Command the Raven

John 1:51 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

Thou shalt see heaven open, and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

When was heaven opened, and when did the Son of man become the ladder between earth and heaven? There is but one answer – when Jesus Christ ascended, and in ascending opened heaven, and cast the ladder of His ascending glory swaying between earth and heaven as the link, the bridge of communication. And since then surely we have ‘access into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.’ And translating the words of Genesis into New Testament phraseology, when we hear God say to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there,’ surely the New Testament phrase is, ‘If then ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.’

In other words, your failure and mine has too often been our inability, our unwillingness to recognise the position into which Jesus Christ, the second Adam, has brought us in the presence of God. We were born in the first Adam, and our idea when we become convinced of sin is, that this Adam may somehow justify itself before God. Then God comes b y His Spirit and puts away all attempts at self-justification, and we have to receive from the hand of God the righteousness which has been achieved by the only Saviour; and we stand before God from that moment, not having the righteousness of the first Adam, but the imputed righteousness of the second Adam.

Oh, soul, keep in touch with Jesus Christ; do not look at difficulty, do not look at your own weak heart, do not trust to your own resolutions, do not go back on your past: look unto Jesus, Jesus the risen Christ above us, in us, with us for evermore. – F.B. Meyer: Go to Bethel, and Dwell There, 1899
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick

1 Samuel 16:14 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.

We do not go very far in the history of Saul till we see the effects of incomplete obedience, defective consecration. Do you know that our consecration affects our character? What is consecration, after all, if it is not the yielding of the whole being into the control of God, that He, by His Holy Spirit, may make us what He wants us to be in all holiness and Christlikeness? It means that our emotional life is brought into the moulding hands of the Holy Spirit. It means that our whole mental equipment is brought into the control of the Holy Spirit. It means that our will is brought into the obedience of the Holy Spirit, that with Him we should ‘will one will, to do or to endure.’ And when our desires and our judgments and our wills are brought into the control of the Holy Spirit, then He produces character – Christlikeness of character. But if we yield only partial obedience to God that means that we limit the sphere in which the Holy Spirit may do His work. The consequence is that in all those areas which we are withholding from the control of the Holy Spirit, the characteristics of the old nature are fostered and developed.

So it is with Saul, and it is not long after these expressions of his defective consecration that we see indications of the defective character. ‘The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him,’ we are told. That may not sound very much like New Testament language, but it fairly describes the experience of many New Testament saints. The Spirit of the Lord is grieved; His sanctifying work is restricted; and instead of evidences of the Spirit of the Lord there are increasing evidences of the work of the godless spirits of iniquity.

Defective consecration bears its fruit in defective character. – J.C. Macaulay; Obedience Better Than Sacrifice, 1949.
- Daily Thoughts From Keswsick

Mark 5:28 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole….

Think of His power until you say, God can; and of His love until you say, God will. After you have said that, you will find a new hope springing up in your heart, and you will find yourself saying ‘If I can but touch Him, I shall be whole.’

You may be completely cured. Jesus Christ is equal to any claim we make upon Him. When I say completely cured, do not misunderstand me. The woman came to be healed of the issue of blood, and she was healed of the issue of blood. But that does not mean that she was made absolutely physically perfect. When we come to Jesus Christ and give ourselves over to Him, it does not mean that by that one act we become sinlessly perfect. It means that when we come with our need, Christ completely supplies that need. When you come to be healed of your issue of blood, immediately it is staunched. But beyond this healing of the issue, that woman got method of healing. A discovery was made to her soul, that if ever she was ill with anything else, there was an infallible cure; for by the touch of faith she could bring the healing on to her soul once. So God will put into your hands the method by which you can draw from Him everything you need for a holy life.

And if it is to be a complete cure, it must be a confessed cure. If God works, to Him must be the glory. For remember this life is a life of grace, from which boasting is excluded. ‘What hast thou that thou hast not received?’ And if any victory over temptation, over temper, over worry or self-consciousness is given to you, how dare you boast of it? Is it not God who has done it all? And if He has done it, and revealed His power and glory in your life, will you not stand out as a witness to tell the people the truth? Are you going to touch Him, now? – G.H.C . Macgregor: God Can – God Will! 1899
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick.

Genesis 35:1 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there.

What is Bethel to the believer? Our Lord Himself interprets the vision for us in His words to Nathanael in John 1:51 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
, ‘Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’ What, then, is the stairway? Nathanael had just said, ‘Thou art the Son of God.’ A moment later the Lord said, ‘Son of Man.’ There is the ladder – Son of Man, set up on earth; Son of God, reaching into the heaven. The Lord Himself is the way. When, then, was heaven opened? Surely when He ascended up on high. So, then, Bethel for the believer means ‘boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.’ The Saviour who saved you is in the heavenlies, the place of ascendancy. And in him you also are in the heavenlies, in the ascendance over the world, the flesh, and the devil.

‘Back to Bethel!’ And not only that, but ‘Abide there!’ ‘Abide in me’ was His word. ‘If then ye be risen with Christ, seek – go on continuously seeking – those things which are above…’ Here, then, is the attitude of faith which must follow the act of surrender. ‘Reckon – go on reckoning – yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Morning, noon, and night, enjoy the rest of faith that centres in an ascended Lord, and ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.’ – Ronald J. Park: No more Jacob, but Israel, 1946
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick.

Joshua 7:11 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

Get thee up… Israel hath sinned.

There is a time for prayer, and a time for action. Get off your knees and stop blaming God, and face the causes which demand action. Your defeat and ineffectiveness in your work, and your failure in your Church, are not due to God one little bit. He is longing to pour out blessing, and to use you and make you fruitful in His service. If you are a failure and a disaster, then the cause of it is sin: and sin demands action.

What is sin? At a young people’s group the reply was given in answer to that question, ‘It is what I know to be wrong, and do.’ Though perhaps that is not theological, it is Scriptural. You will notice the essence of free-will in it. Fundamentally in human sin there is the element of free choice; the determination of the human will every time. We may try to shirk it, and say it is partly due to heredity, or something like, but sin is what you know to be wrong and do.

Again, sin is that which mocks you when you seek to live for God. You have said, ‘I really must make a new start’; and then God has put His finger on the thing in your life which has stood up and challenged you and laughed at you and said, ‘You know you really cannot; you may make a new resolution, but what about me?’ It is that sin in your life which challenges you as you make a new determination.

The Bible definition of sin is this: it is transgression of the law, it is stepping over the mark. God has spoken that Law to us in the terms of the life of Jesus Christ; and I want you to face this fact of sin, in the light of the life of Jesus Christ; and remember that He has said, ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ – L.F.E. Wilkinson: The Hidden Evil, 1949
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick.

Malachi 3:3 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them.

The word translated purge means to cleanse by sifting and straining, as by the action of water. There are gold diggings in Western Australia where the gold dust mixed with the soil is separated from it by means of water. I believe that the action of water when spoken of in the Bible usually means the action of God the Holy Ghost working through the cleansing of the spoken or written Word [Psalm 119:9 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
; Eph 5:26 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
]. It may be there are things in your life which you know are sins, which God wants to deal with.

You may not think there is any sin in worry. But God has given us a command that in nothing are we to be anxious. God’s Spirit wants to save you from the worry which is causing difficulty and hindrance between your soul and God. Perhaps you think you cannot help stumbling as a result of your besetting temptations – that it is no sin, for instance, for a man to exhibit bad temper.

Yet, when God has given us His word in Jude 24 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
that He ‘is able to guard you from stumbling? do you think it is no sin to persist in stumbling? Again, God tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)
: 18, ‘In everything give thanks.’ Do you think it right for Christian people to grumble at the dealings of God, at their circumstances and failures, at God’s weather, and this thing and the other? ‘These are only little sins,’ you say. But it is the little sins that make many of the inconsistencies of most Christian lives.

He is not a Christian at all who has not learned that God can deliver him from great sins, and he is not much of a Christian who has not learned that God can deliver him from little sins; and what He wants to do is to sift us, to strain us, to purge us of those things, as the metal is purged. – Harrington C. Lees: The Conditions on Which God Cleanses, 1904
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick

2 Corinthians 9:8 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye… may abound to every good work.

The Christian is not simply somebody who has his past sins forgiven; he is someone who has discovered present power for living. Not only does God offer to us grace that we may be forgiven and saved for eternity, but He offers to us all sufficiency that we may conquer and triumph through every day of the present. Jesus died upon the cross and rose again, a living mighty Saviour; and He desires as we draw near to the cross that we shall not only find the place of pardon but the place of power. He desires that through His Holy Spirit we should not only find regeneration but power to be sanctified. Jesus desires to continue His work in our hearts, that we may experience the power to live a holy life abounding in all sufficiency.

I remember a simple phrase of Billy Graham’s which he used in a ministers’ meeting during His London crusade. He said ‘You know, I want to be a wholesome Christian.’ It seemed a simple thing to say, yet a profound one; and that is the sort of Christian I too want to be, a wholesome Christian – someone who brings the atmosphere of the victory of the Lord Jesus into all they do and think; whose whole sub-conscious atmosphere is one of simple Christlikeness and wholesomeness.

I want to be a wholesome Christian. But we cannot make ourselves wholesome Christians. All we can do is to trust the Lord Jesus to do this work. The principle of faith runs right through every activity of Christian service, and that is the principle demanded for salvation when first we come to Jesus. – M.A.P. Wood: The All-Sufficiency of Christ, 1955
- Daily Thoughts From Keswick

2 Samuel 22:50 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

I will give thanks and sing praise unto Thy name.
Daniel 9:20 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

And while I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin, and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God.

The very essence and specialty of secret prayer, so it seems to me, is that it should express most freely whatever else it deals with, the movements of the individual spirit, confessing inmost personal sins, giving praise for personally received mercies, both of providence and grace; worshipping in view of personal insights into the Lord’s great glory, supplicating regarding the deepest needs, and the simplest needs, of the individuals in the freest detail and name by name.

All this brings with it the question how best to combine and adjust it all in some such reverent order as that in our unwatched secrecy there shall be no more idle waste of thought and word. – H.C.G. Moule.

Prayer undoubtedly does express ‘the movements of the individual spirit.” The purer the inner life the better the praying.
- Daily Meditations for Prayer

Psalm 119:25 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

Quicken Thou me according to Thy word.

It is well to know what to pray for, - David seeks quickening; one would have thought that he would have asked for comfort or upraising, but he knew that these would come out of increased life, and therefore he sought that blessing which is the root of the rest.

When a person is depressed in spirit, weak, and bent toward the ground, the main thing is to increase his stamina and put more life into him; then his spirit revives, and his body becomes erect. In reviving the life, the whole man is renewed. – C.H. Spurgeon.

For nothing have we a clearer warrant for praying than for fullness of divine life. It is written, ‘I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” JOHN 10:10. We may freely and believingly pray for that which Christ came to bestow. And if, as we open our hearts for the full inflow of that life, we receive it, all else that we need in our inner life will follow.
- Daily Thoughts for Meditation.

Genesis 32:26 [show/hide]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 5000 requests per day. Please contact the developer of this application if you have questions. (If you're the developer and have questions about this error message, please contact Crossway.)

And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.

God often holds the suppliant in suspense for the sake of throwing him upon self-examination.

It may be simply indispensable both for the good of the suppliant and for the honor of God, that he should be put to the deepest self-searching, to compel reflection and consideration for the purpose of convicting of some sin that must needs be seen, confessed, repented of and put utterly away.

We must not overlook the great fact that when God grants signal blessings in answer to any man’s prayer, it will be taken as a tacit endorsement on God’s part of this man’s spiritual state. – Henry Cowles.

While we hold on to God we must loosen our hold of sin. The hands of prayer must be empty or God cannot fill them with answers. Jacob had been grasping the things of the world, but now he is thoroughly in earnest in laying hold of God. He had come to an end of the self-life. He was to be no longer Jacob but Israel. We must have the same experience if we would prevail with God.
- Daily Meditations for Prayer