I believe it to be a prodigious blessing to humbly seek God’s Word for ourselves (along with our understanding) through others (a good commentator e.g. John Gill, Albert Barnes) who are well learned in the Scriptures, evidenced by the material they present.
- NC
His Pleasure
In these days in which we live, there is great need that we be more quiet before the Lord. Just to enter into, and abide in such intimate fellowship with Him that we may at all times feast on that fruit of the Spirit which is Love, Joy, Peace, etc. (Gal 5:22, 23). These verses are just a picture of what our Lord Jesus Christ is, and what He wants to be to every one of His dear ones. This is very precious to the heart that has tasted that the Lord is good. Oh, that we might enter more into the mind of our Father about the One whose infinite loveliness is His daily delight, Who always pleases Him, Who rejoices always before Him (Mat 17:5; Pro 8:30).
But when we are rejoicing in His love, do we ever stop to think of His happiness? We sing, “That will be glory for me.” How much more blessed to sing, “That will be glory for Him.” Oh, that we might so forget self so as to be able to live before Him just to minister to His own loving heart, just to give Him joy. No one was ever happy who was seeking happiness. Only those who taste of real joy are those seeking to give joy to the heart of another. We come to Him many times to have our own needs met but do we ever come just to satisfy the longings of His own heart of love?
He is seeking worshipers, those who will speak His real worth, His beauty, His glory. Has He found them in us? Have we been seeking to give Him “the joy that was before Him when He endured the Cross” (Heb 12:2), when He paid the awful price of our “redemption”? Will our only joy in the glory be that we are saved and made like Him? Will not the joy of knowing that He is satisfied, that He has been able to rejoice, far transcend all this?
Ah, beloved, we are so prone to look at everything from our own standpoint, from the effect it will have on us instead of its relation to Him. We may have wept with Him over cold stony hearts. Have we ever rejoiced with Him because He found His sheep? How often we deny Him the time that His loving heart craves under the pretense of being too busy in His service. Dr. C.I. Scofield says, “I grow so weary of the constant spurring of God’s people to service, service, service; as if any father ever did care so much to have his children toiling for him as much as loving and trusting him.”
Oh, that we might ask under every circumstance, “Will this bring joy to His loving heart?” We may be doing many things that are not actually evil, but do they contribute to His joy? How much we need to become better acquainted with Him; to have Paul’s heart-hunger: “That I may know Him” (Phl 3:10). To know Him better will lessen our desire to know anything else, for He is the “fullness” (Col 2:9) of the Father. In Him is comprehended all that the Father has for us from the moment we are saved to the countless ages of eternity.
Yet a little while, and we shall be forever with Him. Will we regret that we spent not much time alone with Him while in this wilderness scene of death? My heart longs for that time when I shall never again grieve Him. How patient, how gentle He has been with every one of us. What must it mean to Him who gave everything to purchase us from eternal death and for Himself, to have us show no concern about His happiness and satisfaction, to have us occupied with everything but Himself!
- Unknown
Living Access
MJS devotional for Nov 9
“In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9).
Our personal fellowship with the Father is predicated upon our realization that we are already in His presence, in His Son.
“Most do not care to go beyond the thought of forgiveness and a godly walk in the world; but it is our Father’s pleasure and purpose to bring us as priests into His presence. If we approach Him it is entirely apart from all the imperfections of the flesh. We stand there in all the sweet savor and perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is as we are identified with His perfections and acceptance that we can approach for fellowship and worship.” - Charles Andrew Coates (1862-1945)
“It is not a question of correcting this or that, but of heavenly things in the Lord Jesus separating our hearts from things on earth. When we look from heaven, and work from heaven downwards, earthly things soon dwindle, and the praise of their disappearance returns not to ourselves in any way, but to the Lord Jesus. Thus He Himself has all the glory, whatever good thing there may be wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.” - William John Hocking (1864-1953)
“The Lord Jesus is at the Father’s right hand, and He is there as our Life. By Him, therefore, we have access into our Father’s presence and favor. To understand this grace we need to have very distinctly before our soul the One Man by whom it has come to us. We never can learn the grace of our Father by thinking of those to whom it comes; we must think of the One by whom it comes.”
“The believer is placed before the Father according to the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, and is, according to the Father’s eye and heart, as His Beloved—nothing less.” - James Butler Stoney (1814-1897)
“And ye are complete in Him, who is the Head” (Col. 2:10).