Days of Heaven on Earth

Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, January 25, 2011

It is good to be able to receive new truth and blessing without sacrificing the truths already proved or abandoning foundations already laid.

Some persons are always laying the foundations, until, finally, they appear like a number of abandoned sites and half-constructed buildings. Nothing is ever brought to completion.

If today you are abandoning for some new truth the things that a year ago you counted most precious and believed to be divinely true, this should be sufficient evidence that a year from now you will probably abandon your present convictions for the next new light that comes to you.

God wants to continually add to us, to develop us, to enlarge us, to teach us more and more but always building on what He has already taught us and what He has established in our lives.

While we are to prove all things, let us hold fast that which is good, and whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing (Philippians 3:16).

Scripture
Hold fast that which is good—1 Thessalonians 5:21

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, January 24, 2011

When God does anything marked and special for our souls or bodies, He intends it as a sacred trust for us to communicate to others. Freely ye have received, freely give.

It has pleased the Master in these closing days of His dispensation of grace to reveal Himself in peculiar blessing to the hearts of His chosen disciples in all parts of the Christian church. But this is intended to be communicated to a still wider circle. Every one of us who has been brought into these intimate relations with God becomes a trustee or witness for these higher truths to everyone we can influence.

If God has revealed Himself to us as our Sanctifier, it is that we may help others to Him as a Sanctifier.

If He has become our Healer, it is because there are sick and suffering people to whom we can bring some blessing.

In like manner, if the hope of the Lord's coming has become precious to us, it would be worse than ingratitude for us to hide our testimony to this truth and hold it only for our own personal comfort.

Scripture
Freely ye have received, freely give—Matthew 10:8

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, January 23, 2011

It is a great deliverance to lose one's self. There is no heavier millstone than self-consciousness. It is so easy to become introverted and coiled around ourselves in our spiritual consciousness. There is nothing that is so easy to fasten onto as our misery: there is nothing that is more apt to produce self-consciousness than suffering. Then it becomes almost a settled habit to hold onto our burden and pray it unceasingly into the very face of God until even our prayer saturates us with our own misery. Rather, we should ask for power to drop ourselves altogether and leave ourselves in His loving hands and know that we are free. Then we may rise into the blessed liberty of His higher thoughts and will and demonstrate His love and care for others.

The very act of letting go of ourselves lifts us into a higher place and relieves us from the thing that is hurting. This habit of prayer for others, and especially for the world, brings its own recompense and leaves upon our hearts a blessing, like the fertility which the Nile deposits upon the soil of Egypt as it flows through to its ultimate goal.

Scripture
I knew a man in Christ—2 Corinthians 12:2

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, January 22, 2011
There is danger of becoming morbid even in preparing for the Lord's coming. I remember a time when I determined to devote myself to a month of waiting upon the Lord for a baptism of the Holy Ghost. Before the end of the month the Lord had shaken me out of the seclusion and compelled me to go out and carry His message to others. As I went He met me in my service to Him.
There is a musty, monkish way of seeking a blessing. There is also a wholesome, practical holiness which finds us in the company of the Lord Himself, not only in the closet and on the mountaintop of prayer but among publicans and sinners and in the practical duties of life.
The practical preparation for the Lord's coming consists first of fully entering into fellowship with Him in our own spiritual lives, letting Him not only cleanse us, but perfect us in all the finer touches of the Spirit's deeper work. Following that it will mean getting out of ourselves and living for the benefit of others and the preparation of the world for His appearing.
Scripture
His wife hath made herself ready—Revelation 19:7

Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, January 21, 2011
An important help in the life of prayer is the habit of bringing everything to God, moment by moment, as it comes to us in life. This may become a habit the same way all habits are formed: repeated and constantly attended, moment by moment, until that which is at first an act of will becomes spontaneous and second nature.
If we will watch our lives, we shall find that God meets the things that we commit to Him in prayer with special blessing. He often allows the best things that we have not committed to Him to be ineffectual, simply to remind us of our dependence upon Him for everything. It is very gracious and thoughtful of God to compel us gently to remember Him. He would hold us so close to Himself that we cannot get away for a single minute from His all-sustaining arm. In every thing . . . let your requests be made known unto God (Philippians 4:6).
Let us bring our least petitions,
Like the incense beaten small,
All our cares, complaints, conditions
Jesus loves to bear them all.
Scripture
Pray without ceasing—1 Thessalonians 5:17

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Someone has said that the most spiritual people are the easiest to get along with. When one has a little of the Holy Spirit it is like "a little learning, a dangerous thing." But a full baptism of the Holy Spirit and a really disciplined established and tested spiritual life makes one simple, tender, tolerant, considerate and childlike.
James and John, in their early zeal, want to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans. But John, the aged, allowed Demetrius to exclude him from the church, and, with the patience of Jesus, suffered on Patmos for the kingdom. And aged Paul was willing to take back even Mark, whom he had refused as a companion in his early ministry and to acknowledge that he was profitable to him for the ministry.
I want the love that cannot help but love;
Loving, like God, for very sake of love.
A spring so full that it must overflow,
A fountain flowing from the throne above.
Now abideth faith, hope, [love]; but the greatest of these is [love] (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Scripture
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of—Luke 9:55

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, January 19, 2011

I once heard an old man say something that I have never forgotten. "When God tests you it is a good time for you to test Him by putting His promises to the proof. Claim from Him just as much as your trials have made necessary."

There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is simply to try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had. We should greet it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of divine grace.

Thus even the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the things that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way. Surely, we are to be more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:37).

Blessed Rose of Sharon

Breathe upon our heart,

Fill us with Thy fragrance,

Keep us as Thou art.

Then Thy life will make us

Holy and complete;

In Thy grace triumphant,

In Thy sweetness, sweet.

Scripture
Prove me now herewith—Malachi 3:10

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
There is a beautiful touch of loving thoughtfulness in the account of Christ's miracle at Capernaum in providing the tribute money. After the reference to Peter's interview with the tax collector, the Scriptures add, when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him (17:25); that is, anticipated him, as the old Saxon word means. Jesus arranged for the need before Peter had to speak about it at all and sent him down to the sea to find the piece of gold in the mouth of the fish.
So the Lord is always thinking in advance of our needs. He loves to save us from embarrassment. He anticipates and cares by laying up His loving acts and providing before the emergency comes.
Then with exquisite tenderness the Master adds: That take, and give to them for me and thee. He puts Himself first in the embarrassing need and bears the heavy end of the burden for His distressed and suffering child. He makes our cares His cares, our sorrows His sorrows, our shame His shame. He is able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15).
Scripture
That take, and give unto them for me and thee—Matthew 17:27

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, January 17, 2011
God does not have two ways for any of us, but one. Not two things for us to do which we may choose between, but one best and highest choice. It is a blessed thing to find and fill the perfect will of God. It is a blessed thing to have our life laid out and our Christian work adjusted to God's plan.
Much strength is lost by working at a venture. Much spiritual force can be expended in wasted effort and in scattered, indefinite and inconstant attempts at doing good. There is spiritual force and financial strength enough in the hands and hearts of the consecrated Christians of today, if it were only wisely directed and used according to God's plan, to bring about the evangelization of the world in a generation.
Christ has laid down a definite plan of work for His Church, and He expects us to understand it and to work up to it. As we catch His thought and obediently, loyally fulfill it, we shall work with purpose. In so doing we please Him far better than by our thoughtless, reckless and indiscriminate attempts to carry out our ideas and compel God to bless our work.
Scripture
It is God which worketh in you—Philippians 2:13

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, January 16, 2011

The water in a steam locomotive may be at any one of three temperatures. It may be cold, although clean and ready for the fire. It may be hot, very hot-hot enough to scald you, almost boiling. Or the water may be just one degree hotter-at the boiling point-pouring out its vapor in clouds of steam, pressing through the valves and driving the mighty pistons that turn the wheels and propel the train.

There are three kinds of Christians. The first we will call cold-water Christians-perhaps better, clean-water Christians.

The second are hot-water Christians. They are almost at the boiling point.

One degree more, and we come to the third class of Christians-the boiling-water Christians. The difference between the latter two is a very slight one. It is simply the removal of one last reservation, the dropping of one "if." Yet it makes all the difference in the world. That one degree changes that engine into a motive power, not now just a machine to be looked at, but a locomotive to go.

Scripture
Prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God—Romans 12:2

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Let us abide in Him. It is much easier to keep the fire burning than to rekindle it after it has gone out. Let us not have to remove the cinders and ashes from our hearthstones every day and kindle a new flame; but let us keep it burning and never let it expire. Among the ancient Greeks the sacred fire was never allowed to go out. So, in a higher sense, let us keep the heavenly flame aglow upon the altar of our hearts.
It takes much less effort to maintain a good habit than to form it. A true spiritual habit once formed becomes a spontaneous tendency of our being, and we grow into delightful freedom in following it. Let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works (Hebrews 6:1); whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing (Philippians 3:16).
Every spiritual habit begins with difficulty and effort and watchfulness. But if we will only let it get thoroughly established, it will become a channel along which the currents of life will flow with divine spontaneousness and freedom.
Scripture
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him-Colossians 2:6

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, January 14, 2011
God loves us so well that He will not permit us to take less than His highest will. Some day we shall thank our faithful Teacher who kept the standard inflexible and then gave us the strength and grace to reach it. We shall thank Him who would not excuse us until we had accomplished all His glorious will.
Let us be inexorable with ourselves. Let us mean exactly what God means, and have no discounts upon His promises or commandments. Let us keep the standard up, and never rest until we reach it. Let God be true, but every man a liar (Romans 3:4). Even if we fail a hundred times, let us not accommodate God's ideal to our thinking, let us rather be like the brave ensign who stood in front of his company waving the regimental banner. When the soldiers tried to call him back, he only waved the banner higher and cried, "Don't bring the colors back to the regiment; bring the regiment up to the colors."
Forward, forward, leave the past behind thee,
Reaching forth unto the things before;
All the Land of Promise lies before thee,
God has greater blessings yet in store.
Scripture
Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—Ephesians 4:13

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, January 12, 2011

We must receive, as well as ask. We must take the place of believing and recognize ourselves as in it.

A friend once said to me, "I want to get into the will of God." I answered: "Will you then step into the will of God? And now, are you in the will of God? My question aroused in the man a thought he had not considered. He saw that he had been straining after but not receiving the blessing he sought.

Jesus had said, Ask, and ye shall receive (John 16:24). The very strain keeps back the blessing. The strong tension of all your spiritual nature so binds you that you are not open to the blessing which God is waiting to give you. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17).

He tells me there is cleansing

From every secret sin,

And a great and full salvation

To keep the heart within

And I take Him in His fullness,

With all His glorious grace,

For He says it is mine by taking,

And I take just what He says.

Scripture
Ask, and it shall be given you-Matthew 7:7

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
A Jewish man was asked how it was that his countrymen were so successful in acquiring wealth. "Ah," said he, "we do not make more money than other people, but we keep more." Beloved, let us be on guard this day against spiritual pickpockets and spiritual leakage. Let us lose not those things which we have wrought. Let us be sure we receive a full reward (2 John 8). As each day comes and goes, let us deposit in the savings bank of eternity its treasures of grace and victory, being conscious that something real and everlasting is being added daily to our eternal fortune.
It may be but a little, but if we can save all that God gives us and pass it on to His keeping, when the end of all things comes, we shall be amazed to see how much the accumulated treasures of a well-spent life have laid up on high. We shall see how much more God has added to them by His glorious investment of the life committed to His keeping.
How the days are passing! How precious these golden hours will seem sometime! God help us to make the most of them now.
Scripture
Hold fast till I come—Revelation 2:25
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Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, January 10, 2011
The graceful dress of the Hindu woman is fastened upon her person by means of a single knot. The long strip of cloth is wound around her so that it falls in soft folds like a ready-made garment. The end, however, is fastened by a little knot, and the whole thing hangs by that single fastening.
So it is in the spiritual life; our habits of grace can be compared to garments. It is also true that the garment of love, which is the beautiful adorning of the child of God, is entirely fastened by little nots.
If you will read First Corinthians chapter 13 with care, you will find that most of the qualities of love are purely negative. Love . . . envieth not, love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. Here are "nots" enough to hold on our spiritual wardrobe. Here also are reasons enough to explain the failure of so many, and the reason why they walk naked, or with torn garments, allowing others to see their shame. Let us look after the nots.
Scripture
Charity . . . doth not behave itself unseemly—1 Corinthians 13:5

Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, January 09, 2011
There are two attitudes in which our will should be given to God.
First, we should have the surrendered will. This is where we must all begin, by yielding up to God our natural will and having Him possess it.
But next, He wants us to have the victorious will. As soon as He receives our will in honest surrender, He wants to put His will into it and make it stronger than ever for Him. It is hence-forth no longer our will, but His will. And having yielded to His choice and placed itself under His direction, He wants to put into it all the strength and intensity of His own great will and make us positive, forceful, victorious and unmovable-even as Himself.
Not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22:42). That is the first step. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me (John 17:24). That is the second attitude. Both are divine; both are right; both are necessary to our right living and successful working for God.
Scripture
Not as I will but as thou wilt (Matt. 26:39). To will and to do of his good pleasure—Philippians 2:13

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, January 08, 2011

A little child with a tale of woe on his heart flies to his mother's arms for comfort-intending to tell her the whole story of his trouble. But as soon as that mother takes the child in her arms and expresses her love, the child becomes so occupied with her and the sweetness of her affection that he forgets to tell his story, and in a little while even the memory of the trouble is forgotten. It has just been loved away and the mother has taken its place in the heart of her child.

In this same manner, God comforts us. It is I, be not afraid is His reassuring word. The circumstances are not altered, but He Himself comes in their place and satisfies our every need, and we forget all things in His gracious presence as He becomes our all in all.

I am breathing out my sorrow

On Thy kind and loving breast;

Breathing in Thy joy and comfort,

Breathing in Thy peace and rest.

I am breathing out my longings

In Thy listening, loving ear;

I am breathing in Thy answer,

Stilling every doubt and fear.

Scripture
It is I, be not afraid—Mark 6:50

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, January 07, 2011
This is a most precious promise. The revised translation is both accurate and suggestive. It is not merely from falling that He wants to keep us, but from even the slightest stumbling.
We are told that Abraham staggered not at the promise (Romans 4:20). God wants us to walk so steadily that there will not even be a quiver in the line of His regiments as they face the foe. It is the little stumblings of life that most discourage and hinder us, and most of these stumblings are over trivialities. Satan would much rather knock us down with a feather than with a gun. It is much more to his honor and delight to defeat a child of God by some insignificant matter than by some great temptation.
Beloved, let us be on guard against the banana peels that trip us on our pathway, the little foxes that destroy the vines and the dead flies that spoil a whole vessel of precious ointment. "Trifles make perfection," and as we get farther on in our Christian life, God will hold us much more closely to obedience in things that seem insignificant.
Scripture
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling—Jude 24

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, January 06, 2011

"Lovest thou me?" the Master asks of each disciple. He expects our first and highest love for Himself, personally, and He has a right to it. More than all our service, more than all our work to build up a cause, He desires our personal devotion to Him. Mary's gift was precious because it was personal. Ye have the poor with you always; but me ye have not always (Mark 14:7), was His tender suggestion of a danger which defeats His purpose-our being more occupied with the work of Christ than with Christ Himself.

We need the love of Christ in order to fit us for His work. Nothing else will give it its true aim and center; nothing else will sustain us amid its pressures.

When Jesus was about to send Simon to take care of His flock, He did not ask Him, "Lovest thou my sheep and my lambs?" He asked, "Lovest thou me?" Mere love for people will not enable us to be true to them; but love for Christ will give us a reflected love for others that will enable us to touch them for Him and to bless them as our direct touch never could.

Scripture
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments— 1 John 5:2

Simpson Devotional

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, January 05, 2011

God wants people whom He can depend upon. He could say of Abraham, I know, him, . . . that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. God can be depended upon. He wants us to be just as decided, just as reliable and just as stable. This is what faith means. God is looking for men on whom He can put the weight of all His love and power and faithful promises. When God finds such a soul there is nothing He will not do for him. God's engines are strong enough to pull any weight we attach to them. Unfortunately, the cable which we fasten to the engine is often too weak to hold the weight of our prayer; therefore, God is drilling us, disciplining us and training us that we may achieve stability and certainty in the life of faith. Let us learn our lessons and let us stand fast.

God has His best things for the few

Who dare to stand the test;

God has His second choice for those

Who will not have His best.

Give me, 0 Lord, Thy highest choice,

Let others take the rest.

Their good things have no charm for me,

For I have got Thy best.

Scripture
I know him . . . that [he] will keep the way of the Lord—Genesis 18:19

Days of Heaven on Earth
Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Three things are notable about this blessed man:

1. His company. He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

2. His reading and thinking. His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

3. His fruitfulness. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

The river is the Holy Spirit; the planting, the deep abiding life in which, not occasionally but habitually, we absorb Him. The fruit is not once in a while, but continual and appropriate to each changing season.

His life is also prosperous and his spirit fresh, like the unfading leaf. Such a life must be happy. Indeed, happiness is a matter of spiritual conditions. Put a sunbeam in a cellar and it must be bright. Put a nightingale in the darkest midnight, and it must sing.

Scripture
Blessed is the man—Psalm 1:1

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Monday, January 03, 2011

We need to watch our prayers as well as watch for the answers to our prayers. It requires as much wisdom to pray rightly as it does faith to receive the answers to our prayers.

A Christian confided that he had been in years of darkness because God had failed to answer certain of his prayers. As a result, he had been in a state bordering on infidelity.

A very few moments were sufficient to convince this friend that his prayers had been entirely unauthorized and that God had never promised to answer such prayers. They were for things which, in the exercise of ordinary wisdom, he should have accomplished himself. The result was deliverance from the cloud of unbelief which was almost wrecking his Christian life.

There are some things about which we do not need to pray as much as to take the light which God has already given. Many people are asking God to give them peculiar signs, tokens and supernatural intimations of His will. Our business is to use the light He has given, and then He will give whatever more we need.

Scripture
Watch and pray—Matthew 26:41

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Sunday, January 02, 2011

The highest spiritual condition is one where life is spontaneous and flows without effort, like the deep floods of Ezekiel's river, where the struggles of the swimmer ceased, and he was borne by the current's resistless force.

So God leads us into spiritual conditions and habits which become the spontaneous impulses of our being, and we live and move in the fullness of the divine life.

These spiritual habits are not the outcome of some transitory impulse, but often are acquired and established slowly. They begin, like every true habit, in a definite act of will, and they are confirmed by the repetition of that act until it becomes a habit. The first stages always involve effort and choice. We have to take a stand and hold it steadily, and after we have done so a certain time, it becomes second nature and carries us by its own force.

The Holy Spirit is willing to form such habits in every direction of our Christian lives. If we will obey Him in the first steps of faith, we will soon become established in the attitude of obedience, and duty will be delight.

Scripture
I will . . . cause you to walk in my statutes—Ezekiel 36.27

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
January 01, 2011
Two little words are found in the Greek version here-ton kairon. They are translated in the revised version, "Buying up for yourselves the opportunity. " The two words ton kairon mean, literally, the opportunity.
They do not refer to time in general, but to a special point in time, a juncture, a crisis. They refer to a moment full of possibilities quickly passing by, which we must seize and make the best of before it has passed away.
It is intimated that there are not many such moments of opportunity, because the days are evil. These moments are like flowers which appear here and there in the barren desert: pluck them while you can. Or they are like a business opportunity which comes once in a lifetime; buy it up while you have the chance. Be spiritually alert; be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is (v. 16). Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise (v. 15), buying up for yourselves the opportunity.
Sometimes it is a moment of time to be saved; sometimes a soul to be led to Christ; sometimes it is an occasion for love; sometimes for patience; sometimes for victory over temptation and sin. Let us redeem it.
Scripture
Redeeming the time—Ephesians 5:16


Simpson Devotional
Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Friday, December 31, 2010
God wants us here on earth for some higher purpose than mere existence. That purpose is to represent Him to the world, to be the messengers of His gospel and His will to men and women, and by our lives to exhibit to them the true life and teach them how to live it.
He is representing us in heaven, and our one business is to represent Him on earth. We are just as truly sent into this world to represent Him as if we had gone to China as the ambassador of the United States government.
Although we may be engaged in the secular affairs of life, it is simply that we may represent Christ here, carry on His business and use our means to further His cause. He came here from another realm with a special message, and when His work was done He was called to go home to His Father.
Lord, help me to represent Thee worthily.
. . . And carry music in our heart
Through busy street and wrangling mart;
Plying our daily task with busier feet,
Because our souls a heavenly strain repeat.
Scripture
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil—John 17:15

Simpson Devotional
Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Thursday, December 30, 2010
0ur God is looking today for pattern persons. When He gets a true sample, it is very easy to reproduce him or her in other lives without limitation.
All the experiences of life come to us as tests, and as we meet them our loving Father is watching with intense and jealous love to see us overcome. If we fail He is deeply disappointed, and our adversary is filled with joy. We are being watched continually by angels and principalities, and every step we take is critical and decisive for something in our eternal future.
When Abraham went out that morning to Mount Moriah, it was an hour of solemn probation; when he came back he was one of God's tested men, with the stamp of His eternal approval. God could say, I know him, that he will . . . do justice and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken (Genesis 18:19).
God is looking for such men and women today. Lord, help me to be such a one.
Scripture
That our God would . . . fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power—2 Thessalonians 1:11

Simpson Devotional
Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson
Days of Heaven on Earth
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
It is probable that God lets every human being who crosses our path do so in order that we may have the opportunity of leaving some blessing and dropping into his heart and life some influence that will draw him nearer to God. It would be good, indeed, if ultimately we could say concerning every person whom we have ever touched in the path of life, I am pure from the blood of all men (Acts 20:26).
Is it really so? What about the person who sat beside us on the train? The laborer who works for us or with us? Above all, the members of our households and families? Have we done our best to lead them to Christ?
The early Christians regarded every situation as an opportunity to witness for Christ. Even when brought before kings and governors, it never occurred to them that they were to try to get free. Rather, the Master's message to them was It shall turn to you for a testimony (Luke 21:13). It was simply an occasion to preach to kings and rulers whom otherwise they could not reach.
Scripture
I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God—Acts 20:27