TFTD - August 2016

[Resource Manager]

26 August 2016

 

"We show our gratitude to God and to Jesus by making their love to us the pattern of our love to one another. This is the quality which will stamp us as the people of God and open His Kingdom to us. Is this Divine love seen in my life, in your life, in the life of our ecclesia and of the world-wide brotherhood?"

 

- W.L. Bedwell

A Feeling of Gratitude (1976)

[Resource Manager]

27 August 2016

 

"We must remember that we also are sinful wayward sheep and very prone to stray from the paths of righteousness. "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6). Let us remember that Jesus Christ is our "righteousness" and that we should follow him, trusting him to lead us into good pastures, and being fed by him with the true nourishment which comes from the Word of God. If we earnestly and sincerely strive to follow the example of our Good Shepherd, then we shall be members of the Lord’s flock, of the true Israel, when Jesus returns to gather them into the Kingdom of his Father.

 

“Hear the word of the LORD, O you nations, and declare it in the coastlands afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.” (Jeremiah 31:10)."

 

- John Shelmerdine

Sheep and Shepherds (1976)

[Resource Manager]

28 August 2016

 

"What is this love which God’s children must reflect? A feeling, a sentiment, an emotional response? It is none of these, for no word is in any language so liable to gain a false colour, because so alien to the mind of the flesh, as love or its equivalents. Love in its New Testament sense is a continuing way of conduct towards others, a constant quality of life by which the light of goodness shines. Warm and generous it must be, or it is nothing: no priggish altruism can ape it. But when all is said, it is an act not so much of emotion as of will: and the source of that love of our neighbour as ourselves can only be in the love of the Lord our God."

 

- L.G.Sargent

Love Towards the World (1940)

[Resource Manager]

29 August 2016

 

"Christ has, in a manner, already "entered in," having entered into his rest. Here is our calling. Are we living up to it, as members of "the righteous nation which keeps the truth"? (Isaiah 26:2) These are the conditions under which peace obtains, "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you: because he trusts in you." (Isaiah 26:2)"

 

- C.C. Walker

“The Prince of Peace” (1914)

[Resource Manager]

30 August 2016

 

"There is no state of mind so excellent as that of thankfulness to God. It is not he who prays most or fasts most who is the greatest saint in the world. It is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice. But it is he who is always thankful to God, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for it."

 

- William Law

In Everything Give Thanks

[Resource Manager]

31 August 2016

 

In a very real sense may Christ say to us all what he said to the brethren at Laodicea: “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” He is at the door all the time: he is knocking all the time in the message he has put on permanent record, and in the means he has providentially employed to bring it within our reach. We have but to open the door. This requires us to go out of our way a little. If we do not make it a habit to read the Bible, in a daily and systematic manner: if we never attend assemblies where his mind is displayed and his name recorded, our door remains shut and he cannot become our guest. A wise man will open the door and let him in.

 

- Robert Roberts

Sunday Morning (1890)