TFTD - March 2016

[Resource Manager]

01 March 2016

"... Jesus says, "They have their receipt in full" (Matthew 6:2). Some seek to be well thought of, often failing in their object because their only thought is for the present. The wise disciple realizes that he cannot have both the present and the future. If we strive after the temporal present we shall probably miss both the present and the future, but if we set our affection on things above, not only are we building things which abide, but we shall find that all things needful have also been added unto us in the present, and the "windows in heaven" whose existence the sceptic doubted, have been opened for our benefit. Temporal things give no lasting pleasure; but eternal things provide now a great satisfaction and a peace of mind uncomprehended by the world, a satisfaction and a peace which reaches unto and continues in the eternal order."

- James Carter 
Temporal and Eternal (1950)

[Resource Manager]

02 March 2016

 

"The mere knowledge of the truth will never secure for anyone an entrance into the Kingdom. The truth is but an agency; the Gospel is but a means; and unless the end is realized the means are a failure. The end proposed in the first instance is to give us fellowship with the Father. To do this it must cause us to walk in the light."

 

- Robert Roberts

Ambassador (1868) 

[Resource Manager]

03 March 2016 

 

"We need to scatter the seed of our “bread” upon the waters at all times, in all situations. We cannot say when we are young (in our morning), “I shall scatter in my evening time”; nor can we say when we are old (in our evening), “I scattered in my morning”. The seed must be scattered at all times and throughout life. Casting our bread upon the waters is life. If we can do this with the right spirit we shall enter into the song of Israel’s joy as the captives returned to Jerusalem: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:5,6)."

 

- Maurice Beale

Cast thy Bread upon the Waters (1993)

[Resource Manager]

04 March 2016

 

"... We have an obligation to walk in newness of life-to serve God rather than sin. The reality of the resurrection imposes on us an obligation to be “instruments of righteousness unto God” until the return of our Lord from heaven. The Lord’s return is as certain as his resurrection. Like the disciples we can be slow to recognise the obvious signs and messages around us. Like them we can be bewildered and confused when events do not work out as we expect they should.

 

Let the First Century disciples be an example to us. Let the reality of the Lord’s resurrection inspire us to dedication and service. And finally, let us be sensitive to the momentous times in which we live and also to the way in which we live our lives. “Even so, Come, Lord Jesus.”

 

- Geoff Henstock

The Power of His Resurrection (1997) 

[Resource Manager]

05 March 2016

 

"There are always two sides to a covenant, and if one fails to sustain his part the covenant is broken. God will not fail, and if we desire our saintship to be real and enduring, we must not fail either."

 

- Islip Collyer

Called to be Saints (1949)

[Resource Manager]

06 March 2016

 

"BUT as the LORD was one, so should His people have been in His service. It was one people, “a whole family”, “all Israel”, who were called upon to serve the LORD. His worship should have been the delight of the whole man, who loved the LORD his God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might—not a man of many parts, each of them devoted to a special interest which led him to divide his loyalty between God and affections centred upon self. This was the practical implication of the First Commandment."

 

- A.H. Nicholls

Deuteronomy for Disciples (1981)

[Resource Manager]

07 March 2016

 

"... This joy of the disciple of Christ is meant to be unquenchable, an inner joy which is essentially a part of the individual, a joy which in its strength presents a striking contrast with the gaiety of the world, so effervescent and dependent upon external stimuli. It is this kind of joy that Paul possessed."

 

- T.J. Barling

The Letter to the Philippians

[Resource Manager]

08 March 2016

 

"If we are to have a true knowledge of God, we must have a clear mental grasp of His perfection as revealed in Holy Scripture. We must become more aware of the awe-inspiring grandeur of the divine character. And we must approach our study in a spirit of humility, conscious of the omniscience and omnipresence of the Almighty; realising what we are, and Whom we worship."

 

- Gwyn Davies

The Holiness and Supremacy of God (1985)

[Resource Manager]

09 March 2016

 

"... the experiences of Abraham were instructive to him in the principles of God’s ways; but the record of them was so ordered that they become prophecies, and one episode becomes the basis of an allegory, in the fulfilment of which Paul found far reaching instruction. The Galatians were bewitched by false teachers who were drawing them back to a legal system which was joyless, enslaving, temporary and incapable of conferring heirship. This was no Aesop’s fable providing an analogy but God’s words so written that even history as written was fraught with divine significance."

 

- John Carter

Many Parts and Many Ways (1957)

[Resource Manager]

10 March 2016

 

"... By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." All around us there are people who are infected by this sin-cursed nature, that which in itself is absolutely fatal and for which humanly speaking there is no antidote.

 

But we have learned of the divine antidote and have partaken of it. "Freely you have received, freely give," and therefore make it an essential in your life that that which has been remedied for you already, which holds so much more promise in the days to come when Christ shall be in the earth again, that that is handed on to those around you, that you do what you can in your little way to be the ambassadors of Christ, as the apostle says: "We beseech you in Christ’s stead, be you reconciled to God."

 

- W.H. Boulton

Let Him That Heareth Say, Come (1927)

[Resource Manager]

11 March 2016

"The word of God goes forth with power. It effects a change in the believer. That this applies to the written word (as well as to other manifestations) is clearly shown in the epistles of James and Peter. Both writers describe rebirth as an operation of the Word; and the context in each case leaves us in no doubt that the Word under consideration is the written word of God."

- Peter Watkins
The Power of the Written Word (1961)

[Resource Manager]

12 March 2016

 

"We are being prepared now for existence in eternity, for everlasting fellowship with Christ, with the Creator of heaven and earth and with angels; prepared for a life of which this world has no conception, and has no words or terms adequately to describe; for honour and glory undreamed of by mortal man, which even scripture itself can only describe in halting terms, due to our frail mentality. Let us then with Paul count that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared" with the glory to be revealed. "If God be for us, who can be against us?"

 

- D. Bedson

Waiting for God (1969)

[Resource Manager]

13 March 2016

 

"God has control of all chance; but all chance is not controlled. It is controlled when His purpose requires it. His purpose does not require Him to decide which shells every or any child on the sea-shore shall pick up and throw away, unless the incident be a link in the purpose being worked out, and then the hand of the child will be guided ... It will therefore qualify us to read the hand of God in current events, as well as in the history of the past, in our individual lives, as well as in the affairs of the nations."

 

- Robert Roberts

The Ways of Providence

[Resource Manager]

14 March 2016

 

"In our understandable desire to believe and proclaim the whole teaching of the Scriptures, we must never lose sight of the reason why they exist at all. The Word of God is designed to enlighten us in His will, His ways, His thoughts and His purpose with mankind; but it also reveals us to ourselves as creatures of flesh and blood, liable always to do our own will, think our own thoughts, and walk in our own ways. The aim of the Scriptures is to change us into something we would not otherwise be, to “transform us” by the “renewing of our minds” (Romans 12; Ephesians 2), so that we come to live not according to the spirit of man but the spirit of God. If some of us have in the past laid so great an emphasis on the intellectual understanding of the teaching of the Bible that we have neglected the spiritual transformation it has been designed to achieve, let us learn the lesson. Let us make it our aim that the Word of God shall be rightly used amongst us, so that it may have its whole effect upon us all, “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness”, that as men and women of God we “may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16, R.V.)."

 

- Fred Pearce

The Brotherhood Today (1978)

[Resource Manager]

15 March 2016 

 

"Real peace of mind lies not in emotions, nor in their absence, though in all these there is soothing. It is the mind at leisure from itself, inwardly adjusted to withstand the stress of all outward things, the stability of assured conviction, the calm of invulnerable faith, the repose of a heart set deep in God’s Word, the mind stayed on Him (Isaiah 26:3). Inner peace is reflected in the outer life by the degree to which we ourselves are agents of peace. Jesus did not say, blessed are the peace lovers—but “blessed are the peacemakers”—a very different thing indeed. It follows that peace is an active not a passive quality, for as James confirms, “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3:18)."

 

- Claud Lamb
The Fruit of the Spirit (1980)

[Resource Manager]

16 March 2016

 

"The word of God is not just one infallible source among many. It is the only one. The uniqueness lies not only in its own utter reliability but also in the inability of all men throughout the ages to produce anything like it. Our words are our witnesses: God’s word is a witness to Him."

 

- H. Tennant

A Matter of Words (1960)

[Resource Manager]

17 March 2016

"The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakens morning by morning, he wakens my ear to hear as the learned ..." (Isaiah 50:45).

"That is why he is meek and lowly: he is eager to hear and to do. He esteems the Word above his necessary food and makes it the governing power of his life. And those who take his yoke upon them take the yoke of the Word of God. They too must come as learners with open ear."

- L.G. Sargent
Hearkening to the Word (1966)

[Resource Manager]

18 March 2016 

 

"... we may say that some elders have toilfully tramped from a very arid wilderness to within sight of the promised land. They will not condemn some young friends for a little venturesome exploring, to right or left, but with such clear recollection of their own long toil from stage to stage, they may be excused for feeling a little anxious lest young people may invert the process, and go back stage after stage, until the promised land is lost to sight and there is nothing for them but the barren wilderness."

 

- I. Collyer

The Gradual Advance or Retreat (1951)

[Resource Manager]

19 March 2016

 

"The living God has "sons" brought to this blessed relationship by the work of the only begotten Son, who is the Firstborn of many brethren. The Firstborn is alive for ever more; how much we need not only the one who died for us, but also the one who is Lord of both dead and living, who is Intercessor, Judge, Resurrection and Life! "Because I live, you shall live also."

 

- John Carter

A Living Saviour (1959)

[Resource Manager]

20 March 2016

 

"The question we need to ask ourselves ... is a very personal one. It is not just a matter of seeing the political events in the Middle East as a fulfilment of prophecy; nor merely an anticipatory rejoicing in the prospect of the wonderful things yet to be done at the coming of the King of Israel. It is the question posed by the late Bro. Islip Collyer in his beautiful hymn:

 

"Shall we behold the promised land,

Its streams and long-down trodden dust

Delivered from the alien hand

And given to the just?

 

We know the end, we know the way,

And some with life he will endow.

Shall we be with him in that day?

We make the answer now."

 

- Len Richardson

Land of Hope and Glory (1978)

[Resource Manager]

21 March 2016

 

"We have no glory of our own; we are dependent upon Christ. "For God hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). To use Paul’s phrase, it is a reflected glory. "We all (not just Moses or Israel but all, both Jew and Gentile) with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18, RV)."

 

- W.H. Simkins

The Glory That Excelleth (1977)

[Resource Manager]

22 March 2016

 

"We need grace, brethren, in our attitude one to another. We need mercy which ever rejoices against judgement. We need to seek to cover transgression and not to expose it to everyone’s public gaze. Christ said so little about the sin of Judas that even the eleven did not guess that he was the traitor. "Lord, is it I?" is a salutary question for all of us."

 

- Harry Tennant

All Out (1972)

[Resource Manager]

23 March 2016

 

"If any man superimposes his own personality upon the Christian gospel he destroys the power of that teaching: hence Paul’s decision "to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect" (1 Corinthians 1:17). Equally the gospel can bring little hope to the man whose ultimate wisdom is his own reasoning, and whose ultimate reality is that which he can touch, taste and handle. He will perish with the things which he can touch, taste and handle. He will perish with the things in which he now puts his trust. "The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness" (1 Corinthians 1:18)."

 

- G.H. Oulton

Wisdom of Men (1969)

[Resource Manager]

24 March 2016

 

"God has given us the pattern of His Son as a pattern for belief, and as a design for living. The high example of Christ is entrenched in the Bible message to us, and herein lies our encouragement and hope, for he became the Word made flesh, and a Light to lighten the Gentiles. Here is the one sure foundation upon which we can base our lives and hopes for the future."

 

- D.M. Elliot

The Call of Christ (1966)

[Resource Manager]

25 March 2016

 

"As in the natural vine, the branches are entirely dependent upon the main stem and root from which they derive their sustenance, so must we abide in Christ. This word is repeatedly used by Jesus to impress upon his disciples their dependence upon him. "I am the vine, you are the branches: He that stays in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done to you. Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15:5-11)" 

 

- A.H. Thorneloe

The Light of the World (1970)