your eyes on Him and Him alone. Not on your faith, but on the Author of your faith; not with a half look, but with a steadfast, prolonged look, with a true heart and fixedness of purpose that knows no faltering, no parleying with the enemy and not a shadow of fear. When you become fearful you are almost sure to fail.



Travelers who have crossed the Alps know how dangerous those mountain passes are, how narrow the foothold, how deep the rocky ravines. They know how necessary to safety it is that they look up continually. One downward glance into the dizzying depths might be fatal. So if we would surmount the heights of faith we must look up-look up. Take your eyes off yourself, off surrounding circumstances, off means, off gifts, and turn them to the Great Giver.



Scripture



Look from the place where thou art—Genesis 13:14

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Let this be a day of self-forgetting ministry for Christ and others. Let us not once think of being ministered unto, but rather say with Him: I am among you as he that serveth (Luke 22:27). Let us not drag our burdens through the day but drop all our loads of care and be free to carry His yoke and His burden. Let us make the happy exchange, relinquishing ours and taking His. Let the covenant be: Thou shalt abide for me . . . so will I also be for thee (Hosea 3:3).

In such abiding we lose our heaviest load-ourselves-and find our highest joy, divine love, more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). Let us do good to all men as we have opportunity. Let us lose no occasion of

blessing, and let us look for ingenious ways of service and usefulness. Especially let us seek to win others to Christ.

The Days of Heaven are busy days,

They serve continually.

So spent for Thee and Thine, our days,

As the Days of Heaven would be.

Scripture

Even Christ pleased not himself—Romans 15:3

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Let this be a day of prayer. Let us realize that our highest ministry and power is to deal with God for men. Let us be obedient to all the Holy Spirit's voices of prayer in us. Let us consider every pressure a call to prayer. Let us cultivate the spirit of unceasing prayer and constant communion.

Let us learn the meaning of the ministry of prayer. Through prayer let us reach people this day whom we cannot reach in person. Let us expect results that we have never dared to claim before. Let us count every difficulty only a greater occasion for prayer. And let us call on God, who will show us many great and mighty things which we know not.

And let this also be a day of joy and praise. Let us live in the promises of God and the expectancy of His deliverance and blessing. Let us never dwell on the trial but always on the victory just ahead. Let us not abide in the tomb, but in the garden of Joseph and the light of the resurrection. Let us keep our faces toward the rising sun. Arise, shine. Rejoice evermore. In everything give thanks. Praise ye the Lord.

Lord, give us Thy joy in our hearts which shall lift us to lift others, and fill us so we may overflow to others.

Scripture

Men ought always to pray—Luke 18:1
Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Monday, July 15, 2013

I am the Lord's then the Lord is mine. If Christ owns me I own Him. And so faith must reach out and claim its full inheritance and begin to use its great resources. Moment by moment we may now take Him as our grace and strength, our faith and love, our victory and joy, our all in all. And as we thus claim Him we will find His grace sufficient for us, and begin to learn that giving all is just receiving all.

Consecration is taking Jesus fully in exchange for our own miserable lives. There are two persons involved in such consecration. One of them is the Lord Himself. And for their sakes, He says, I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth (John 17:19). The moment we consecrate ourselves to Him, He consecrates Himself to us. Thereafter the whole strength of His life and love and everlasting power is dedicated to keep and complete our commitment to Him and to make the very best and most of our consecrated lives. Who would not give himself to such a Savior? Today, let us first give ourselves to Jesus, and then present to Him each moment as it comes, to be filled and used.

Scripture

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine—Song of Solomon 6:3

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

In order to enter into a life of consecration, there must be a sense of need-the need of purity, of power and of a greater nearness to the Lord. Christians often experience a second conviction. It is not now a sense of guilt and God's wrath so much as of the power and evil of inward sin, and the dissatisfaction with the life the person is living. It usually comes from the deeper revelation of God's truth, from more spiritual teaching, from definite examples and testimonies of this life in others. Or it may result from an experience of deep trial, conflict and temptation in which the Christian has found his attainments and resources inadequate for the real issues and needs of life.

The first result is often a deep discouragement and even despair, but the Valley of Achor is the door of hope, and Romans 7 with its bitter cry, 0 wretched man that I am (7:24) is the gateway to Romans 8 with its shout of triumph, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death (8:2).

Scripture

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God—Psalm 42:1

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Are you missing what belongs to you? Jesus has promised to sanctify you. He has promised sanctification for you by coming to you Himself and being made of God to you sanctification. Jesus is our sanctification. Having Him, we have obedience, rest, patience and everything we need. He is alive forevermore.

If you have Jesus nothing can be against you. Your temptations will not be against you. Your bad temper will not be against you. Your hard life, your circumstances-even the devil himself will not be against you. Every time he comes to attack you, he will only root you deeper in Christ. You will become a coward at the thought of being alone; you will be thrown on Jesus every time a trouble confronts you. From now on, all things will work together for good to your spiritual welfare. Since God is for you nothing can be against you.

My heavenly Bridegroom sought me and called me one glad day.

"Arise, my love, my fair one, arise and come away,"

I listened to His pleading, gave Him all my heart,

And we are one forever and nevermore shall part.

Scripture

By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified—Hebrews 10:14

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, July 12, 2013

Consecration is entered into by an act of faith. We are to take sanctification as a gift from God, believing and confessing that we have it. We must step out on it firmly. We must let the devil also know we have it. When once we tell the Lord, boldly, "I am yours, "He answers back from the heavenly heights, "You are Mine, and the echoes go ringing down through all our lives, "Mine!" "Yours!"

If you dare confess Christ as your Savior and Sanctifier, He has bound Himself to make these truths a reality. But you must stand behind His mighty Word. It is the essence of testimony to tell what Jesus has promised to become to you. It is right to have a glorious word of testimony. God would have us put our seal on the promises and lift up our hands and acknowledge them as ours.

Then you are to ignore the old life and reckon it no longer yours-even if it should return to trouble you again. Every time it appears say, "This is from the underworld. I am sitting in the heavenly places with Christ."

Scripture
When ye pray, believe that ye receive—Mark 11:24

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Let this be a day of self-forgetting ministry for Christ and others. Let us not once think of being ministered unto, but rather say with Him: I am among you as he that serveth (Luke 22:27). Let us not drag our burdens through the day but drop all our loads of care and be free to carry His yoke and His burden. Let us make the happy exchange, relinquishing ours and taking His. Let the covenant be: Thou shalt abide for me . . . so will I also be for thee (Hosea 3:3).

In such abiding we lose our heaviest load-ourselves-and find our highest joy, divine love, more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). Let us do good to all men as we have opportunity. Let us lose no occasion of

blessing, and let us look for ingenious ways of service and usefulness. Especially let us seek to win others to Christ.

The Days of Heaven are busy days,

They serve continually.

So spent for Thee and Thine, our days,

As the Days of Heaven would be.

Scripture
Even Christ pleased not himself—Romans 15:3

Days of Heaven on Earth

Sunday, July 07, 2013

In the last chapter of Exodus we read of all the Lord commanded Moses to do. As he fulfilled these commands the glory of the Lord descended and filled the tabernacle until there was no room for Moses. From that time the pillar of cloud overshadowed the tabernacle as Israel's guide and their protection.

Even so we have been building as the Lord Himself commanded, and now the temple is to be handed over to Him, to be possessed and filled. He will so fill us, if we will let Him, that self and everything else will be taken out of the way. The glory of the Lord will fill the temple, encompassing, lifting, guiding, keeping; and from this time our moon shall not withdraw its light, nor our sun go down.

Do you want power? You have God for it. Do you want holiness? You have God for it. You have God for every need! He is bending down from His throne today to lift you to your true place in Him. From this time on may the cloud of His glory so surround and fill us that we shall be lost sight of forever.

Scripture
And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle—Exodus 40:35

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, July 08, 2013

Grace literally means that which we do not have to earn. It has two great senses always; it comes without charge, and it comes when we are helpless. Grace does not merely help the man who helps himself-that is not the gospel. The gospel is that God helps the man who cannot help himself. In addition, God helps the man to help himself, for everything the man does comes from God. Grace is given to the man who is so weak and helpless he cannot take the first step. That is the meaning of grace-at least a little of its meaning. We can never know the fullness of it.

This river of grace is as free as it is full, but some people, surprisingly, have the idea that when they get a little farther on they must pay an admission, or pay to reserve a seat, and they shrink back from the higher blessings of the gospel. Ordinary Christians scarcely dare to claim them. If I understand the meaning of the gospel, God has not put the higher blessings apart for a separate class who somehow are nearer to Him. God is no respecter of persons.

Scripture
Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh—Galatians 3:3


Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Sometimes when we bring a burden to God, we do so much groaning over it that it seems as though God is having a dreadful time, too. In reality it does not burden Him at all. God says in effect, "It is a light thing for Me to do this for you." Our load, though heavy for us, is not heavy for Him. Christ carries the whole on one shoulder, not two shoulders. The government of the world is upon His shoulder, and He is not struggling and groaning with it. His mighty arm is able to carry all our burdens.

There is power in Christ for our sanctification. Yes, the Lord can sanctify, the Lord can heal, the Lord can do anything. You must have faith in God. If you come to a river this morning, will it take you as the mighty Niagara would take a little boat and carry you along-to a precipice? Oh, no, but to the heart of love and blessing forever.

Oft there comes a wondrous message,

When my hopes are growing dim,

I can hear it thro' the darkness

Like some sweet and far-off hymn.

Nothing is too hard for Jesus

No man can work like Him.

Scripture
Cast thy burden on the Lord—Psalm 55:22

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The highest blessings of the gospel are just as free as the lowest; when you have served God ten years you cannot sit down and say, "I have an experience now and I count on that." We so often do that! We say, "Now I know I am saved, I feel it." And so we are building a different foundation-we build on something in ourselves.

Always take grace as something you do not deserve, something that is freely bestowed. The long, deep, boundless river is free-as free at the mouth as it is at the little feeder stream. It is free all along its course; anybody can come and drink, and anybody can come and bathe in its refreshing waters. Do you believe that?

God has given us His Holy Spirit that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God. It is a sad thing for a poor starving child to look longingly through the window and see a fire and the happy family sitting around a laden table. What is the good of knowing that there is warmth and love and light if it is not free? God has freely given all the goodness of His grace and love.

Scripture
That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God—1 Corinthians 2:12

Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, July 11, 2013

A day with Jesus. Let us seek its plan and direction from Him. Let us take His highest thought and will for us in it. Let us look to Him for our desires, ideals, expectations in it. Then it will bring to us the exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Let Him be our Guide and Way. More even than thinking of His plan and way, let us think of Him as our personal every-moment Guide, on whom we constantly depend to lead us step by step.

Let Him also be the sufficiency and strength for all the day. Let us never forget the secret: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me (Philippians 4:13). Let us have Jesus Christ Himself in us to do the works, and let us every moment depend on Him, both to will and do [in us] of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Let our holiness be the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). Let our health be the life . . . of Jesus . . . manifest in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:11). Let our faith be the faith of the Son of God, who loves [us] (Galatians 2:20). Let our peace and joy be His peace and joy. And let our service be not our works, but the grace of Christ within us.

Scripture
For it is God which worketh in you—Philippians 2:13

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, July 01, 2013
Are we learning love in the school of suffering? Are our hearts being mellowed and deepened by the summer heat of trial until the fruit of the Spirit-love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance-is ripening for the harvest of His coming, and our sufferings are easily borne for His sake? This is the school of love, and the lessons make Him unutterably more dear to our hearts and us to His. In this way only can we learn with Him the heavenly charity which suffers long, and is kind.

We see that the very first and the very last features of the face of love, as delineated in Paul's portrait of it (1 Corinthians 13), are marks of pain and patient suffering-suffers long, endureth all things. So let us learn in the school of love to suffer, to be kind and to endure all things. Surely it will not be hard to love through every circumstance when it is the heart of Jesus within us that will love and continue to love to the very end.

I want the love that suffers and is kind,

That envies not nor vaunts its pride of fame.

Is not puffed up, does not discourteous act,

Is not provoked, nor seeks its own to claim.

Scripture
After that ye have suffered a while—1 Peter 5:10

Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Ascension is more than resurrection. Much is said of it in the New Testament. Christ rises above all things. We see Him in the very act of ascending, as we do not in the actual resurrection. With hands and lips engaged in blessing, He gently parts from His disciples. So simply, so unostentatiously, He has brought heaven near to our common life.

We, too, must ascend, even here. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above (Colossians 3:1). We must learn to live on the heavenly side and look at things from above.

To contemplate all things as God sees them, as Christ beholds them, overcomes sin, defies Satan, dissolves perplexities, lifts us above trials, separates us from the world and conquers fear of death. Such a perspective enables us to view them as we shall one day look back upon them from His glory, and as if we were now really seated with Him, as indeed we are, in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

Let us arise with His resurrection and, in fellowship with His glorious ascension, learn to live above.

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And hath raised us up together—Ephesians 2:6

Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
Yes, our perplexities would become plain if we kept on a spiritual elevation. Often when the traveler quite loses his way he can discern it again from some hilltop where all the winding paths on which he has come appear behind him, and the whole homeward road opens before. So, from the heights of prayer and faith, we too can see the plain path and know we are going home.

There is no other way in which we can gain the victory over the world. We must rise above it. We must see it from the side of our great reward. Then it will look like earthly objects do after we have gazed upon the sun for a while. We are blind to them.

When the Italian fruit seller finds that he is heir to a ducal palace you cannot tempt him anymore with the paltry profits of his trade or the company of his old associates. He is above it all. They who know the hope of their calling and the riches of the glory of their inheritance can well despise the world. It is the poor starving ones who go hungering for the husks of earth. We are born from above and have a longing to go home. Let us go forth today with our hearts on the home stretch.

Scripture
Look from the top—Song of Solomon 4:8

Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, July 04, 2013
What becomes of our old nature when we are sanctified? Many people are unduly concerned to know if it can be killed outright and seem to desire a sort of certificate of its death and burial. It is enough to know that it is outside and Christ is in us. It may show itself again, and even knock at the door and plead for admittance, but it is forever outside while we abide in Him. Should we step out of Him and into sin we might find the old corpse in the ghastly cemetery, and its foul aroma might yet embrace and overcome us once more. But he that abideth in him sinneth not and cannot sin while he so abides.

Let us therefore abide and let us not be anxious to escape the hold of eternal vigilance and ceaseless abiding. Our paths are made and we are given strength to pursue them; let us then walk in them. God has provided for us a full sanctification. Since He has given us His own holiness, is it strange that he should require us to be holy, even as He is holy? Let us then put on our beautiful garments and prepare to walk in white with Him.

Scripture
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not—1 John 3:6

Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, July 05, 2013

The figure here is of a beautiful, fruitful enclosure, not a wilderness. Garden soil is cultivated soil, very different from the roadside or wilderness. The idea of a garden is culture. The ground has to be prepared, to be broken up by ploughing, to be mellowed by harrowing. All the stones have to be removed and the roots of all natural growth dug up. The good things we are seeking are not natural growths and will not prosper in our natural soil. We all feel we should try to improve the old nature, but that is not God's way. His method is to get self out of the way entirely, and let Him create anew out of nothing, so that all shall be of Him; and Jesus will be the acknowledged Alpha and Omega.

The thing we want to learn here is to die. There can be no real life till self dies. And we dare not try to die ourselves, but ask God to slay us; He will make a thorough work of it.

This the secret nature hideth,

Summer dies and lives again,

Spring from winter's grave ariseth,

Harvest grows from buried grain.

Scripture
A garden enclosed—Song of Solomon 4:12

Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, July 06, 2013

If the household be too little for the lamb. . . . What does all this mean for us as redeemed men and women? Surely, this-that we have no right to claim the purchase of the Savior's blood for ourselves alone, and that we are guilty of selfishness, dishonesty and base in gratitude if we can be content to be saved without having done everything in our power to give our fellow men an equal opportunity of eternal life. Have we understood this? Have we lived it?

But who is the neighbor with whom we are to share God's Lamb? He is spoken of here as the one that is next to us, the one in closest contact with us. Surely, that means that God brings people into touch with us in order that we may be stewards of His grace to them. The people in our families, the fellow traveler, friends in our social circles and people with whom we work-these are the neighbors to whom we owe a spiritual responsibility. Have we met it according to our utmost ability?

Did'st Thou love and die for

A sinner like me?

Then, Master, I will take

More thought for the perishing

Souls I may meet

If it's only for Thy sake.

Scripture
If the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls—Exodus 12:4

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, June 28, 2013

Will we make the claim most practical and real and, like John, at the Last Supper, lean our full weight upon our Lord's breast? That is the way He would have us prove our love. "if you love me lean hard," said a heathen woman to her missionary, as she was timidly leaning her tired body upon her stalwart body. She felt slighted by the timorous reserve and asked the confidence that would lay all its weight upon the one she trusted.

Jesus says to us, [Cast] all your care upon [me]; for [I care] for you (1 Peter 5:7). He would have us prove our love by a perfect trust that makes no reserve. He is able to carry all our care, to manage all our interests, to satisfy all our needs.

Let us go forth leaning upon Him and feeding on His life. For John not only leaned but also fed. It was at supper that he leaned. This is the secret of feeding on Him, to rest upon His bosom. This is the need of the fevered heart of man. Let us cry to Him, Tell me, 0 thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon (Song of Solomon 1:7).

Scripture
Leaning upon her beloved—Song of Solomon 8:5

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Do not fail to mark these two stages in Christian life. The one is the Spirit's work in us, the other is the Spirit's personal coming to abide within us. All true Christians know the first, but few, it is to be feared, understand and receive the second.

There is a great difference between my building a house and my going to reside in that house and making it my home. And there is a great difference between the Holy Spirit's work in regenerating a soul-the building of a house-and His coming to reside, abide and control in our innermost spirit and our whole life and being.

Have we received Him, not as our Guest, but as the Owner, Proprietor and Keeper of the temple He has built to be an habitation of God through the Spirit? (Ephesians 2:22).

This is my wonderful story,

Christ to my heart has come,

Jesus the King of glory

Finds in my heart a home.

I am so glad I received Him,

Jesus my heart's dear King,

I, who so often have grieved Him,

All to His feet would bring.

Scripture
He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you—John 14:17

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Every victor must first be a self-conqueror. But the method of Joshua's victory was the uplifted arm of Moses on the mount. As Moses held up his hands, Joshua prevailed; as he lowered them, Amalek prevailed. It was to be a battle of faith and not of human strength. The banner that was to wave over the discomfited foe was Jehovah-nissi. This, too, is the secret of our spiritual triumph. If we are led of the Spirit we shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14).

Have we begun the battle and in the strength of Christ planted our feet on our own necks? And thus victorious over the enemy in the citadel of the heart, have we been set at liberty for the battle of the Lord and the service of others? It was this lack that hindered the life of Saul, and it has wrecked many a promising career. One enemy in the heart is stronger than ten thousand in the field. May the Lord lead us all into Joshua's first triumph and show us the secret of self crucifixion through the greater Joshua, who alone can lead us on to holiness and victory!

Scripture
[Who] always causeth us to triumph—2 Corinthians 2:14

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, June 23, 2013

We are the sons of God. We are not merely called such or even legally declared so, but we actually are sons of God by receiving the life and nature of God. And so we are the very brethren of our Lord, not only in His human nature, but still more so in His divine relationship.

Therefore, he is not ashamed to call [us] brethren (Hebrews 2:11). He gives us that which entitles us to that right, and makes us worthy of it. He does not introduce us into a position for which we are uneducated and unfitted, but He gives us a nature worthy of our glorious standing; and as He shall look upon us in our complete and glorious exaltation-reflecting His own likeness and shining in His Father's glory-He shall have no cause to be ashamed of us.

Even now He is pleased to acknowledge us before the universe and call us brethren in the sight of all earth and heaven. oh, how this dignifies the humblest saint of God! How little we need mind the misunderstanding of the world if He is not ashamed to call [us] brethren.

So let us go out today to rightly represent His royal family.

Scripture
Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be—1 John 3:2
Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, June 24, 2013

For Paul every exercise of the Christian life was simply the grace of Jesus Christ imparted to him and lived out by him. To be holy meant to put on the Lord Jesus and all the robes of His perfect righteousness which Paul describes so often in his beautiful letters.

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, he says to the Colossians, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness (Colossians 3:12). None of these things is regarded as an intrinsic quality in us. Rather, they are all imparted graces from the hand of Jesus. And even in the later years of life, and after the mature experience of a quarter of a century, we find Paul exclaiming, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ, and be found in him (Philippians 3:8-9).

Lord, enable us today to go out, clothed in Thy robes of perfect rightness, and with our hearts in adjustment with Thy perfect love.

Scripture
I will clothe thee with change of raiment—Zechariah 3:4

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, June 21, 2013

In the Apostle's lists of officers in the church, the helps are mentioned before the governments, By the ministry of prayer, by the ministry of giving, by the ministry of encouragement, by the shining face and mute pressure of the hand and a little word of cheer, and by the countless ways in which we can help-or at least can keep from hindering-we can all still find the footprints of Aquila and Priscilla, if we want to follow them.

It is a valuable gift to be able to rejoice in another's work and pour our lives, like affluent streams, into great rivers. But God knows the source of every drop, and in the greater day of recompense many of the helps shall have the chief reward.

Are you helping? Are you helping your pastor, your brother, your husband, your mother, your father, your fellow worker? And when the harvest comes shall not he that soweth and he that reapeth rejoice together?

You can help by holy prayer,

Helpful love and joyful song,

Oh, the burdens you may bear,

Oh, the sorrows you may share,

Oh, the crowns you yet may wear,

If you help along.

Scripture

God hath set some in the church . . . helps—1 Corinthians 12:28

Days of Heaven on Earth

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Do you complain about your calling or fret about the changes and trials of life? How do you know but that these very changes are the divine methods by which God's purposes of blessing and usefulness concerning you are being fulfilled?

Had Aquila and Priscilla not been compelled to leave Rome and break up their home and business, they probably would never have met Paul, nor would they have come to know and serve Christ through this providential meeting. Had they not been working persons pursuing their ordinary vocation, they would not have been brought into contact with the apostle. it was in the line of their calling, their common duties and the providential changes of their lives that God called them. And so He meets us.

Do not attempt to run away from your calling, but, as the apostle has so aptly put it, Let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God (1 Corinthians 7:24). Make the most of your incidental opportunities.

Scripture

Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called—1 Corinthians 7:20

Days of Heaven on Earth

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

When work is pressing, there are many little things that will come and seem to need attention. it is a very blessed thing to be quiet and still, work on and entrust the little things to God. He answers such trust in a wonderful way. The believer who has no time to fret and worry and harbor care has learned the secret of faith in God. A desperate desire to change some difficult circumstance may take our eyes off God and His glory. Some suffering Christians have been so anxious to get well and have spent so much time in trying to claim healing, that they have lost their spiritual blessing. God sometimes has to teach such persons that there must be a willingness to be sick before they are yielded enough to receive His fullest blessing.

The enemy keeps at this work. Sanballat came four times to Nehemiah, always receiving the same answer. How many fears we have stopped to fight which ultimately have proved to be nothing. Nehemiah recognized that fear is sin and did not dare to yield to it.

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I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down—Nehemiah 6:3

Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, June 16, 2013

Jesus does not say you cannot very well serve God and mammon. Rather, He says you cannot serve two masters at all. If you try, you will surely end up serving only one. The person who thinks he or she is serving God a little is deceived. He or she is not serving God. God will not have that service. The devil will monopolize the person before long.

A divided heart loses both worlds. Saul tried it. Balaam tried it. Judas tried it. Their efforts ended in desperate failure.

For Mary there was but one choice. Paul said: This one thing I do, and For me to live is Christ. Of such a life God says: Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name (Psalm 91:14). God takes a peculiar pride in revealing His love to the heart that wholly chooses Him. Heaven and earth will fade away before its trust can be disappointed. Have we chosen Him only and given Him all our hearts?

Say, is it all for Jesus,

As you so often sing?

Is He your Royal Master?

Is He your heart's dear King?

Scripture
Ye cannot serve God and mammon—Matthew 6:24

Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, June 17, 2013

He comes by our side as our helper. More than that, He comes to dwell within us, to be the life in our blood, the fire in our thought, the faith within us, both in inception and consummation. Thus He becomes not only the recompense of the victor, but the resources of the victory. He is the Captain, the Overcomer and the Rear Guard in our lives.

The help that relieved us on that particularly troubled morning-it was of Him. He lifts our eyes up unto Himself and delivers us from apathy, from discontent and from fears. He is always the helper in this heavenly competition and will be the great reward in all the ages to come.

If our life is hidden with Him we shall have to go through the same trials that He went through, but we shall not find them too hard. If we but take Him fully as the strength of our life, and our all in all, we shall be able to lay aside all the hindering things that press upon us day by day.

I have overcome, overcome,

Overcome for thee.

Thou shalt overcome, overcome,

Overcome thro' Me.

Scripture
The glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward—Isaiah 58:8

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, June 15, 2013

Harvest is a time of ripeness. Then the fruit and grain are fully developed, both in size and weight. Time has tempered the acid of the green fruit. It has been mellowed and softened by the rains and the heat of summer. The sun has tinted it into rich colors, and at last it is ready and ripe to fall into the hand.

So the Christian life ought to be. There are many things in life that need to be mellowed and ripened. Many Christians have orchards full of fruit, but the fruit is green and sharp to the taste. There is a great deal in these Christians that is good, but it is incomplete-very sharp and sour. Perhaps something goes wrong in their domestic lives. They become flustered and cross and lose their confidence in God, and then, of course, their Christian joy. These things produce regret and all kinds of misery.

Every day there are things for which we are sorry. We know we are not ripe and mellow and that we cannot become so by trying. We cannot bring the sweetness in. It must be wrought out from within.

Scripture
Grow up into him in all things—Ephesians 4:15