TFTD - January 2017

[Resource Manager]

01 January 2017

 

"A new week, and a new year marked by sharing together emblems of God’s continual love and care provide us with fresh motivation and delightsome cleansing. A new reading of the daily chapters is before us. Let us not be like Israel who did not wish to hear! For He had said, concerning His Word: “This is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing” (Isaiah 28:12)."

 

- Stanley Owen

The Refreshing (1989)

[Resource Manager]

02 January 2017

 

"The most impressive words ... come last in this simple creed, "Walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). This passage falls into perfect harmony with the idea of preparation by all things. If a man walks humbly with his God in all his progress through life, he is at all times under divine guidance and influence. Whether in sorrow or joy, at work or play, his experiences can thus help to prepare him for the more complete manifestation which is to come."

 

- I. Collyer

Conviction and Conduct 

[Resource Manager]

03 January 2017

 

"God giveth grace to the humble, whom He will exalt in due time, the while we cast all our care upon Him, for He careth for us. So the glory of the Lord will be revealed in those who patiently and with dignity wear the crown of thorns, and with loving care seek the crown of rejoicing, content to receive the crown of righteousness when all they who love his appearing receive it together, for it is the very crown of life itself."

 

- Alfred Nicholls

That No Man Take Thy Crown (1969)

[Resource Manager]

04 January 2017

 

"No man can “work out his own salvation” (in the sense in which these familiar words of Paul are so often misused). Instead, faith is the key virtue. Faith, the new and better righteousness, is really the oldest and best righteousness of all, in the sight of God. By this Abraham became God’s righteous Friend. And by this the reader of these words can share the same blessedness through Christ."

 

 - H.A. Whittaker

Abraham: Father of the Faithful 

[Resource Manager]

05 January 2017

 

"The Word of God is the divine instructor of the mind and provides us with ample guidance on the everyday affairs of life. Therein is set forth clear teaching on the choices to be made in almost every aspect of Christian living. We neglect it at our peril. Moreover, the Word of God is food for the mind and strengthens us in making the Christ-like choice. If we humbly accept the teaching of the Word and resolve to follow it, we can rightly seek the blessing of God in prayer. He has promised never to leave us or to forsake us. When our choice is difficult to resolve, even with the Bible in hand and on the heart, our course is to commit our way to the Lord in prayer and, without expecting direct revelation from Him, proceed to do in faith that which we believe to be wise before Him.

 

These simple guidelines are sufficient for the needs of life. Paul gave detailed tuition to disciples in his own time, many of whom had Spirit gifts, and concluded by saying:

 

“And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” (Acts 20:32)"

 

- Harry Tennant

The Christadelphians: What they Believe and Preach

[Resource Manager]

06 January 2017

 

"We of all men have the seeds of eternal happiness; let us bear witness to it both within and toward those who are outside the door.  Let us show toward those who wander in darkness the compassion we have experienced in Christ. Those simple touches of courtesy and understanding coupled with the message we give can be marks of difference in this world of self-interest."

 

- Harry Tennant

Ye Servants of the Lord 

[Resource Manager]

07 January 2017

 

"Paul, a true seed of the Christ plant, knew that it was impossible to know the fulness of Christ without being rooted and grounded in love. He desired that thus planted the brethren might “be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:18-19). Paul continues; “Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ ... for the perfecting of the saints ... till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God ... unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:7,12-13). Only growth in love, the love whose perfecting embraces also wisdom and knowledge, can enable one to reach up to Christ’s measure."

 

- C.A. Macdonald

The Stature of the Fulness of Christ (1951)

[Resource Manager]

08 January 2017

 

"There is a sense which everyone will readily recognize in which the work of God is independent of all human action: but when God works with and by means of man, human agency is far from superfluous. Israel were made to realize that while they could do nothing if God were not with them, He could not in a sense do His part unless they did theirs. God requires men humbly and faithfully and diligently to do their part as the condition and means of enabling Him to work out His purpose with and concerning them. In this beautiful combination we have to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, while it is God who works in us to will and to do His good pleasure”. It is a noble and beneficent principle tending to keep back man from presumption, preserving a place for faith and wholesome activity while giving us the comfort of divine co-operation in all that we do according to His will."

 

- Robert Roberts 

The Ways of Providence 

[Resource Manager]

09 January 2017

 

“... call to remembrance the scene recalled by the Sea of Galilee, when he repeated words he had used some years before, “Follow me.” They were spoken to Peter, and Peter has incorporated the idea in one of his epistles, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth ... who bare our sins in his own body upon the tree.” There we may join the two expressions “Behold the Man!”—“Follow you me.”

 

- W.H. Boulton

Behold the Man! (1944)

[Resource Manager]

10 January 2017

 

"The gospel was the power of God for salvation. It was a power operative upon those being saved, who received it in the love of it. “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). It is the means God is employing in “drawing men” (John 12:32), “seeking” and “teaching” men, (John 4:32; 6:44-45). “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (James 1:18)."

 

- John Carter

Paul’s Letter to the Romans 

[Resource Manager]

11 January 2017

 

"One of the great charms of Divine Truth is to be found in the simple words in which it is stated. A child can understand the words which the angels used when they spoke to the women who had come to the tomb to do loving service to the body of their beloved Lord. “Why seek you the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.” In these simple words they proclaimed a Truth so marvellous and of such great significance that even to this day they strike the finest chords of human emotion. From the hearts of all true brothers and sisters of Christ the fact of the resurrection of Jesus calls forth expressions of love to God for all His wondrous works and for His loving-kindness toward the children of men."

 

- W. Woodley

The Resurrection of Christ (1937)

[Resource Manager]

12 January 2017

 

"The spirit of worship is not enough. “They that worship ... must worship in spirit and in truth.” To worship God in truth is to worship none other than the true God, “the God of Truth”, in sound knowledge of and harmony with the truth God has revealed about Himself in “all Scripture”. To bow down in self-abasement before a human invention, or a mistaken conception of God, is idolatry."

 

- E.H. Smith

Worship (1967)

[Resource Manager]

13 January 2017

 

"Our Heavenly Father has room and need for each of us in our order and type. We are instruments in His hands; we are powerless of ourselves (John 15:5). All that we should be concerned about is the faithfulness of our joint and individual labours, “that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together” (John 4:37). Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly—“heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23). “Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him” (2 Corinthians 5:9)."

 

- Claud Lamb

Labourers Together (1999)

[Resource Manager]

14 January 2017

 

"It is vitally true that the way of Jesus is a way of love and not of law. Life is not to be gained by keeping a new code so that each performance of a command can be notched up as a credit against the future: it is to be given to those who are the children of their Father in heaven, who sends His sun and rain on good and evil, just and unjust: and it is on this ground that they are called upon to love their enemies. Yet this principle of love is derived from the Law itself when Deuteronomy 6:45 and Leviticus 19:18 are taken up in what has been called the “evangelical summary” of the Law:

 

“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40)."

 

- L.G. Sargent

The Christian Ethic (1969)

[Resource Manager]

15 January 2017

 

"God has given us a revelation of Himself which requires diligent search. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. As we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth, so we appreciate more and more the joy and beauty of Divine Being. All that we can conceive of, in harmony with Divine revelation, GOD IS! and beyond that again into infinity, HE IS. How humble we feel in the presence of such immensity! and how small and puerile are mundane affairs! The contemplation of these things elevates our minds far above the mean and petty considerations of time and space, and of things which appeal only to the senses."

 

- William Woodley

He That Cometh to God (1951)

[Resource Manager]

16 January 2017

 

"Upon faith knowledge can build. Not all knowledge puffs up ... The right kind of knowledge is essential in our spiritual building: we are to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Our faith and knowledge must be crowned by love. Each of us has adventured upon the task of building his house of faith on Christ’s words. We must know that a wilful neglect of love’s mortar will effectively destroy that house, but where knowledge has worked through love, not death itself will destroy it."

 

- H.A. Twelves

Builders or Destroyers? (1950)

[Resource Manager]

17 January 2017

 

"The apostle said that glory was one of the things sought by those who patiently continued in well doing. The glory is God’s glory. Moses asked to see the glory of God. He was not shown the features of God, but he heard the glory of God in the announcement of his attributes. "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." The patience which continues shows all these attributes of God in a reflected image of this man’s maker; he becomes finally a manifestation of the glory of God.

 

"Let patience have her perfect work": the fruit unto holiness, and the end-everlasting life."

 

- F.W. Barnett

Patient Continuance (1961) 

[Resource Manager]

18 January 2017

 

"As Jesus himself confirmed, our Heavenly Father does not look upon even a sparrow with the impersonal eye of an ornithologist. The tiny bird fallen in the dust means much to Him. He feels its fall, and in His heart its woe is written. And if that be so with the sparrow, how much more with the children of men, in whom His handiwork is more richly displayed (Matthew 10:29-31). Through all the trials and anguish of a restless world, God’s practical help finds its way unerringly to those who trust Him."

 

- Claud Lamb

Goodness and Mercy (1980)

[Resource Manager]

19 January 2017

 

"... the Lord Jesus, who although he was the Son of God and the heir of all things, sought no high thing for himself throughout all his life. When the people tried to make him a king, He would have none of it. He was a man who, though rich, yet for our sakes became poor, and who in this life had not so much as the foxes or birds, for they had their holes and their nests. He sought the will of his Father all his life and especially in his death, when that will was that he should suffer the reproach of men, their hate, their cruelty, their mocking. Even then he sought God’s Kingdom and His righteousness."

 

- Malcolm Shilvock

Seekest Thou Great Things for Thyself? (1980)

[Resource Manager]

20 January 2017

 

“Faith is shipwrecked when one aspect of truth is seen and insisted upon out of relation to the rest.”

 

- Neville Smart

The Epistles of John

[Resource Manager]

21 January 2017

 

"Our membership of Christ and fellowship with God through him come first and form the basis of our fellowship with one another. Any attempt to reverse this order is to try to build without a foundation. “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his son Jesus Christ“ (1 John 1:3)."

 

- E.J. Newman

Grafted into Christ (1949)

[Resource Manager]

22 January 2017

 

"Whilst our individual lightstands should witness to the world the good works which glorify our Father, our strongest illumination should be seen through the collective force of all the lights brought together in the Ecclesia where the glory of the Saviour-work of Jesus may shine brightly through our preaching by word, by deed, and by friendship." 

 

- John Marshall

Reflections on the Way (1960)

[Resource Manager]

23 January 2017

 

"... It is not difficult to see why “the wisdom of this world”, which so often assumes “What I don’t know isn’t knowledge”, is the greatest barrier of all to the wisdom and grace which is “from above”, for “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble”. If only a fraction of the thought that has been devoted to the criticism of the Word of God had been directed by a humble desire to receive, to learn, and to understand, men might easily have seen in the Scriptures a harmony of individually gifted witnesses which fills out the picture of the life, the trials, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus with all the dimensions and depth of reality—vivid, vital reality. And with that reality the supreme importance of “all Scripture” stands solidly united—let current human theories be what they may."

 

- Eric H. Smith

Consider Him ... (1963)

[Resource Manager]

24 January 2017

 

"In the possession of a God-fearing man or woman, how wonderful a faculty is the power of speech! The loving words of a mother to her child; the wise counsels of a teacher to her class; the well-chosen utterance in the religious assembly; the quiet wayside thought in season—these may well remain in the memory of those to whom they are spoken, a light and guide through succeeding years.

 

The God-breathed declarations of patriarchs, prophets and apostles have wrought marvels in the spiritual lives of men and women over many centuries and in many lands. And in the words of Jesus Christ, that supreme master of speech, the very voice of God is in them. We listen to his messages of life and hope with ever-increasing wonder and delight."

 

- Harold Smalley

The Perils of Speech (1983)

[Resource Manager]

25 January 2017

 

"When much else has been forgotten the fragrance of that room in Simon’s house lingers with us still. Wherever the page of the Gospel is turned with reverent fingers as man contemplates the culminating sacrifice of the Saviour’s dedicated life, Mary appears quietly on the scene, a picture of deep understanding and deeper love. At the very threshold of our Lord’s suffering and death, as we are able to see the magnitude of his love and to realize what we owe to him, we are met by this woman who by a tender act of loving devotion, did what she could. And, meeting her here, we are confronted by the challenge, "What have I done? Have I done what I could?"

 

- Melva Purkis 

A Life of Jesus