Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance - Thursday Devotionals

“In Passion Week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper, I met with an expression to this effect – “That the Jews knew what they did, when they transferred their sins to the head of their offering”. The thought came into my mind, What, may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer.

Accordingly I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus; and on the Wednesday began to have a hope of mercy; on the Thursday that hope increased; on the Friday and Saturday it became more strong; and on the Sunday morning, Easter-day, April 4, I awoke early with those words upon my heart and lips, “Jesus Christ is risen today! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

From that hour peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul; and at the Lord’s Table in our Chapel I had the sweetest access to God through my blessed Saviour.”

Charles Simeon

Do you feel yourself a depraved creature?

So depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?

Do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do?

Do you look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?

“Early rising did not appeal to his natural tendency to self-indulgence, however, especially on dark winter mornings… On several occasions he overslept, to his considerable chagrin. So he determined that if ever he did it again, he would pay a fine of half a crown to his “bedmaker” (collage servant).

A few days later, he found himself reflecting that the good woman was poor and could probably do with half a crown. So, to overcome such rationalizations, he vowed that next time he would throw a guinea into the river.

This (the story goes) he duly did, but only once, for guineas were scarce; he could not afford to use them to pave the river bed with gold.”

H.C.G. Moule about Charles Simeon

Supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?

Or are you to be saved by Christ from first to last?

Are you then to be upheld every hour and every moment by God?

As much as an infant in its mother’s arms?

Is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you onto His heavenly kingdom?

This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.

Would you like to read the first part, Are You Ready To Suffer For Christ?

You might also enjoy the second part of the series, Growing Downward.

I also recommend the thrird part for the children of this generation called, All Consuming Interest.

The fourth part is called, Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance.

If you have not yet read the fifth part , This Sweet Hope.

Take some time to read the sixth part also, Blessed Are The Peacemakers.

Hope you will enjoy reading the seventh part, A Double Blessing To Your Ministry.

Are you willing for, A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake.

Praise Is What I Do - Wednesday Worship

It’s Wednesday today and time to worship the Lord!

Worship is to reverently honor and give homage to God.

It is an adoring reverence that dedicate to God.

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you.

And we should be careful what we do with the best we have.

Whenever we get a blessing from God, we should give it back to Him as a love-gift.

Take time to meditate and pray before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship.

This is post is part of Wednesday Worship series.

Heal Me, Oh Lord - Thoughtful Tuesdays

It is the Thoughtful Tuesday today.

There are many people who have been close to God and have given us good thoughts to meditate on.

God's Word gives us many verses we need to pray about.

Today is dedicated to those thoughts, ideas, verses and words that make us think and make us want to be closer to God.

Here are today's thoughts!

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look at the stars.

Henry Van Dyke

Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; for thou art my praise.

Jeremiah 17:14
The Revised Standard Version

Turvaa Herraan ja tee sitä, mikä hyvä on, asu maassa ja noudata totuutta; silloin sinulla on ilo Herrassa, ja hän antaa sinulle, mitä sinun sydämesi halajaa.

Ps. 37:3-4 KR33/38

This post is part of the Thoughtful Tuesdays series.

Speaking God's Language - Joni Eareckson Tada - Prayer Monday

"The large window in the airport framed a gray afternoon. Our flight was late and my friends Judy and Bunny stood beside me to pray - something we often do before and after flights. I was feeling discouraged by the news that we lacked the funds to launch an outreach to help disabled children in several Eastern Europe orphanages.

Bunny reached for our hands, we closed our eyes, and she prayed, “Lord, send forth the corn and the wine and the oil. Send forth the early rains… the late rains… and produce a wonderful crop of blessings…” I recognized the words from Joel 2:19 in her prayer: “The Lord will reply to them: ‘I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully…’” I wondered if Bunny was thinking about the needed ministry funds.

Just then, I felt someone edge between us. The mystery person must have been a believer; he kept punctuating Bunny’s prayer with “Amens”. When we finished, he picked up his bag to run and catch his flight. Before he left, he folded a $100 bill to Bunny’s hand. As he hurried away, Bunny waved the bill in the air like a flag of victory and said, “Yea, even while I was speaking in prayer, the angel came with the answer!”

She was right. When Bunny prays, things happen. “Joni,” she instructed as she tucked the bill in my coat pocket, “This is the first fruits of what God will supply!” And it was. A foundation eventually caught our vision and helped fund the outreach to the orphanages. I’ve learned, through the years of interceding with her, that Bunny’s prayers not only seem to, but do, have power with God. It’s because she has learned to pray in the language of the Father. Even her response was from Daniel 9:21, “Yea, even while I was speaking in prayer.””

Speaking God’s Language: Joni Eareckson Tada

This message is part of the Prayer Monday series.

All Consuming Interest - Thursday Devotionals

We are all children of our times.

One of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility.

We are easily hurt.

We pout and mope easily.

We break easily.

Our marriages break easily.

Our faith breaks easily.

Our happiness breaks easily.

And our commitment to the church breaks easily.

We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials.”

James 1:3

What will be the character traits of the twenty first century westerners, Europeans and Americans alike, when the historians will list them?

Will commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve and perseverance enter the list?

Or will the list begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem?

And be followed by the subheadings of self-assertiveness, and self-enhancement, and self-realization?

How much of our lives truly concentrate on Christ and how much of it is given to ourselves?

We need help here!

When we are surrounded by a society of emotionally fragile quitters, and when we see a good bit of this ethos in ourselves, what should we do?

One answer is to spend time with people – whether dead or alive – whose lives prove there is another way to live.

“Be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Hebrews 6:12

This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.

Would you like to read the first part, Are You Ready To Suffer For Christ?

You might also enjoy the second part of the series, Growing Downward.

I also recommend the thrird part for the children of this generation called, All Consuming Interest.

The fourth part is called, Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance.

If you have not yet read the fifth part , This Sweet Hope.

Take some time to read the sixth part also, Blessed Are The Peacemakers.

Hope you will enjoy reading the seventh part, A Double Blessing To Your Ministry.

Are you willing for, A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake.

Praise You In This Storm - Wednesday Worship

It’s Wednesday today and time to worship the Lord!

Worship is to reverently honor and give homage to God.

It is an adoring reverence that dedicate to God.

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you.

And we should be careful what we do with the best we have.

Whenever we get a blessing from God, we should give it back to Him as a love-gift.

Take time to meditate and pray before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship.

Do you think of praising God only when things are going well or during times of blessing?

Many of us make this mistake.

We must learn that praise is appropriate during bad times, too.

We will never know the true power of praise until we learn its value in our trials.

This is post is part of Wednesday Worship series.

Friendship With God - Thoughtful Tuesdays

It is the Thoughtful Tuesday today.

There are many people who have been close to God and have given us good thoughts to meditate on.

God's Word gives us many verses we need to pray about.

Today is dedicated to those thoughts, ideas, verses and words that make us think and make us want to be closer to God.

Here are today's thoughts!

God expects more failure from us than we do from ourselves because God knows who we are.  We are not the righteous person who occasionally sins, we are the sinful person who occasionally- by God’s grace- gets it right.  When we start from this perspective we are released from the bondage of perfectionism and are able to forgive ourselves once and for all.  We are to take our cue from him.  We may be disappointed with ourselves but God is not.  We may feel like condemning ourselves, but God does not.

James Bryan Smith

our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.

1 Thessalonians 1:5
The New International Version

Herra vahvistaa sen miehen askeleet, jonka tie hänelle kelpaa. Jos hän lankeaa, ei hän maahan sorru, sillä Herra tukee hänen kättänsä.

Ps. 37:23-24 KR33/38

This post is part of the Thoughtful Tuesdays series.

The Word Of God Is Living And Active - Monday Prayer

When we use Scripture in our prayer it shows God we have thought through our praises and petitions.

To pray we need to know the heart of God.

What He has planned for us.

His promises to us.

We need to align our prayers with the plump line of God’s Word.

God’s Word gives our prayers life, infusing vitality into our praises and petitions.

As well as bringing life to the thoughts that frame our petitions.

“The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword…” (Heb. 4:12).

God is always ready for us.

He always wants to listen to us.

But He also wants us to take the time to know Him.

And that we can achieve through the Bible.

“Dear God, I want to know You! I want to know your word that is living and active, today in my life. Your word is the truth that cuts through the lies and deceive in my life. It is the bread of life that I need every day. I praise Your Word and I praise Your name! I want to know Your heart and align myself with Your everlasting love. Amen!”

This message is part of the Prayer Monday series.

Growing Downward - Thursday Devotionals

“Many there who cannot see these truths (the doctrines of God’s sovereignty), who yet are in a state truly pleasing to God; yea many at whose feet the best of us may be glad to be found in heaven. It is a great evil, when these doctrines are made a ground of separation one from another, and when the advocates of different systems anathematize each other…

In reference to truths which are involved in so much obscurity as those which relate to the sovereignty of God mutual kindness and concession are far better than vehement argumentation and uncharitable discussion.”

Charles Simeon

The most fundamental trial that Simeon had – and that we all have – was himself.

He had a somewhat harsh and self-assertive air about him.

Simeon came to know himself and his sin very deeply.

He described his maturing in the ministry as growing downward.

Sometimes Simeon felt utterly alone at the University of Cambridge where he lived.

The students held him in derision for his Biblical preaching and his uncompromising stand as an evangelical.

But harder to bear than the insults of the students was the ostracism and coldness of his peers in the University.

His parishioners did not want Simeon as their vicar.

For twelve years the church was so resistant to his leadership that they would not let him preach Sunday evenings but hired and assistant to keep him out.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Matthew 5:11-12

According to Charles Simeon, his invariable rule was “to endeavor to give to every portion of the Word of God its full and proper force, without considering what scheme it favours, or whose system it is likely to advance...

My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head; never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding.”

Charles Simeon

After twenty-five years of ministry, Charles Simeon’s health failed suddenly.

His voice gave way so that preaching was very difficult and at times he could only speak in a whisper.

He himself said, that after a sermon he would feel “more like on dead than alive”.

This broken condition lasted for 13 years, till he was sixty years old.

In all this time Simeon pressed on in his work.

He had promised himself a very active life up to age sixty, and then a Sabbath evening.

When he was sixty years old he says he was “almost as perceptibly revived in strength as the woman was after she had touched the hem of our Lord’s garment”.

According to him, he could hear is Master saying:

“I laid you aside, because you entertained with satisfaction the thought of resting from your labour; but that now you have arrived at the very period when you had promised yourself that satisfaction, and have determined instead to spend your strength for me to the latest hour of your life, I have doubled, trebled, quadrupled your strength, that you may execute your desire on a more extended plan”.

Charles Simeon

So at sixty years of age, Simeon renewed his commitment to his pulpit and the mission of the church and preached vigorously for 17 more years, until two months before his death.

This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.

Would you like to read the first part, Are You Ready To Suffer For Christ?

You might also enjoy the second part of the series, Growing Downward.

I also recommend the thrird part for the children of this generation called, All Consuming Interest.

The fourth part is called, Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance.

If you have not yet read the fifth part , This Sweet Hope.

Take some time to read the sixth part also, Blessed Are The Peacemakers.

Hope you will enjoy reading the seventh part, A Double Blessing To Your Ministry.

Are you willing for, A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake.