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True Vine Devotional for October 27

“ Ye Are My Friends, if Ye Do the Things Which I Command You ”

John 15:14

Our Lord has said what He gave as proof of His friendship: He gave His life for us. He now tells us what our part is to be—to do the things which He commands. He gave His life to secure a place for His love in our hearts to rule us; the response His love calls us to, and empowers us for, is that we do what He commands us. As we know the dying love, we shall joyfully obey its commands. As we obey the commands, we shall know the love more fully. Christ had already said: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.” He counts it needful to repeat the truth again: the one proof of our faith in His love, the one way to abide in it, the one mark of being true branches is—to do the things which He commands us. He began with absolute surrender of His life for us. He can ask nothing less from us. This alone is a life in His friendship.

This truth, of the imperative necessity of obedience, doing all that Christ commands us, has not the place in our Christian teaching and living that Christ meant it to have. We have given a far higher place to privilege than to duty. We have not considered implicit obedience as a condition of true discipleship. The secret thought that it is impossible to do the things He commands us, and that therefore it cannot be expected of us, and a subtle and unconscious feeling that sinning is a necessity have frequently robbed both precepts and promises of their power. The whole relation to Christ has become clouded and lowered, the waiting on His teaching, the power to hear and obey His voice, and through obedience to enjoy His love and friendship, have been enfeebled by the terrible mistake. Do let us try to return to the true position, take Christ’s words as most literally true, and make nothing less the law of our life: “Ye are my friends, if ye do the things that I command you.” Surely our Lord asks nothing less than that we heartily and truthfully say: “Yea, Lord, what Thou dost command, that will I do.”

These commands are to be done as a proof of friendship. The power to do them rests entirely in the personal relationship to Jesus. For a friend I could do what I would not for another. The friendship of Jesus is so heavenly and wonderful, it comes to us so as the power of a divine love entering in and taking possession, the unbroken fellowship with Himself is so essential to it, that it implies and imparts a joy and a love which make the obedience a delight. The liberty to claim the friendship of Jesus, the power to enjoy it, the grace to prove it in all its blessedness—all come as we do the things He commands us.

Is not the one thing needful for us that we ask our Lord to reveal Himself to us in the dying love in which He proved Himself our friend, and then listen as He says to us: “Ye are My friends.” As we see what our Friend has done for us, and what as unspeakable blessedness it is to have Him call us friends, the doing His commands will become the natural fruit of our life in his love. We shall not fear to say: “Yea, Lord, we are Thy friends, and do what Thou dost command us.”

If ye do. Yes, it is in doing that we are blessed, that we abide in His love, that we enjoy His friendship. “If ye do what I command you!” O my Lord, let Thy holy friendship lead me into the love of all Thy commands, and let the doing of Thy commands lead me ever deeper into Thy friendship.

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Streams in the Desert Devotional for October 27

"All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me" (Psalms 42:7).

They are HIS billows, whether they go o’’er us,

Hiding His face in smothering spray and foam;

Or smooth and sparkling, spread a path before us,

And to our haven bear us safely home.

They are HIS billows, whether for our succor

He walks across them, stilling all our fear;

Or to our cry there comes no aid nor answer,

And in the lonely silence none is near.

They are HIS billows, whether we are toiling

Through tempest-driven waves that never cease,

While deep to deep with clamor loud is calling;

Or at His word they hush themselves in peace.

They are HIS billows, whether He divides them,

Making us walk dryshod where seas had flowed;

Or lets tumultuous breakers surge about us,

Rushing unchecked across our only road.

They are HIS billows, and He brings us through them;

So He has promised, so His love will do.

Keeping and leading, guiding and upholding,

To His sure harbor, He will bring us through.

-- Annie Johnson Flint

Stand up in the place where the dear Lord has put you, and there do your best. God gives us trial tests. He puts life before us as an antagonist face to face. Out of the buffeting of a serious conflict we are expected to grow strong. The tree that grows where tempests toss its boughs and bend its trunk often almost to breaking, is often more firmly rooted than the tree which grows in the sequestered valley where no storm ever brings stress or strain. The same is true of life. The grandest character is grown in hardship. -- Selected

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Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer Devotional for October 27

Tozer in the Morning Growing Numbers Do Not Guarantee Increasing Quality

The question of numbers and their relation to success or failure in the work of the Lord is one that disturbs most Christians more than a little.

. . . There are Christians, for instance, who dismiss the whole matter as being beneath them.

. . .They prefer to sit around the Lord's Table in a select and tight little circle, admiring the deep things of God and, I very much fear, admiring themselves a wee bit also. This is a kind of Protestant monasticism without the cowl and the beads, for it seeks to preserve the faith of Christ from pollution by isolating it from the vulgar masses. Its motives may be commendable, but its methods are altogether unscriptural and its spirit completely out of mood with that of our Lord.

The other and opposite school is the most vocal and has by far the largest following in gospel circles today. Its philosophy, if it can be called a philosophy, is that "we must get the message out" regardless of how we go about it. The devotees of this doctrine appear to be more concerned with quantity than with quality. They seem burned up with desire to "bring the people in" even if they have not much to offer them after they are in. They take inexcusable liberties both with message and with method. The Scriptures are used rather than expounded and the Lordship of Christ almost completely ignored. Pressure is exerted to persuade the people (who, by the way, come to the meetings with something else in mind altogether) to accept Christ, with the understanding that they shall then have peace of mind and financial prosperity, not to mention high grades in school and a low score on the golf course.

The crowds-at-any-price mania has taken a firm grip on American Christianity and is the motivating power back of a shockingly high percentage of all religious activity. Men and churches compete for the attention of the paying multitudes who are brought in by means of any currently popular gadget or gimmick ostensibly to have their souls saved, but, if the truth were told, often for reasons not so praiseworthy as this.

Tozer in the Evening Condemnation or No Condemnation

A sinful man should be afraid; he has plenty to be afraid of. The consequences of his sins, death, judgment and hell are all awaiting him and he cannot escape them by looking the other way. While he lives on earth there are dangers of every kind facing him and everyone he loves. Any religious teacher that exhorts him to ignore these dangers is unrealistic, false to the facts and a deadly enemy to his soul. The prophet of tranquility is indeed another source of danger to him and should be considered one more object of fear. Where there are mortal perils and no place to hide, fear is the only sane reaction. To dismiss fear while the danger still exists is little short of insanity. Until the danger has been removed, fear should remain. Only that man has a right to be unafraid who has fled for refuge to the mighty Savior. Such a man knows the danger is there, but he also knows that his Almighty Lord will bring him safely through and present him at last faultless before the p resence of God. There are in the Scriptures innumerable exhortations to put away fear; but they are all addressed to Gods own children, never to the children of this world. Someone must care, and if a man has not cast his fears on Christ, he must bear them himself. The safety of the Rock is for those who have put their trust in the Rock. All others must face their enemies alone.

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Days of Heaven on Earth Devotional for October 27

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for Me?”

(Jeremiah 32:27)

Cyrus, the King, was compelled to fulfill the vision of Jeremiah, by making a decree, the instant the prophecy had foretold, declaring that Jehovah had bidden him rebuild Jerusalem and invite her captives to return to their native home. So Jeremiah’s faith was vindicated and Jehovah’s prophecy gloriously fulfilled, as faith ever will be honored. Oh, for the faith, that in the dark present and the darker future, shall dare to subscribe the evidences and seal up the documents if need be, for the time of waiting, and then begin to testify to the certainty of its hope like the prophet of Anathoth!

The word Anathoth has a beautiful meaning, “echoes.” So faith is the “echo” of God and God always gives the “echo” to faith, as He answers it back in glorious fulfillment. Oh, let our faith echo also the brave claim of the ancient prophet and take our full inheritance, with his glorious shout, “Oh, Lord, Thou art the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for the Lord?” and back like an echo will come the heavenly answer to our heart, “I am the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for Me?”

Copyright Statement This material is considered in the public domain.

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Charles Spurgeon's "Morning & Evening" Devotional for October 27

Morning

“We ought to obey God rather than men.”

Acts 5:17-36 , Acts 5:38-42

Acts 5:17 , Acts 5:18

The Sadducees were the Broad Churchmen of their day, yet their liberal views did not prevent their persecuting the lovers of the truth. Men of no religion are frequently the greatest bigots in the world.

Acts 5:24

Staggered but not converted, they went madly on with their persecution. Truly, when a sinner is set on mischief nothing will stop him but the grace of God.

Acts 5:26-28

As in Æsop’s fable, the sheep of Jesus are charged by the wolf with troubling the water.

Acts 5:29 , Acts 5:30

Peter does not flinch; he lays the great crime of Jesus death at their door.

Acts 5:31-36 , Acts 5:38 , Acts 5:39

Bad but prudent men have frequently, for policy’s sake, advocated toleration, and so have been in the hands of God the means of delivering his people from persecution. We should admire the great Head of the church who can find a protector for her, even in the enemy’s camp.

Acts 5:41 , Acts 5:42

Those who had been scourged rejoiced, but their enemies went home envious and wretched. We ought to rejoice if we bear reproach for Christ; and we should persevere in serving the Lord, however furiously we may be opposed.

Evening

“Lay not this sin to their charge.”

Acts 6:1-15

Acts 6:1

Grecians or Christian Jews who had lived in foreign parts

Acts 6:1

Hebrews or Palestine Jews

Acts 6:1

Perhaps, being strangers, they were not well known, and so were overlooked; we have no reason to believe that the neglect was intentional. Mistakes will occur, and if not rectified they may create ill-will and division.

Acts 6:2

Others can do such work; ministers have enough to do to mind their own business.

Acts 6:3 , Acts 6:4

Prayer and preaching make up the entire life of a minister; by prayer he receives the word from God, and by preaching he communicates it to his people. Other church officers should take care that the minister’s mind is not burdened with temporal anxieties.

Acts 6:15

His holy and glad heart beamed forth in his countenance, a flash of coming glory lit up his face, and even his foes were forced to see it; yet neither this sight nor his eloquent address could touch their cruel hearts, for they thirsted for his blood, and would have it.

Acts 7:54-60

Acts 7:55 , Acts 7:56

Jesus was seen standing to receive the martyrs soul. What a vision! It removed the bitterness of death.

Acts 7:57-60

Asleep amid the falling stones! He slept not till he had left the church the legacy of his prayers. Augustine says, “If Stephen had not thus prayed, the church had not received that young man named Saul.” We have no other description of martyrdom in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit foreseeing that the church would have an abundance of such records in after times.

Copyright Statement This resource was produced before 1923 and therefore is considered in the "Public Domain".

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Charles Spurgeon's "Faith's Checkbook" Devotional for October 27

“His Service, Face, Name ”

Revelation 22:3-4

Three choice blessings will be ours in the gloryland.

"His servants shall serve him." No other lords shall oppress us, no other service shall distress us. We shall serve Jesus always, perfectly, without weariness, and without error. This is heaven to a saint: in all things to serve the LORD Christ and to be owned by Him as His servant is our soul’s high ambition for eternity.

"And they shall see his face." This makes the service delightful: indeed, it is the present reward of service. We shall know our LORD, for we shall see Him as He is. To see the face of Jesus is the utmost favor that the most faithful servant of the LORD can ask. What more could Moses ask than-"Let me see thy face?

"And his name shall be in their foreheads." They gaze upon their LORD till His name is photographed upon their brows. They are acknowledged by Him, and they acknowledge Him. The secret mark of inward grace develops into the public sign-manual of confessed relationship.

O LORD, give us these three things in their beginnings here that we may possess them in their fullness in Thine own abode of bliss!

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