Milo

April 8th

His resurrection destiny

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? Luke 24:26.

Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life: His Resurrection means that He has power now to convey His life to me. When I am born again from above, I receive from the risen Lord His very life.
Our Lord’s Resurrection destiny is to bring “many sons unto glory.” The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We are never in the relationship to God that the Son of God is in; but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When Our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life, to a life He did not live before He was incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before; and His resurrection means for us that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we shall have a body like unto His glorious body, but we can know now the efficacy of His resurrection and walk in newness of life. “I would know Him in the power of His resurrection.”
“As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.” “Holy Spirit” is the experimental name for Eternal Life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the Deity in proceeding power Who applies the Atonement to our experience. Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Ghost can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we will obey Him.

April 8

“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10)

THE literal translation of this verse gives a startling emphasis to it, and makes it speak for itself with a force that we have probably never realized. Here it is: “Therefore I take pleasure in being without strength, in insults, in being pinched, in being chased about, in being cooped up in a corner for Christ’s sake; for when I am without strength, then am I dynamite.”

Here is the secret of Divine all-sufficiency, to come to the end of everything in ourselves and in our circumstances. When we reach this place, we will stop asking for sympathy because of our hard situation or bad treatment, for we will recognize these things as the very conditions of our blessing, and we will turn from them to God and find in them a claim upon Him.
—A. B. Simpson.

George Matheson, the well-known blind preacher of Scotland, who recently went to be with the Lord, said: “My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorn. I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorn. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross; but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory.

“Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbows.”

“Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through the cypress trees.”

8 APRIL

The name of Jesus

‘Thy name is as ointment poured forth.’ Song of Solomon 1:3
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 1 Peter 2:4–10

I knew nothing about the fear of God. I never had a hearty desire to keep his commandments, till I began to know a little of Christ. I was starving and he fed me; I was sick and he visited me; I was naked, destitute of all good, and he clothed me with his own righteousness; I was shut up in the prison of sin and he came and burst open the doors and set me at liberty. How great is his goodness; how great is his beauty. In comparison of this tree of life, all the tallest of the sons of men are empty and barren. He is the chief among ten thousands and altogether lovely. The soul ranges, as it were, through the whole creation to find some worthy similitudes of her Lord, but all are scanty and insufficient. Let us consider this in my text. It may lead our thoughts not only to the excellency that is in Christ, but to his suitableness to us, and afford a glass in which you may see yourselves and be able to judge by the light of the Holy Spirit whether you are indeed worthy the name of Christians.
Thy name. This in general means his person (as in Revelation 3:4), or rather the manifestation of his person, that by which he is known. The name of Christ includes the whole revelation concerning him, who he is, what he has done—all that we read of his love, his power and his offices, make a part of his great and glorious name. The soul that is taught by the Word and Spirit of God to understand a little of these things, receives such a sense of love and joy, that the very sound of his name is sweeter than music to the ears, sweeter than honey to the taste. He is named a Saviour, to save from guilt, sin and hell. This implies a Mediator. There is an important concern between us and God—but how shall we approach?—who shall interpose? This name affords a comfortable answer. He is named a Husband. Our wants, debts and fears are many. But he is made known by this name (Isaiah 54) and he is rich enough to supply all.
FOR MEDITATION:

Dear name! the rock on which I build,
JESUS! my Shepherd, Husband, Friend,
My shield and hiding place;
My Prophet, Priest and King;
My never-failing treasury filled
My LORD, my Life, my Way, my End,
With boundless stores of grace.
Accept the praise I bring.

SERMON: SONG OF SOLOMON 1:3 [1/5]

April 7th

Why are we not told plainly?

He charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. Mark 9:9.

Say nothing until the Son of man is risen in you—until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you understand what the historic Christ taught. When you get to the right state on the inside, the word which Jesus has spoken is so plain that you are amazed you did not see it before. You could not understand it before, you were not in the place in disposition where it could be borne.
Our Lord does not hide these things; they are unbearable until we get into a fit condition of spiritual life. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” There must be communion with His risen life before a particular word can be borne by us. Do we know anything about the impartation of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His word is becoming interpretable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we have not His Spirit. An obstinate outlook will effectually hinder God from revealing anything to us. If we have made up our minds about a doctrine, the light of God will come no more to us on that line, we cannot get it. This obtuse stage will end immediately His resurrection life has its way with us.
“Tell no man …”—so many do tell what they saw on the mount of transfiguration. They have had the vision and they testify to it, but the life does not tally with it, the Son of man is not yet risen in them. I wonder when He is going to be formed in you and in me?

April 7

“Their strength is to sit still.” (Isa. 30:7)

IN order really to know God, inward stillness is absolutely necessary. I remember when I first learned this. A time of great emergency had risen in my life, when every part of my being seemed to throb with anxiety, and when the necessity for immediate and vigorous action seemed overpowering; and yet circumstances were such that I could do nothing, and the person who could, would not stir.
For a little while it seemed as if I must fly to pieces with the inward turmoil, when suddenly the still small voice whispered in the depths of my soul, “Be still, and know that I am God.” The word was with power, and I hearkened. I composed my body to perfect stillness, and I constrained my troubled spirit into quietness, and looked up and waited; and then I did “know” that it was God, God even in the very emergency and in my helplessness to meet it; and I rested in Him. It was an experience that I would not have missed for worlds; and I may add also, that out of this stillness seemed to arise a power to deal with the emergency, that very soon brought it to a successful issue. I learned then effectually that my “strength was to sit still.”—Hannah Whitall Smith.
There is a perfect passivity which is not indolence. It is a living stillness born of trust. Quiet tension is not trust. It is simply compressed anxiety.

Not in the tumult of the rending storm,
Not in the earthquake or devouring flame;
But in the hush that could all fear transform,
The still, small whisper to the prophet came.

O Soul, keep silence on the mount of God,
Though cares and needs throb around thee like a sea;
From supplications and desires unshod,
Be still, and hear what God shall say to thee.

All fellowship hath interludes of rest,
New strength maturing in each poise of power;
The sweetest Alleluias of the blest
Are silent, for the space of half an hour.

O rest, in utter quietude of soul,
Abandon words, leave prayer and praise awhile;
Let thy whole being, hushed in His control,
Learn the full meaning of His voice and smile.

Not as an athlete wrestling for a crown,
Not taking Heaven by violence of will;
But with thy Father as a child sit down,
And know the bliss that follows His “Be Still!”
—Mary Rowles Jarvis.