MY THOUGHT: There were so many wonderful entries this week I couldn’t choose just one. Especially when it comes to giving our lives away in order to further God’s kingdom.
February 18th – Whenever we realize that we have not done thatwhich we had a magnificent opportunity of doing, then we are apt to sink into despair; and Jesus Christ comes and says – “Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost for ever, you cannot alter it, but arise and go to the next thing.” Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him….Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.
February 19th – Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is… “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” It requires the inspiration of God to go through drudgery with the light of God upon it. Some people do a certain thing and the way in which they do it hallows that thing for ever afterwards. It may be the most commonplace thing, but after we have seen them do it, it becomes different. When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it.
February 20th – Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong….Dreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
February 21st – Abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness. Personal holiness focuses the eye on our own personal whiteness; we are greatly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, fearful lest we offend Him. Perfect love casts out all that when once we are abandoned to God.
February 22nd – Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire….The greatest fear a man has is not that he will be damned, but that Jesus Christ will be worsted, that the things He stood for – love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men – will not win out in the end…Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted. If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified.
February 23rd – If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow man.
February 24th – When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with God, he is of no more use to his fellow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men, Paul became a sacramental personality; wherever he went, Jesus Christ helped Himself to his life. Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives.