Jesus

Something beautiful, something good.

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Lately my daughter ask me to write my Memoire. That song from Bill Gaither encapsule well the main team of my memoire. It’s about my Journey with God.

Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life

If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble
They were my dreams at the start
And hope for life’s best were the hopes
That I harbor down deep in my heart
But my dreams turned to ashes
And my castles all crumbled, my fortune turned to loss
So I wrapped it all in the rags of life
And laid it at the cross.

God First

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Am I ready to love God above everything else? Above my passions, my possessions, even my own family? Here is an excellent devotion written by
Hannah Whitall Smith. It reminds me of the story when God ask Abraham to offer his own son Isaac (Genesis 22).

The Lord has shown me another step. Today the question has been presented to me whether I would be willing to lose my darling child, my little daughter Mary, for the sake of the revelation of the Lord Jesus Himself to me. It was a battle, but my Saviour has triumphed. It came simply to this point, Would I keep my daughter, and remain a cold and lukewarm Christian all my life, living at a distance from my Saviour, and unbaptized by His Spirit; or, would I give her up, that I might see Him in His beauty, and know Him to dwell in my heart in all His fullness.
Thanks be unto His Name, He has worked in me to choose the latter! I desire Him even more than I desire my precious, my darling daughter! And now surely the last link to earth is broken, for, without my daughter, life would be desolate indeed. I am wholly the Lord’s now.
Oh what hinders Him from blessing me! Still I wait and pray that He will reveal Himself that He will baptize me with the Holy Ghost!
—Journal, April 22, 1868

Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

You could also leave your comments at john@cafegospel.me

Fill Me Now

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A few months before 2000 my family became homeless because of a fire in the kitchen. One couple let us used one of there apartment, to small for a family of 6 children, but it was a roof over us. A dear brother in the Lord introduce me to the little hymn ‘Fill My Cup, Lord.’

Fill my cup, Lord; I lift it up Lord;
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.
Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.

I wonder if that devotion inspire the author of that hymn?

Fill Me Lord

The longing of my soul to be filled with God is not satisfied yet. I have seen and realized much of the joy and rest of a life of faith since last I wrote in this book, but I am sure there is still a greater work of grace which it is my privilege to experience by faith. I want the conscious indwelling of the Spirit. I want the manifested presence of my Jesus in my soul! I want, in short, to be filled with all the fullness of God! This is my privilege, I am not sure what is it that holds me back.
Oh my God, sanctify me wholly. I don’t know what this means exactly—I am ignorant of the extent to which the cleansing blood of Jesus can purify, but whatever it is, oh my Saviour, grant it to me to the very utmost limit! I lack wisdom on this subject, and I come to you in faith to teach me. Let me know your own mind fully and let nothing keep me from entering in to all the rest of faith that you have in store for me. Oh! don’t let me frustrate your grace. This is my longing cry—don’t let me in any way or in the slightest degree frustrate your grace.
Oh Lord, fill me now! Fill me now! Shed abroad your love in my heart now! Sanctify me wholly now!
—Journal, September 3, 1867

Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

Time Alone With God

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I am beginning to learn more and more of the depth of meaning in the teachings of Christ. I find myself, since this new life in Jesus has opened before me, turning far oftener to His own words. Thirty years after Jesus ascension He saw that the church was getting lazy in her communion with Him. Jesus reveal himself to the apostle John to gave him a message for His church. Since they are Jesus last words, we should pay attention to them.

In Revelation 3: 20 we read “If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share (time) together as friends.” Jesus remind the Christian community that communion with Him is a vital element of our Christian life.



In Genesis 24:63 we see that Isaac took time to be alone with God, he meditate on who God is.

Today, take time to be holy! Read God’s Word and meditate on them.

One with Christ

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The Bible teaches that when a man and a woman are united in marriage they become ONE.  The same principle apply wen a person receives Jesus as a personal Savior. Years ago a young Christian author wrote,

“Someone says “I am lost whenever I think of Christ and myself as two,” and it seems so to me now. Think over the expressions “Christ, who is our life;” “Alive in Jesus Christ;” “He that hath the Son hath life, & he that hath not the Son hath not life;” and many others like them, and tell me if you don’t think they teach a most marvelous and glorious reality? Our only life is Christ, and in Him “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily!” It almost takes my breath away to think of anything so glorious! Surely this will answer every question about our individuality, our independent will, our fighting etc.
The grand fight of all our lives is, as you say, with Amalek and other enemies which typify the flesh. It is not the temptations of the flesh we are to resist, so much as the flesh itself, the legal element in our natures, which is continually turning us back to reliance on the flesh. Our fight is emphatically a fight of faith not a fight of effort. It is a fight to cease from effort in fact and to suffer another life to be fully worked out in us. And I think a deeper typical meaning than has ever been discovered yet, must lie hid in Israel’s old contests.”
—To a Friend, March 28, 1867
Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

Implicit Faith

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Could we say that a successful Christian life consists of having victory over sin? It is easy to focus on ministry and activities a person does. We measure the success of a pastor by the size of the local church he leads. We read a missionary biography and are impressed by how many tribes that person reaches.  In the secular world success is measure by accomplissement.

More I read the Bible more I find that true success is more related to holiness. We are engaged in a spiritual battle against sin. Real success seems to have a moment by moment victory over sin. The good news is that God gave us the power to have such victory. It is a live a life similar to the life Jesus lived on earth. To live like Christ in a fallen world.

Let me share with you a note written by Hannah Whitall Smith to her cousin Carrie on February 26, 1867.

The whole matter lies in this—trusting Jesus to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is taking Him to be our daily, hourly, momentary Saviour from the power of sin, just exactly as we took Him to be our Saviour from its guilt. We have actually no more to do in the one case then in the other. He assumes all the responsibility and accomplishes all the work. Our only part is to commit ourselves to Him, and trust Him with implicit faith. All you can do is to commit yourself to Him this very moment to begin the work from now and carry it on in His own way. Just say to Him continually, “I trust you, I trust you.” And you will find that your faith will grow wonderfully.
Try the plan of handing over your temptations to Him to conquer, and you will be astonished at its success. In short, trust Him with your whole self, with all your life—every moment of it, with everything you are, or have, or do. Let Him, in short, be your life. It is a great trust, but He is worthy of it. He cannot possibly fail you in the least particular. He is infinitely trustworthy. No human words can set forth His worthiness to be trusted to the uttermost. It seems to me I never really trusted Him before, and it makes my heart ache to think of the long years in which I have dishonored Him so much when He was so worthy to be trusted!

Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

Deliverance in Jesus

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What is the secret of peace and victory? Jesus said, “Without me,  ye can do nothing.” Hannah Whitall Smith wrote,

There is a deliverance! Paul knew it, and answered—“I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” George Fox knew it, and said—“I clearly saw that all was done and to be done in and by Christ; and that He conquers and destroys this tempter the devil, and all his works, and is atop of him. My living faith was raised that I saw all was done by Christ the life, and my belief was in Him.” Thousands of Christians in all ages have known it, and have rejoiced to testify of its wondrous blessedness. For this deliverance is in Jesus.
His death purchased for us not only the forgiveness of our sins but also victory over them, not only freedom from their guilt but freedom from their power as well. And faith in Him will bring us much besides salvation from eternal condemnation. It is because we try to live our lives apart from Him that we fail so in the living. We realize that He gives us life in the first place, but we do not see that He also must live it for us. We trust Him for the forgiveness of our sins, but we trust ourselves for the daily conquering of them. It is true we pray for divine aid, and for the influences of the Holy Spirit, but still our thought is that they are to be given to us, and we are to fight and to conquer.
This is the secret of our failures. For the truth is we are as completely helpless in the matter of sanctification as in the matter of justification. We are as thoroughly dependent upon Christ for the control of an irritable temper as for the pardon of all our sins. Christ must be all in all to us every moment. “Without me,” He says, “ye can do nothing.” This is the secret of peace and victory.
—Journal, from the first article she ever published, in the Friends Review.
Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

Unchangeably Faithful

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Hannah Whitall Smith was a young woman when the Civil War was raging. Here faith in a difficult time is exemplary.

Our prosperous nation has been plunged into a civil war, the horrors of which we are just beginning to feel. The state of money matters is distressing and Robert has suffered great losses so that we have been obliged in every way to reduce our expenditures. We rented our Germantown house for the summer and moved to a place belonging to Robert’s father. But as it was not healthy there, we have left it, and are now entirely unsettled as regards our future.
It does not distress me in the least for I know that the “Lord is my Shepherd” and therefore “I shall not want,” and I am perfectly content to leave all my future in His care. I feel indeed that it is my greatest privilege that I may thus leave it with Him, for who or what am I that He should care for my welfare? A poor sinner saved by grace, this is what I am and what I love to be! And after all I well know it is not what I am, but what Christ is that is of any importance. For the safety and well being of the flock depends not upon what they are, but altogether upon what the Shepherd is. And the Lord is my shepherd! well, may I say therefore that “I shall not want!”
As to my spiritual life, I hardly know what to say. I am still just what I was a year ago, and what I was two years ago “a poor sinner and nothing at all and Jesus Christ is my all in all.” What more could I say than that? Yet while I can write to His praise that my Saviour has been unchangeably faithful to me during all this past year, I must confess to my bitter shame that oftentimes I have been very faithless to Him. Oh, how could I, how can I! It is good for me that He is just the Saviour He is, or there would be no hope for me. No other one could have borne with me, no other could continue to love me! But He does! This is His blessedness! “He is the same yesterday today and forever,” and in Him is no variableness nor even shadow of turning. He is just exactly the Saviour I need, and is all I need! No words can even begin to tell what He is! Oh, that I were a more faithful disciple!
—Journal, August 6, 1861
Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

Catch! Live! Impart!

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Want to change your world for Christ? Then consider this:

CATCH the passion for God and the knowledge of the Holy from extended time alone with Him, or from people who are infected with Jesus Christ. Get around those who are impassioned with being used of God to make a difference in this tired world. Keep in mind that “it is easier to cool down a fanatic than to liven up a corpse.”

“You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.” (1 Thessalonians 1:5b-7)

LIVE — Prayerfully delve into the Scriptures with the anticipation and trust of a child at Christmas time. Dare to unconditionally live out the truth God reveals to you from His Word. Respond sensitively to the conviction and leading of the Spirit. Claim and appropriate God’s promises to release you from life’s bondages: The fear of man, the love of money, the lust of the flesh, the desire to impress others; a wounded or embittered spirit; the ruts, the familiar, the safe… perhaps even the traditional. (James 1:22; Romans 8:14; Hebrews 6:11, 12; Romans 8:2; Psalm 34:4; Proverbs 29:25; 1 Timothy 6:6-10; 1 John 2:15-17; Hebrews 12:15; Matthew 15:8, 9)

“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free… If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31b, 32, 36b)

Allow the Spirit to lead you into areas that demand trust and stretching. Be prepared to be surprised by the goodness of God upon your life. That is because God loves to bless those who dare to take Him seriously! (Acts 4:31; 1 Corinthians 2:10-12; 1 Samuel 3:9; Psalm 30:5)

“The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him… ” (2 Chronicles 16:9b)

IMPART — As Biblical truth becomes living reality, pass it on to others. That is fish for men. Engage and infect people’s lives with yours. Take it a step further by making a sustained investment of your life into theirs. Embrace missionary martyr Jim Elliot’s impassioned heart-cry, “Lord, make my life a crossroad in the life of everyone I encounter.” (Matthew 4:19; 2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Corinthians 16:14)

QUESTION: Today, is your life “business as usual,” or is there a fire burning in your soul? If the fire is flickering close to extinction, ask yourself what root issues need to be reexamined? What changes need to be made? Jesus’ word of encouragement may be timely:

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” (Matthew 12:20a)

 

The Fisherless Fishermen

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Adapted from a story told by Luis Palau.

“‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.'” (Matthew 4:19)

There was a group called “Fishermen’s Fellowship”. They were surrounded by streams and lakes full of hungry fish. They met regularly to discuss the call to fish, the abundance of fish and the thrill of catching fish. They got excited about fishing.

Someone suggested they needed a philosophy of fishing. So they carefully defined and redefined fishing and the purpose of fishing. They developed fishing strategies and tactics.

Then they realized they had been going at it backward. They had approached fishing from the point of the fisherman and not from the point of view of the fish. How do fish view the world? How does the fisherman appear to the fish? What do fish eat and when? These are all good things to know.

So they began research studies and attended conferences on fishing. Some traveled far away to study different kinds of fish with different habits. Some got Ph.D.’s in Fishology. But none had yet gone fishing.

So a committee was formed to send out fishermen. As prospective fishing places outnumbered the fishermen, the committee needed to determine priorities. A priority list of fishing places was posted on bulletin boards in all the Fellowship halls.

Still, no one was fishing. A survey was launched to find out why. Most did not answer the questionnaire but from those who did respond, it was discovered that some felt called to study fish, a few to furnish fishing equipment and several to go around encouraging fishermen.

What with meetings, conferences, and seminars, others simply didn’t have time to fish.

Jake was a newcomer to the “Fishermen’s Fellowship”. After one stirring meeting of the “Fellowship,” Jake went fishing. He tried a few things, got the hang of it and caught a choice fish. At the next meeting, he told his story, was honored for his catch and was then scheduled to speak at all the “Fellowship” chapters to tell how he did it.

Soon he began to feel restless and empty. He longed to feel the tug on the line once again. He cut the speaking, resigned from the Board and said to a friend, “Let’s go fishing.” They did just the two of them and they caught fish.

The members of the “Fishermen’s Fellowship” were many, the fish were plentiful, but the fishers were few.

QUESTION: When was the last time you and I did some serious fishing for men? What are we waiting for? After all, Jesus did say, “‘Come, follow me… and I will make you fishers of men.'”