TFTD - March 2014

[Resource Manager]

01 March 2014

"God has committed to men such responsibility that Ezekiel and Jeremiah can warn and save, or refrain and be guilty of blood. And we know that this is true of us. In all our walks we can display Jesus or hide him; confess him or deny him. We can let our light shine as a light on a lightstand, that men may glorify our Father, or we can behave so that the way of truth is evil spoken of. In our own midst we can turn a sinner from the error of his way, or we can destroy him with our meat for whom Christ died. To hold forth the Word of Life is not therefore the voluntary pastime of a few of us; in some form it is the responsibility of us all."

- Alfred Norris
Preaching the Word

[Resource Manager]

02 March 2014

"The figure of a book of remembrance runs through the Scripture. It is a figure, for the Eternal God neither changes nor forgets. But the thought is full of comfort for those who fear God."

- John Carter
Prophets after the Exile 

[Resource Manager]

03 March 2014

"Never let any person be more powerful for you than God, so that what they say, or what they do, might eat away inside you, so that you yourself - they cannot do it - you yourself allow it to be a guiding force in your life to separate you from the love of God. If you trust in God it will not happen.

"shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:35b).

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39).

For we have an infinite God, and we stand at this very moment with our infinite God against a finite petty world."

- Tim Galbraith
Caution! God at Work

[Resource Manager]

04 March 2014

"True disciples are constantly seeking to evaluate the essential elements of the Master’s example. Jesus emerges from the Gospels as a man of clarity rather than complexity. He is open, artless, honest. There is no secret life which has to be concealed. The Spirit of Christ was one of transparent simplicity. He is never a man having to trim his words out of anxiety for his image. He is never looking sideways to estimate the impression he is making. He speaks openly, frankly and is prepared to imperil his life on the honesty of his teaching. It is like looking at the clear blue sky on a summer day, mistless and cloudless."

- Dennis Gillett
The Genius of Discipleship

[Resource Manager]

05 March 2014

"There are those who talk and write of the primitiveness of the time of the Exodus. It is true that the people could fall into the basest of states–and cannot that happen today? But Moses is no mere product of his time. He is the Lord’s man with a heart of understanding and a spirit of worship which has touched eternal things. He walks even with us, and ahead of us, walking with Jesus in the manner of his conversation before God. We too have heard a voice calling us to Himself, saying, "Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock", and, we can add with deepest joy, that "that rock is Christ".

- Harry Tennant
Moses My Servant

[Resource Manager]

06 March 2014

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," and if our treasure is poured at the feet of our Divine Lord, our lives will be dedicated indeed, and time, labour, gifts, means, whatever it is, all will be used in His service, nothing will be withheld–and nothing will be rejected."

- Edith Ladson
The Consecrated Life (1939)

[Resource Manager]

07 March 2014

"The final rest still remains. It will be given to all who, in faith and patience, have endured. What it will be like we can only imagine, helped by the visions of the prophets, but we can be assured that it will meet all our needs and will satisfy all our longings, for "his rest shall be glorious." "And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places." This is the rest, and it remains for the people of God."

- Philip Hinde
The Rest that Remaineth (1976)

[Resource Manager]

08 March 2014

"As children of God we must manifest a measure of faithfulness, we must give diligence to make our "calling and election sure"; then being supported by God’s "stability" we have His promise that we "shall never stumble: for thus shall be richly supplied" "the entrance into the eternal kingdom." God’s faithfulness is the foundation of everything; by His divine power He "hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness," including the all-important faith in His "precious and exceeding great promises."

- H.H-B.
Faith (1941)

[Resource Manager]

09 March 2014

"During the wilderness God provided Israel with the opportunity to reflect upon their actions; each day brought with it a new opportunity for service. How would they use it? Indeed, how will we use each daily opportunity? "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom". (Psalm 90:12)"

- R. Kidd
So Teach Us to Number Our Days (1998)

[Resource Manager]

10 March 2014

"That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:7)

"How comprehensive and how perfectly fitted to our needs are the exceeding riches of God’s grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus! They embrace all aspects of Christ’s work on our behalf–his sacrifice, his priesthood, his kingship."

- F.W. Turner
Exhortation (1955)

[Resource Manager]

11 March 2014

"If we wish to check where we stand, each of us, within this present fellowship, let us stand alongside Philippians 2:2 and examine our part in the life of the community. “Of the same mind, having the same love.” The mind does not spring from the love: the love springs from the mind. The other way round is altogether of human thinking and is not Bible based. It is from the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ that true love springs:

"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be grasped to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself" (Philippians 2:4-8)

- Harry Tennant
Our Community Today (1977)

[Resource Manager]

12 March 2014

"God has revealed that all things are formed for His glory; for His pleasure they were created. All intelligence is out of Him, and must bow to Him, as saith the Scripture: “Every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue confess.” Adoration of Him is the highest act of created intelligence. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Nothing exists by itself or for itself (see Job 34:21). All exist in God: all power, and strength, and wisdom, beauty, and wealth is of Him. Nothing can be without Him; all would perish by a word, if He gave it. But He is great and wise, and kind, and long-suffering; and so the world is established that it cannot be moved."

- Robert Roberts
Seasons of Comfort

[Resource Manager]

13 March 2014

"We need to recapture something of "the fear of the Lord" and the honour and dignity of reading from the scriptures that Ezra encouraged in his day. When he "opened the book in the sight of all the people... all the people stood up: and Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God." Do not the scriptures contain "great and precious promises" and ought we not to reverence it as the living word of "the great God?"

- John Marshall
The New Life

[Resource Manager]

14 March 2014

"... Jesus covered not only the rich but the poor also. The rich man glorying in his riches is far from the Kingdom of God, but the poor man trusting in his hard-earned pittance is no nearer. Indeed the poor man may clutch his few pounds more tightly than a rich man his thousands. The emphasis in each is upon the same thing. Our trust must not be centred upon riches, great or small, or upon honour, or men, but upon God."

- Melva Purkis
A Life of Jesus

[Resource Manager]

15 March 2014

"Our Lord could not have faced the agony of the cross without the hope of future glory: the cross had to come before the crown, but the crown was assured. The writer to the Hebrews admonishes us to "Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith: who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God". (Hebrews 12:2)

- Antony P. Turner
Suddenly–Alone with our Thoughts (1982)

[Resource Manager]

16 March 2014

"... My marriage brought me to America, and in this land, the truth found me. I was like yourself, a wanderer, seeking for something, but knew not then what it was. Intense grief would come over me, when I opened the word, because I could not understand it ... but my thirsty soul sought for a resting place, but found none until truth put forth her hand and pulled me into the Ark. Seven years ago, I plucked her beautiful olive branch of peace; it is an evergreen which time cannot wither or decay. I rejoice every day more and more ..."

- A Sister in Christ
Greeting to a Newborn in Christ (1869)

[Resource Manager]

17 March 2014

"The pattern of perfection is before us in Christ whose mouth was free from guile, and of whom it was declared that "Never man spake like this man". If our speech be like his, albeit sometimes faltering, then in the day of the Lord our mouth shall be filled with laughter and our tongue with singing (Psalm 126:2)."

- Harry Tennant
Thoughts on the Psalms (1952)

[Resource Manager]

18 March 2014

"Heart and hands must work together. As a tree is known by its fruit, so our work will show the state of our heart, for "You shall know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). Fruit signifies that which the inner life produces. It is not a label to be worn for others to see, but the natural sequence of a good heart–the fruit of a good life. The analogy of nature is true of men: the sap of the tree sustains the fruit, so a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things."

- W. Rothwell
Seeking the Face of God (1939)

[Resource Manager]

19 March 2014

"Only God knows whether we love Him with all our heart, and only He can tell how much of our heart is given to Him. Only God can tell whether we love our neighbour as ourselves, or whether the appearance of concern for him is prompted by a lesser motive. Only He can, without failure, see beneath ... and only He can decide whether we deserve all to be assessed as “nothing” or to receive His own love, to answer ours (as it provoked it) and call it forth again."

- A.D. Norris
The Fool Hath Said: There is No God (1946)

[Resource Manager]

20 March 2014

"For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). This will be when "they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect" (Matthew 24:30, 31). That this will herald the rising of the dead we cannot doubt; for "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake"; "every man in his own order; Christ the firstfruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming" (Daniel 12:2; 1 Corinthians 15:22-23)."

- C.E. Hinde
Thy Kingdom Come (1988)

[Resource Manager]

21 March 2014

"By nature we are of the changing order of things, and that remains true whether we care to think about it or not; but we may be linked up with the eternal order of things. We say we are the children of God. What does that mean? What does it mean to be born of God, who is eternal? Here is the answer: "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know." How positive this is! "That ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God" (1 John 5:12-13). If we really, truly, and fully believe on the name of the Son of God, we "have eternal life," because we are linked up with Him who is the life-giver, who is the source of life, and never changes, and though there is the decay of the dust, the change of the material aspect, He is able to raise us up again so that we shall die no more."

- W.H. Dean
Change (1924)

[Resource Manager]

22 March 2014

"He cleanses the courts of the temple in His own good time and in His own way. He may even send some sorrow which sweeps from our minds all thoughts save one–the nothingness, the vanity of all (2 Corinthians 4:18). Then quietly, but effectively, we are enabled to bring into captivity every thought in obedience to Christ who strengthens us to do all the things that we should do to the glory of God."

- Claud Lambe
The House of Prayer (1989)

[Resource Manager]

23 March 2014

"The motive of a steadfastness from men is a surer steadfastness from God. "The word spoken by angels was steadfast", and the word spoken through the Son has, if that were possible, a greater assurance behind it. The course, therefore, to which the disciple commits himself is not a risk which may prove to have been ill-chosen, but a firm security: an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast."

- A.D. Norris
Steadfastness (1950)

[Resource Manager]

24 March 2014

"Hearken diligently unto me," how can we do it now? There is no prophet; we cannot go to a Samuel and say, "Pray to the Lord for us; what does the Lord reveal concerning us?" God is accessible in his book, and in reading the Bible prayerfully and carefully, and endeavouring to live up to it, we are hearkening unto Him, and this is life."

- C.C. Walker
God’s King and Kingdom (1928)

[Resource Manager]

25 March 2014

"A nice balance is required here for human well being. Look at Israel under the Law of Moses in comparison with Democracy in the French Revolution, and say which picture you prefer. Happily the world is not to be left to choose for the future. Christ will take it in hand, and inflexible law will co-exist with a liberty sweeter than groaning humanity has yet tasted."

Law and Liberty (1901)