Valley of Vision: The Great Discovery

Glorious God,

I  bless thee that I know thee.

      I once lived in the world, but was ignorant

   of its Creator,

   was partaker of thy providences, but knew not

     the Provider,

   was blind while enjoying the sunlight,

   was deaf to all things spiritual, with voices

     all around me,

   understood many things, but had no knowledge

     of thy ways,

   saw the world, but did not see Jesus only.

O happy day, when in thy love’s sovereignty

   thou didst look on me, and call me by grace.

Then did the dead heart begin to beat,

   the darkened eye glimmer with light,

   the dull ear catch thy echo,

   and I turned to thee and found thee,

   a God ready to hear, willing to save.

Then did I find my heart at enmity to thee,

   vexing thy Spirit;

Then did I fall at thy feet and hear thee thunder,

   ‘The soul that sinneth, it must die’,

But when grace made me to know thee,

   and admire a God who hated sin,

   thy terrible justice held my will submissive.

My thoughts were then as knives cutting my head.

Then didst thou come to me in silken robes of love,

   and I saw thy Son dying that I might live,

   and in that death I found my all.

My soul doth sing at the remembrance of

     that peace;

The gospel cornet brought a sound unknown

   to me before that reached my heart – and I lived –

   never to lose my hold on Christ or his hold on me.

Grant that I may always weep to the praise of

     mercy found,

   and tell to others as long as I live,

   that thou art a sin-pardoning God,

   taking up the blasphemer and the ungodly,

   and washing them from their deepest stain.

Come to Jesus in Faith!

THE HOT WATER BOTTLE - A True Story By Helen Roseveare, Missionary to Africa 

One night, in Central Africa, I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all that we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny, premature baby and a crying, two-year-old daughter. 

We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive. We had no incubator. We had no electricity to run an incubator, and no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. 

A student-midwife went for the box we had for such babies and for the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly, in distress, to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates. "...and it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed. As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk; so, in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over a burst water bottle. They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways. All right," I said, "Put the baby as near the fire as you safely can; sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm." 

The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with many of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chilled. I also told them about the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died. During the prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt consciousness of our African children. "Please, God," she prayed, "send us a water bottle. It'll be no good tomorrow, God, the baby'll be dead; so, please send it this afternoon." While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added by way of corollary, " ...And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she'll know You really love her?" As often with children's prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, "Amen?" I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything: The Bible says so, but there are limits, aren't there? The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever received a parcel from home. Anyway, if anyone did send a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator! 

Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses' training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time that I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a large twenty-two pound parcel! I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone; so, I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then, there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children began to look a little bored. Next, came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas - - that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend. As I put my hand in again, I felt the...could it really be? I grasped it, and pulled it out. Yes, "A brand-new rubber, hot water bottle!" I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could. Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, "If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!" Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone: She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked, "Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she'll know that Jesus really loves her?" 

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months, packed up by my former Sunday School class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God's prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. One of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child -- five months earlier in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it "That afternoon!" "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Isaiah 65:24 

Finding True Happiness Is Finding Christ

A good reminder from Thomas Reade :

Earthly vanities can never satisfy the enlarged
desires of an immortal soul. This is the reason
why worldly people are so restless and changeable.
Temporal objects soon cloy and satiate, therefore
worldlings fly from flower to flower like vagrant
butterflies--until death closes their idle chase
after an unreal happiness!
Did they possess true wisdom, they would
discover the source of true felicity.
Christ and happiness are inseparable. If we
find true happiness, it is because we have
found Christ; for . . .
  the pardon of sin,
  peace with God,
  purity of heart, and
  the hope of glory,
cannot fail to render the believer blessed.

Show Us Christ!

Show us Christ, O God! 

Verse 1 

Prepare our hearts, O God 

Help us to receive 

Break the hard and stony ground 

Help our unbelief 

Plant Your Word down deep in us 

Cause it to bear fruit 

Open up our ears to hear 

Lead us in Your truth 

Chorus 

Show us Christ, show us Christ 

O God, reveal Your glory 

Through the preaching of Your Word 

Until every heart confesses Christ is Lord 

Verse 2 

Your Word is living light 

Upon our darkened eyes 

Guards us through temptations 

Makes the simple wise 

Your Word is food for famished ones 

Freedom for the slave 

Riches for the needy soul 

Come speak to us today 

Bridge 

Where else can we go, Lord 

Where else can we go 

You have the words of eternal life 

I must confess that God generally deals very contrary to my expectations. Yet "He does all things well." It is "Sweet to lie passive in His hands, and know no will but His."

 

I have proved my own strength to be complete weakness, my own wisdom consummate folly, and my own righteousness filthy rags. What a mercy, then, to be stripped of all, and have Christ for wisdom, Christ for righteousness, Christ for strength, Christ for purity, Christ for power, Christ for beauty, Christ for holiness, Christ for acceptance above, Christ for our daily walk, Christ for our daily work, Christ for rest, Christ for food, Christ for medicine; yes, to know nothing among men or before God--but Jesus crucified and glorified! 

~Ruth Bryan ("The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ, The Letters of Ruth Bryan") 

It Is Jesus

By Octavius Winslow: http://octaviuswinslow.org/2012/07/04/july-3-it-is-jesus/

What is the life of faith which the believer lives, but a manifestation of the life of the Lord Jesus? The highest, the holiest, the happiest life lived below, is the life of faith. But nature contributes nothing to this life. It comes from a higher source. It is supernatural—it is opposed to nature. It springs from the life “hid with Christ in God.” “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Here is a glorious manifestation of the life of Jesus. If we desire any evidence that Jesus is risen, that He is alive again, and that He is the life of the soul, here it is! See the faith of a child of God sifted as wheat, yet not one grain falling to the ground—tried as gold, yet not one particle lost—though in the flame, yet never consumed. And why? Because Christ lives in the soul. Dear believer! your faith may be sharply tempted—severely tried—but never, never shall it quite fail; for Jesus lives in you, and lives in you forever. Oh blessed trial of faith, that manifests in, and endears to, you the life of Jesus! It is the precious trial of “precious faith,”—a faith which the more deeply it is tried, the more deeply it manifests the risen life of its Divine “Author and Finisher.” And what, too, are all the supports of the believer in seasons of trial, suffering, and bereavement, but so many manifestations of the life of the Lord Jesus? What is our path to glory, but the path of tribulation, of suffering, and of death? Our Lord and Master, in the expression of His wisdom and love, forewarns us of this—”In the world you shall have tribulation.” And His apostles but echo the same sentiment, when they affirm that it is “through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom.” But the life of our risen Lord is daily manifested in us. This it is that keeps the soul buoyant amid the billows, strong in faith, joyful in hope, soaring in love. Thus is Jesus the life of every grace, the life of every promise, the life of every ordinance, the life of every blessing; yes, of all that is really costly and precious to a child of God, Jesus is the substance, the glory, the sweetness, the fragrance, yes, the very life itself. Oh! dark and lonely, desolate and painful indeed were our present pilgrimage, but for Jesus. If in the world we have tribulation, in whom have we peace?—in Jesus! If in the creature we meet with fickleness and change, in whom find we the “Friend that loves at all times”?—in Jesus! When adversity comes as a wintry blast, and lays low our comforts, when the cloud is upon our tabernacle, when health, and wealth, and influence, and friends are gone—in whom do we find the covert from the wind, the faithful, tender “Brother born for adversity?”—in Jesus! When temptation assails, when care darkens, when trial oppresses, when bereavement wounds, when heart and flesh are failing, who throws around us the protecting shield, who applies the precious promise, who speaks the soothing word, who sustains the sinking spirit, who heals the sorrow, and dries the tear?—Jesus! Where sin struggles in the heart, and guilt burdens the conscience, and unbelief beclouds the mind, whose grace subdues our iniquities, whose blood gives us peace, and whose light dispels our darkness?—Jesus! And when the spark of life wanes, and the eye grows dim, and the mind wanders, and the soul, severing its last fetter, mounts and soars away, who, in that awful moment, draws near in form unseen, and whispers in words unheard by all but the departing one, now in close communion with the solemn realities of the invisible world—”Fear not; I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die”?—still, it is Jesus! “

Spurgeon, The Church's Love to Her Loving Lord:

Jesus thou fairest, dearest one,

What beauties thee adorn

Far brighter than the noonday sun,

Or star that gilds the morn.

Here let me fix my wandering eyes,

And all thy glories trace;

Till, in the world of endless joys,

I rise to thine embrace.

When Tigranes and his wife were both taken prisoners by Cyrus, Cyrus turning to Tigranes said, “What will you give for the liberation of your wife?” and the king answered, “I love my wife so that I would cheerfully give up my life if she might be delivered from servitude”; whereupon Cyrus said, “That if there was such love as that between them they might both go free.” So when they were away and many were talking about the beauty and generosity of Cyrus, and especially about the beauty of his person, Tigranes, turning to his wife, asked her what she thought of Cyrus, and she answered that she saw nothing anywhere but in the face of the man who had said that he would die if she might only he released from servitude. “The beauty of that man,” she said, “makes me forget all others.”

 And truly we would say the same of Jesus.

We would not decry the angels, nor think ill of the saints, but the beauties of that man who gave his life for us, are so great that they have eclipsed all others, and our soul only wishes to see him and not another; for, as the stars hide their heads in the presence of the sun, so may you all go away, you delights, you excellencies, when Christ Jesus, the chief delight, the chief excellency, makes his appearance. Dr. Watts says—

His worth, if all the nations knew,

Sure the whole earth would love him too.

And so it seems to us. If you could see him, you must love him. It was said of Henry VIII, that if all the portraits of tyrants, and murderers, and thieves did not exist, they might all be painted from the one face of Henry VIII; and turning that around another way, we will say, that if all the excellencies, beauties, and perfections of the human race were blotted out, they might all he painted again from the face of the Lord Jesus.

All over glorious is my Lord;

Must be beloved, and yet adored.

All-Sufficient!

Octavius Winslow, "The Christian's Joint Heirship":

It is in the heart of our God to give us the chief and the best.

Had there been a greater, and a better, and a sweeter, and a more satisfying portion than Himself--then that portion would have been ours. But since there is not, nor can be, a greater than Himself--the love, the everlasting, changeless love that He bears to us, constrains Him to give Himself as our God, our Portion, our All.

And have we not experienced Him to be God all-sufficient?

Have we ever found a lack in Him?

Oh no! God is all-sufficient, and no arid wilderness, and no dreary land have we experienced Him to be.

There is in Him. . .
an all-sufficiency of love to comfort us;
an all-sufficiency of strength to uphold us;
an all-sufficiency of power to protect us;
an all-sufficiency of good to satisfy us;
an all-sufficiency of wisdom to guide us;
an all-sufficiency of glory to reward us;
an all-sufficiency of bliss to make us happy here, and happy to all eternity! 

Surpassing Glory

There is an ever fresh, ever full, sweetness in heaven's precious Lamb! Oh, this precious truth! It is gospel wine to my poor soul! We have such a Christ that we little think how far His glories and His matchless love surpass what we have every yet conceived. We do not make half enough of Him-heaven's brightest gem, and richest treasure! Oh, that the precious Comforter may reveal Him more and more-that we may count all other things but filth and dross. 

"The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ, the Letters of Ruth Bryan"

 

The Koh-i-noor of God's Regalia Spent For Us

"There is no help for the child of God if his heavenly Father should shut the granary door. If out of the King’s palace there came no portions of meat in due season, we might lay down and die of despair! Who could hold us up but God? Who could guide us but God? Who could keep us from falling into Perdition but God? Who could, from hour to hour, supply our desperate needs but God? Is it not, then, right well for us—abundantly well—that we have had our maintenance from the King’s palace?  

While we turn over this very sweet thought, we may remember that our maintenance from the King’s palace has cost His Majesty dearly. He has not fed us for nothing. We do not know what was the expenditure in gold of King Solomon, every day, to supply all his court with wine and oil, with meal and fine flower, with sheep and fat oxen, harts and roebucks, venison and fatted fowl. But we do know that  Solomon’s cost was nothing at all compared with the vast expense at which we are sustained by the munificence of God! It cost Him His own dear Son at the very first. We should not have begun to live if He had spared His Son and kept Him back from us!  

But the choicest treasure in Heaven, the Koh-i-noor of God’s regalia, He was pleased to spend for our sakes that we might live! And ever since then we have been fed upon Jesus Christ Himself. No other food would be adequate to our necessities. His flesh is meat, indeed! His blood is drink, indeed! This is the most royal dainty conceivable, for a soul to feed upon the Son of God! And yet we have fed upon Him these many years. Let us bless and magnify our bounteous God, whose infinite favor has thus supplied our needs."

Charles Spurgeon

The Exhaustless Ocean of Jesus

 From Solitude Sweetened, by James Meikle.

"From his fullness we have all received one gracious gift after another." (John 1:16)

All plenitude is in Christ, to answer all the needs of His people. In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that out of His fullness I may receive all spiritual blessings!

Have I destroyed myself by sin? I have deliverance from Him who is mighty to save from sin and wrath!

Is my foolish mind darkened? Am I a guilty, polluted, and ruined wretch? Jesus is my wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption!

Is my life fleeting—and passing away like a shadow? Jesus is the Ancient of days, and endures for evermore!

Are my days short-lived and full of trouble? Jesus is my life, the length of my days, and the joy of my heart!

Am I exposed to contempt? Jesus shall be my crown of glory, and diadem of beauty!

Am I traveling through the wilderness? Jesus is my staff, and on Him I lean all the way!

Am I on my last journey to my long home? Jesus is my leader, and my rewarder!

Am I a sheep? Jesus is my pasture, and my green pasture too!

Am I hungry and thirsty? Jesus is my heavenly manna, and gives me to drink of the water of life!

Am I weary? Jesus is my rest and refreshing!

Am I weak? Jesus is my strength!

Am I oppressed and wronged? Jesus is my judge, and my avenger!

Am I reproached? The reproach of His people, Jesus will wipe away!

Am I a soldier? Jesus is my Captain and shield!

Must I fight in the field of battle? Jesus is my armor in the day of war!

Do I sit in darkness? Jesus is my light!

Do I have doubts? Jesus is my counselor!

Am I ignorant? Jesus is my wisdom!

Am I guilty? Jesus is my justification!

Am I filthy? Jesus is my sanctification!

Am I dead in sin? Jesus is my life, and quickens those who are dead in trespasses and sins!

Am I poor? Jesus is the pearl of great price, and has immeasurable riches!

Am I blind? Jesus, and none but He can open the eyes of one born blind!

Am I naked? Jesus has white clothing to cover the shame of my nakedness!

Am I in the very utmost necessity? Jesus is a very present help in time of trouble!

Am I exposed to the hurricanes of adversity? Jesus is a refuge from the storm; a shelter from the blast; rivers of water in a desert; the shadow of a great rock in a weary land!

Am I afraid of being left alone? Jesus will never leave me, nor forsake me!

Do friends and brethren prove false? Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother!

Am I in danger from diseases and death; or from sin and Satan? My life is hidden with Christ in God! When He shall appear, I shall appear with Him—immortal in my body, and glorious in my soul!

Is my case considered in the court of heaven? There Jesus is my Advocate!

Do I offend the Father? Jesus is my Intercessor!

Do I suffer in my body, and am I grieved in my mind? Jesus bore my infirmities, and carried 

my griefs!

Is my mind disquieted, and my soul debarred from peace? Jesus is my sympathetic High Priest! He was tempted in all points, and knows how to support those who are tempted!

Am I poor in my circumstances? Jesus, the heir of all things! Though He was rich, yet for my sake He became poor, that I through His poverty might be made rich!

Do I suffer in my character? Jesus was numbered with transgressors, called a Samaritan, a glutton, a drunkard, and a devil!

Am I bereaved or alone? Well, Jesus in the fatal night was left alone; all the disciples forsook Him and fled! Jesus, my only friend, can never die!

Must I undergo death and be laid in the grave? Jesus has taken away the sting of death, and robbed the grave of its victory!

Must I rot in the grave? Jesus shall be my resurrection, and raise me to immortality and bliss!

Would I go to God and to glory? Jesus is my way, and must admit me into the palace of the great King, where I shall abide forever!

In summary, Jesus is . . .
  my brother,
  my physician,
  my prophet,
  my priest,
  my king,
  my father,
  my head,
  my husband!

In eternity, when I shall dwell in the land of bliss, in the city of God—Jesus will be the light thereof! And since I am to worship there forever, He will be the temple of all the redeemed!

My needs are many, but His fullness is infinitely more!

The morning dews and fructifying showers water the fields, and refresh the parched furrows. But what are they, compared to the exhaustless ocean of Jesus?

What is all that I enjoy here below, compared to the exuberant fullness of the heavenly bliss? O! then, how shall my soul be replenished—when possessed of this infinite All, through eternity itself!

Christ to the Believer

"Because Christ is perfectly and infinitely holy above all others, I prize Christ above all.
Ordinances are sweet, but Christ is more sweet to my soul.
Saints are precious, but Christ is far more precious.
Heaven is glorious, but Christ is infinitely more glorious.
The first thing that I would ask, if I might have it, is Christ.
And the next thing that I would ask, if I might have it, is more of Christ.
And the last thing that I would ask, if I might have it, is that I might be satiated and filled with the fullness of Christ.
Let the ambitious man take the honours of the world, so that I may but have Christ.
Let the voluptuous man swim in all the pleasures of the world, so that I may have Christ.
And let the covetous man tumble up and down in all the gold and silver of the world, so I may have Christ, and it shall be enough for my soul."
Thomas Brooks, "The Unsearchable Riches of Christ"

One Ray of Christ's Light

The joy, the peace, the comfort, the confidence, the full assurance, the blissful hope which one ray of Christ’s Light gives to the heart of man cannot to be equaled! No, scarcely to be compared with anything else! It is a joy that God only gives us and, thank God, a joy which none can take away!
~Spurgeon

With Jesus!

Spurgeon tells the story of a dying boy, who, when asked why he felt so happy in the thought of going to Heaven answered the following:


“I want to go to Heaven principally because Jesus is there.” “Well,” they said, “but do you always want to be with Jesus, then, and with nobody else?” “Yes,” he said, “I only care to be where Jesus is. “But suppose Jesus were to leave Heaven?” He said, “I would go with Him.” “But suppose Jesus went to Hell, what then?” “Ah,” said the boy, “but there could not be any Hell where Jesus was! I would go with Jesus wherever He might go.” Oh, that we had that kind of spirit and that desire not to be self-seeking, nor world-seeking, nor getting our joy out of common pleasures, nor hunting after comfort where it cannot be found in these low-land joys—but let us seek to be on the wing with our Master, up aloft, dwelling in the land of communion where Jesus lets out His very heart to His people and reveals Himself to them as He does not unto the world! The Lord give to this Church many of those favored men and women, whose communion shall be with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Oh, it is the happiest, holiest, safest, richest, most useful kind of life! God grant it to you!

Spurgeon, Following Christ

Salvation IS Jesus Christ

. . . Salvation! It is the absence of this blessing, which builds the prison-house of hell, which kindles the never-quenched fires—which forges the eternal chains—which wraps the dreary regions in one mantle of blackness—which gives keenness to the undying worm—which bellows up the smoke of torment—which gives the bitterness of despair to the hopeless wail. O my soul! see to it that you are saved. Better not have been born, unless you are saved. Life is a curse, death is the abyss of misery, without this joy of salvation. To what profit would it be, to hold the scepter of kingdoms, to call the whole race of men our vassals, to look around on all the world as our own possession, to see in every creature only an instrument of our indulgence, to revel in every ease and luxury, to drink the fullest cup of pleasures, to sit on the highest throne of honor, to be caressed by all the affection, and to be extolled by all the adulation of man, unless you are saved? All these things, if they could be multiplied beyond our powers to calculate, and piled beyond our faculties to grasp, and stretched to time which we could not count, would be as nothing, and less than nothing, would be only the mockery of splendid woe—without salvation. Gain this, and all, and more than all, is gained. Lose this, and no words can express, no thought conceive, the amount of wretchedness, which is your endless doom. O my soul! see to it that you are saved.
Do you ask, but where is this treasure, so surpassing all treasures, to be found? It is all in Jesus Christ. He is full, and perfect, and eternal Salvation. Hear the voice from heaven: "You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." Hear the lips which were touched by the living coal: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Hear the testimony of the Spirit: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
Here is truth—unerring truth—divine truth—high as the heavens—clear as light—sure as God. Sophistry cannot perplex it. Falsehood cannot deny it. Salvation is Jesus Christ! You may be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, as Dives did—and not be saved. You may rule vast provinces, and command vast armies, as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar did—and not be saved. You may be beautiful and lovely to behold, as Absalom was—and not be saved. You may belong to a Church, pure, and simple, and apostolic, and blessed with holy ordinances, as Ananias and Sapphira did—and not be saved. You may live under the highest blaze of Gospel-teaching, as Judas did: no, you may bear witness to the truths of Jesus, as he did—and not be saved. You may be exalted unto heaven in privileges and opportunities, as Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum were—and not be saved. You may have the shrewdest intellect, as Ahithophel had—and not be saved.
But you cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and fail of Salvation. The word abides for ever, "Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Let the rich man believe, and he is saved. Let the poor man believe, and he is saved. Let the young believe—let the old believe—let the wise believe—let the ignorant believe—and all is safe! Christ is theirs, and Christ is Salvation. . . 

Henry Law, Salvation