Category: DEVOTIONALS

  • MISSIONARY PREDESTINATION

    My Utmost For His Highest And now, saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be His servant. Isaiah 49:5. The first thing that happens after we have realized our election to God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our prejudices and our parochial notions and our patriotisms; we are turned into…

  • MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE

    Ray Palmer, 1808–1887 In whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in Him. (Ephesians 3:12 RSV) “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” was written in 1832 by Ray Palmer, a 22-year-old school teacher. Several months after his graduation from Yale University and while still living with the family of the lady…

  • MORNING & EVENING

    How heart-cheering to the believer is the delight which God has in his saints! We cannot see any reason in ourselves why the Lord should take pleasure in us; we cannot take delight in ourselves, for we often have to groan, being burdened; conscious of our sinfulness, and deploring our unfaithfulness; and we fear that…

  • THE DIVINE RULE OF LIFE

    My Utmost For His Highest Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48. Our Lord’s exhortation in these verses is to be generous in our behaviour to all men. In the spiritual life beware of walking according to natural affinities. Everyone has natural affinities; some people we like and…

  • JESUS, THE VERY THOUGHT OF THEE

    Attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, 1091–1153English Translation—Edward Caswall, 1814–1876 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. (Psalm 42:1, 2) This hymn text comes from the height of the Middle Ages, a period of history often scornfully called…

  • MORNING & EVENING

    Gideon ordered his men to do two things: covering up a torch in an earthen pitcher, he bade them, at an appointed signal, break the pitcher and let the light shine, and then sound with the trumpet, crying, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon! the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!” This…

  • ASK YE WHAT GREAT THINGS I KNOW

    Johann C. Schwedler, 1672–1730 Translated by Benjamin H. Kennedy, 1804–1889 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2) A question that many struggle with today is “What is the real purpose of living?” Or, “What is the ultimate reality or joy in life?”…

  • MORNING & EVENING

    This “liberty” makes us free to heaven’s charter—the Bible. Here is a choice passage, believer, “When thou passest through the rivers, I will be with thee.” You are free to that. Here is another: “The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee”; you are free to…

  • HIS TEMPTATION AND OURS

    My Utmost For His Highest For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15. Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is that mentioned by St. James—“Every…

  • NEAR TO THE HEART OF GOD

    Words and Music by Cleland B. McAfee, 1866–1944 When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy. (Psalm 94:19) O Thou who dry’st the mourner’s tears! How dark this world would be,If, when deceived and wounded here, we could not fly to Thee.— Thomas Moore Life is often filled with unexpected problems or crises.…