Hungry Heart Daily Devotional Anthology -mjs

HEART TO HEART - Miles J Stanford

"That I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12).

Our spiritual puppy-love is soon lost, to be replaced through the years by our bridal-love. The bride always gravitates to her Bridegroom. "My beloved spoke, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away" (Song of Solomon 2:10).

"All of our Father's arrangements for us, if rightly accepted, will lead us above, instead of binding us to what is here below. His gifts come down to ease us in a world like this, that our hearts may rise the easier to the scene where He displays the fullness of His love for us.

"And if there be chastening in the circumstances here, it is only to detach us the more effectively from all here, and to lead us to the place where He has given all to us. So that seeing the things above ensures every good thing for us in every condition."

"You may know the Lord Jesus as your relief–for what He has done; but it is quite another thing to know Him as your resource–for what He is. It is one thing to know Him as the One who has relieved you from every pressure, it is another thing to know Him as the One attraction of your heart." -J.B.S.

"The Lord grant that you may know the wonderful blessing, and portion of light and joy we are brought into, instead of going through the world trying to overcome this and that, and saying, 'I must give up this thing and the other.' It is not a question of giving up at all; but I have something better, greater, brighter, and I just let it drop."

"Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord" (Philippians 3:8).

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OINTMENT POURED FORTH - Miles J Stanford

"Death working in me works life in you" (2 Corinthians 4:12, Cony.).

At first the heart hunger for maturity in the Lord Jesus is personal, subjective–and necessarily so. Later, when the path to maturity is known and entered upon, this hunger is projected to His Body, and becomes sacrificially objective.

"The great lack in servants is not having a sufficiently self-less walk, because you cannot lead anyone beyond where you have been led yourself. Moses was himself many years in the wilderness before he led the people. I cannot ask anyone to leave anything that I have not left myself. It is not the man who sees defects, but the man who removes them who is being used of God."

"Will you choose the path of death that others may have life? Will you choose to 'fill up the afflictions of Christ for His Bride's sake'? But what does it mean? It means living, weeping, suffering, loving with infinite patience, infinite tenderness, unwearying love for every member of the Body of Christ. It means the whole being bound up, not in your own progress, but in the progress of the Body of Christ. It means sinking all the personal element into the service of God, wanting neither credit, nor notice, nor recognition. It means an utter dropping of yourself, and a handing over of yourself to God to be poured out for His Body's sake, the Church."

"The unwearied care of our Father for us, His patient grace, His gentleness, His leading us on from the world nearer, in spirit, to Himself, indicate what should be the character of our love's activity towards one another. Our joy in the Father's presence, as He Himself and His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, are made manifest to our hearts, gives us the character of the joy of true fellowship one with another." -H.F.W.

"I, Paul. . . rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church" (Colossians 1:23, 24).

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MY FATHER'S CHOICE - Miles Stanford

"What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter" (John 13:7).

When our Lord takes us down into an area of processing and trial it seems as though He deliberately takes away our understanding, and we often react as though we had never gone through anything before. One of His reasons for this is that we may receive the full effect and benefit of the child-training.

"We should give our consent to our Father when He seeks to lead us through devastating processes. And we need have no fear, for He knows how to apportion our suffering. He exactly matches the suffering to our condition. He measures all things with unfailing accuracy and selects the particular trial suited to our particular need.

"He invariably chooses the lot of each with this in view–an increase of the divine content in our lives. If He chastens us, it is always 'for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.' And 'all things work together for good to them that are called according to his purpose.' What good? What purpose? This, 'that we may be conformed to the image of his Son.'"

"Let suffering come from any cause in the universe, if we give it over entirely into the hand of our Father, and sink ourselves into His blessed will, with the desire for Him to work His purpose in us, He will make every pain, every tear, every particle of our suffering work in us a death to sin and to the old man, and to all things on earth which will be for our highest development and for His glory." -G.W.

"If we lay claim to the blessing of our Father, we must not fear what may lie in the path of blessing. It is ever through suffering to glory, through the Cross to the Crown." -O.S.

"In every circumstance of life be thankful; for this is God's will in Christ Jesus respecting you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18, Wey.).

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SELF-IMPOSED BURDEN -- Miles J Stanford

"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).

Few see and stand upon the fact that our history in Adam ended on the Cross. Our past will plague us until we acknowledge that we are now clear of Adam and safely hidden in the risen Lord Jesus–newly-born creations in Him. One of the penalties of self-occupation is self-pity and corroding remorse.

"Regret for a sinful past will remain until we truly believe that for us in the Lord Jesus that sinful past no longer exists. The man in Christ has only His past and that is perfect and acceptable to the Father. In the Lord Jesus he died, and in Him he rose, and he is now seated in Him within the circle of the Father's favored ones. He is no longer angry with himself because he is no longer self-regarding, but Christ-regarding: hence there is no place for regret."

"The knowledge of our union with the Lord Jesus is what will deliver the believer from all that is low and feeble, and will lift him to a life of joy and peace. To gaze upon our risen Lord in the Father's presence, to whom all things are subject, will transform us into heavenly Christians, dwelling all the day in the Father's presence." -A.M.

"The believer shares the Lord Jesus' Cross ('knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him' Romans 6:6); His death ('ye died and your life is hid with Christ in God' Colossians 3:3); His burial ('we were buried with him by baptism into death' Romans 6:4); His resurrection ('as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we' Romans 6:4); His ascension ('made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus' Ephesians 2:6)." -F.J.H.

"There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

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LIFELESS LAW - Miles J Stanford

"For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" (Galatians 3:21).

Paul devoted two full chapters to establish our freedom from the fallen Adam. Romans Six sets forth our freedom from the dominion of Adamic sin; Romans Seven explains our freedom from Adamic law.
Whereas our liberty was won on the Cross, it is worked out in our daily life and experience by the Holy Spirit. On the Cross, by the Spirit, in the Lord Jesus Christ.

"If ministers and teachers of God's Word would set saints free and establish them in the Gospel, let their preaching and teaching be based upon the sixth and seventh of Romans, the central theme of which is our union with the Lord Jesus in death and burial; and our resurrection and ascension with Him into newness of life; where not the law, but grace, reigneth; where not the letter but the Spirit, moveth the heart and life of the believer. Satan will fight most fiercely against such teaching, but no other will establish the Lord's people."

"If God has declared that we died, we did die. If God has declared us discharged from the law, we are discharged and are hereby God's free children, 'new creatures,' 'created after God in righteousness and true holiness.'

"Our longing for conformity to the image of God's Son shall be confirmed and fulfilled by the Holy Spirit who hath been given unto us. No man can believe he has a right to walk freely and fully in the Spirit until he believes himself to be free from the law." -W.R.N.
"Law cannot give eternal life, nor have, therefore, any control over it." -L.S.C.

"But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held" (Romans 7:6, ASV.).

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Personal Righteousness​
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We are not to be as Peter when he said, “Depart from me, I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). There may be good desires and tenderness of conscience, but it will run into legality, because of not resting in the favor of the Father. These experiences may be all very useful in their place, but they are not peace. We have peace made and divine righteousness wrought out. I can now look upon my Father without hiding my sin. The way I come to the sense of the immensity of sin is the immensity of the grace that has met it all.

The reality of the presence of the Holy Spirit, who has come down to dwell in us, is most important. He is given as a seal. The Lord Jesus said, “If I go away, I will send Him unto you.” The Comforter brings to me the fullness of His grace, being the witness of accepted righteousness to our hearts. He convicts, or demonstrates of righteousness and that righteousness is mine in the Lord Jesus. He is made unto us righteousness (1 Cor 1:30) and I stand in it because I stand in Him.

The Spirit convicts the world of sin, of unbelief; but His demonstration to me is of righteousness—righteousness wrought out for me, which my Father has accepted. Now He is perfectly free to bless. My thought now is not, I am so full of sin that He cannot bless me; but rather, my Father has accepted the righteousness of His Son and I stand in that (Eph 1:6). We are born of God and as such need something to bring to Him. It is all furnished in the One who is my Christian life (Col 3:4).

There is not only peace as to the past, but I have the Lord Jesus’ standing in the presence of the Father now (Eph 2:13). We stand in the Last Adam and have that Second Man’s position in virtue of our eternal redemption. So sure as I had the first Adam’s place as totally rejected because a sinner, so I have the Last Adam’s place as totally accepted according to the counsel of the Father in the Son (Eph 1:11).

At the end of John 17 we have the Lord Jesus’s righteousness title (v 22) spoken of. He is bound to bless. “I am glorified in them.” He could not bless sin, but now righteousness being perfected, all the purposes of His heat in love can flow out to us, because we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:21). Whatever the love of God – the righteousness of God – all that by which He stands in the presence of the Father, because of His work and Person, we have and are blessed in virtue of it all. –G V Wigram
 
ANOTHER, ALTOGETHER - Miles J Stanford

"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him" (Matthew 17:5).

Seeing the blackness of my heart provides the perfect backdrop for the bright and shining glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is my life. I am to be as well pleased with Him, and Him alone, as is my Father.

"The learning of what I am and of what I have been in Adam, is truly humbling; but it need not be distressing if I see that all those conditions which have been present with me have just been the occasion for my Father to bring to light what is in His heart concerning me. When I see this, those very conditions magnify before my soul the greatness of His salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

"The weakness that is in myself, and the many things which I have to deplore in my past, or perhaps even in my present, make me thankful to know that my Father has brought in another Man, and has secured in Him all his own thoughts of blessing manward.

"There is what is perfect and absolutely for God's satisfaction and delight in the Lord Jesus, and it remains unaffected by what I find in myself. Nay! every self-discovery makes His perfection more a necessity to my heart. What I learn and experience in myself makes me rejoice to believe on Another in whom every promise of God is Yea and Amen." -C.A.C.

"The secret of being like the Lord Jesus is, that we are to count ourselves dead to the old and alive in the new. We are to give up our self-efforts after likeness to Him; we are to distrust our own strength as much as we distrust our own weakness and our own sin; and instead of striving to live like the Lord Jesus, let Him live through us, as He greatly desires to do."

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).

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REIGN IN PAIN - Miles J Stanford

"For you have had the privilege granted you on behalf of Christ–not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer on His behalf" (Philippians 1:29, Wey.).

The Father prepares His sufferers, by means of their sufferings.

"I believe in perpetual favor with God, but I do not believe in unbroken sunshine here. On the contrary, 'we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake.' I say this that you may not think it strange when the collar which you have rightly accepted becomes trying or difficult to you; for surely if it be service it must be so; the servant must be more or less a sufferer."

"The Lord grant you to be so assured in heart of His interest in you, that daily you may more and more answer to His pleasure; and not be in any way cast down because you apparently do so little. The fragrance of His name is a crown of glory to the greatest invalid."

"'Unto you is given on the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake' (Philippians 1:29). Yea, 'if we suffer, we shall also reign with him' (2 Timothy 2:12). The gracious gift of suffering is as distinct and specific a gift as any other of God's gifts. But this gift transforms the blessed recipient more surely perhaps than all the others into resemblance to Himself, and is for this fellowship, the highest, greatest, noblest of them all."

"We naturally shrink from trials and sorrow, but when we find ourselves enjoying the resources that are in our Father, to which our trials have caused us to have recourse, we remember no more the path of affliction which led us thereto."

"The child of God is ever in the light, though not always in the sunshine."

"If we suffer, we shall also reign with him" (2 Timothy 2:12).

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UP HERE! - Miles J Stanford

"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6).

The spiritual babe has faith for the wondrous fact that he will go to heaven when he dies. The spiritual father has faith for the inexpressible fact that he has died in Christ, and that he is now hid with Him in God.

"When I look at this place, He is not here; and when I look at myself naturally I am not fit for Him. How happy then to know that I belong to the place where He is; and that through grace I am made suited to Him in that new place; so that I set my mind and affections there, as the place where my deepest joys are to be realized." -J.B.S.

"The truth is, we have a position in heaven and the Lord Jesus is now our life there; and if this be not simply enjoyed, there will be an effort to modify the desolation here, and an inability to interpret the various inroads which death makes on us."

"My taste is formed in glory, and there it is nurtured and strengthened, and as it is, so do I find nothing here in keeping with my taste. Association with the Son of Man, the One most perfect, and in every way the most beautiful, develops my new nature, which is the same as His. Where He is, is my home–there I feed and rest; but here, on earth, I am learning to set aside in death everything in me which hinders the manifestation of the life of the Lord Jesus." -J.B.S.

"The reason there is so little growth is that there is so little occupation and fellowship with the Lord Jesus where He is. The glory invites now, instead of the law repelling, and the practical effect is 'changed into the same image.'"

"For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3, ASV.).

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HE DARES TO DISCIPLINE! - Miles J Stanford

"My son, do not think lightly of the Lord's discipline, and do not faint when he corrects you" (Hebrews 12:6, Wey.).

Most of us sought to avoid our natural father's discipline, when he sought to administer it. And most of us seek to avoid our heavenly Father's discipline, until we finally learn that "He does it for our certain good, in order that we may become sharers in His own holy character" (Hebrews 12:10, Wey.).

"There is an idea that often troubles people, namely, that God always wants to bring us down when He chastens us. When He corrects a man it is not that He may bring him down, but that He may lift him up. He says, 'Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time' (1 Peter 5:6). I discipline my child in order that I may exalt him morally."

"Our Father purges us on the principle of 'we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake.' In service you are sure to find some kind of pressure on you.

"It may be on your body, and often is; or it may be persecution; but you will hardly ever have a fruitful field of service before you, unless you are crippled for it. 'He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.'"

"We come to feel our need, and often attempt independently to supply it by our own means; the Lord must confound us in the attempt; but having done so, He leads in dependence to find and acquire an inconceivably greater answer to our wishes than even that which we prescribed for ourselves. The prodigal only sought 'sustenance' from the citizen in the 'far country,' but back in his father's house he found not bread merely, but abounding welcome and a fatted calf."

"For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines: and he scourges every son whom he acknowledges" (Hebrews 12:6, Wey.).

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THE LAST IS FIRST - Miles J Stanford

"As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:48).

Christians have a poor self-image simply because they are thinking and looking upon the condemned and crucified first-Adam life within, instead of being occupied with their glorified Last-Adam life above. "Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

"'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new' (2 Corinthians 5:17). Does this not mean a new sort of creature, as the Word implies? Do we go back to Adam, the innocent man in the garden in which God set him to dress and keep? No, that would be no creature new in kind. Adam even, pure and good before his fall, was yet of the earth, earthy.

"Is the Lord Jesus but the first man set up afresh? No, He is 'the second man, the Lord from heaven.' He is a heavenly man, the Last Adam–head of a new race; beginning of a new creation–and you and I who believe are 'in Him,' seen and accepted before the Father 'in His Beloved.' The full image of Him we have not yet: true. That will be ours in the day of His coming. The thing we are!" -F.W.G.

"A sinner in himself, the believer has, by faith, taken upon him the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is 'in Him,' he has been made the righteousness of God in Him. He is 'accepted in the Beloved' (Ephesians 1:6). Faith alone gives him all this comeliness. He has been recreated in the Lord Jesus. This is the beauty of the believer; and he is lovely in the eye of the Lord Jesus. 'So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty; for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him' (Psalm 45:11)." -J.C.B.

"And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:49).

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MANSION THERE–MISSION HERE - Miles J Stanford

"The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs" (Romans 8:16, 17).

It is the Holy Spirit alone who can draw us from the flesh and its earthly environment. He does it in the practical sense by manifesting to our hearts, via the Word of God, the risen Lord Jesus Christ in our heavenly environment. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Romans 13:14).

"When the Lord Jesus' love is before you, you find this love is drawing you from darkness to light. He begins by showing His desire for your spiritual advancement, and not by advancing you in earthly position.

"It is beautiful to see that the work of true love is to set aside darkness, or whatever would interfere with fellowship; and therefore it is not esteemed as it ought to be, because we are looking for something on the earth, and the tendency is to judge of His love by earthly gifts or favors down here."

"We have died with the Lord Jesus out of our old Adam position: our old man was crucified with Him. The flesh is in us still indeed, but in us a foreign thing; we are not in it before God, nor identified with it in any wise, but with Him in whom it was never found. We are in Him, as He is and where He is.

"Can we say quite confidently, each for himself, 'Yes, we are identified with Him who represents us there before the eye of our Father–as He is, in whom no spot was ever found nor can be, but perfectness after God's own heart wholly'?
"That is to be in Christ–a new creature. Our rule is, to walk in Him, as being what we really are–heavenly, citizens of heaven, pilgrims and strangers upon earth." -F.W.G.

"Heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ–if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together" (Romans 8:17).

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FROM HERE TO THERE - Miles J Stanford

"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ" (Philippians 3:7).

When we finally understand that the Lord Jesus is our life, we, with Paul, no longer think in terms of things.

"Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit" (John 15:2).

"One may eat with an appetite and feel revived, but the sense of life or sustainment from the food in the hour of toil, is a far greater and better thing. Thus, you have to learn now that the Lord is with you, however great may be the winds and the waves; and that He is with you to prove to you now the value of the truth about Himself, which He has heretofore taught you. The learning is at one time (head), the proving (heart) at another." -J.B.S.

"Our Father must wean us. Oh, what days and nights of bitter tears we shed when the soul is being weaned from some long enjoyed mercy. Is it that He who gave His Son for us would not indulge us? Is it that our Father would deny us anything? No, but He must wean us, or we shall never know what it is to depend on Him apart from any human or natural intervention."

"The Lord Jesus before our souls in the power of the Holy Spirit–the glorified Lord–is our Father's means for bringing us into conformity with His beloved Son. But then it is through the chastenings of His hand, through the trials and sufferings of our path, that He weans the hearts of His own from other objects, that the Lord Jesus Christ alone may fill the vision of our souls." -E.D.

"It is quite right to obtain a knowledge of Scripture, as to its general meaning. It is well to read and get knowledge, but unless you are in communion with the Lord Jesus, you will not grow in likeness to what you admire, as recorded in the Word."

"And I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord" (Philippians 3:8).

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Wishing everyone the Lord's best Holiday wishes for Christmas!


"RISE UP, MY LOVE" - Miles J Stanford

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:2).

It is sad to have to say that the present-day Church is so earthy that it is of little earthly good. "Sir, we would see Jesus"! (John 12:21).

"The great failure of the Church was in giving up Paul. 'All. . . in Asia' did not give up evangelical truth but they gave up Paul; anything popular you may have, but not Paul. Why? Because Paul is heavenly." -J.B.S.

"It is essential that a believer have a clear understanding of his position before the Father–his place in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This alone will give true peace of mind, joy and comfort of heart, strength for conflict and power for service. We will never be able to properly understand or fill our place for God on earth if we do not realize our God-given standing before Him in heaven.

"And never forget that our place before the Father is His gift, and a gift worthy of the Giver; not a gift according to the measure of our worth but a gift intended to display the exceeding riches of the grace of the Giver. The greatness of the Giver then is the measure of the blessings that are mine in the Lord Jesus Christ, not what I am or what I deserve."

"When you see and stand on your heavenly ground, you come to rest, just as the Father rests. You need not worry–only keep on that ground by your attitude of heart. If you are going to worry–if you must worry–worry lest you get down on earthly ground, for that is the ground of worry. Abide above! Heavenly things are in safe keeping–in the keeping of One who is 'far above all.'" -T. A-S.

"For ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3, ASV.).

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HEART AFFECTION - Miles J Stanford

"If ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1).

Spiritual hunger and thirst are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus, while at the same time they are enlarged for more of Him. This satisfaction overwhelms all lesser longings. Fleshly yearnings are never fulfilled, and every attempt at such satisfaction soon cloys.

"Do we think of, and rejoice in, our blessings more than in the Person in whom we have them? As to even our doctrinal blessings, there is a wonderful charm about them when they are new to us, and they sustain the soul for a certain time; but when the first joy of them passes away, a settling-down process commences. Every new bit of blessing may seem to put a new bit of life into us, but it gradually loses its luster and power, and we become just ordinary Christians–we make very little progress.

"It is as we take the Lord Jesus by faith into the affections of our hearts that we make spiritual progress. It is as He occupies an enlarged place in our affections that we go on. The head may be filled with general theological information without producing one spark of heart-affection for the Lord Jesus, and the soul remains in a state of spiritual emaciation.

"Many have been misled by thinking that by reading the Bible you become like Christ–transformed; but you will find diligent students of the Word, who may never say anything incorrect in doctrine, yet who never seem to grow in grace and walk in spiritual reality.

"All blessings of this dispensation of grace are wrapped up in a Person, and, by means of the Word of God, we make spiritual progress as our hearts learn to find everything in Him–the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us." -C.A.C.

"He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness" (Psalm 107:9).

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ACCESSIBILITY - Miles J Stanford

"For we. . . worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3)

Failure to live the Christian life is due to one's utter inability, but it is all governed by the Father. He teaches us to become proficient in failure (within ourselves), in order to bring us to total reliance upon His Son, who is our Christian life. "For to me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21).

"It is a wonderful moment for the believer when we by faith occupy our standing in the favor of the Father–when we know that we are received by Him in all the acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We do not then think of ourselves, of our worthiness or unworthiness, at all. We think of the Lord Jesus–His perfections, His suitability to divine favor, His infinite acceptance with the Father–and by faith, we have access into the favor of which He is so worthy." -C.A.C.

"To find that we are objects of consideration to the Lord Jesus is an infinite solace, and it brings Him before our hearts in such a way that we are sustained above the consideration of ourselves."

"There is an infinite difference between self-improvement and growing in the Lord Jesus, nourished and cherished by Him. Instead of being elated by our own improvement, or depressed because we cannot effect it, we are to be occupied with the grace and beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, in which we are thus made to share."

"We cannot be in the presence of the Father in innocence, for we are guilty; so that we must be there in His righteousness, and that place which used to repel us, now forms me into a likeness of itself. I am not tolerated there (as in myself), I am at home; and where the distance was, there is now nearness and attraction." -J.B.S.

"Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God"(Ephesians 2:19)

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In Spirit-led sharing there is always a principle involved. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom" (Luke 6:38).
Dig channels for the streams of love, that they may broadly run; for love has overflowing streams, to fill them every one.​
But if at any time thou cease these channels to provide, the very fount of love for thee will soon be parched and dried.​
For thou must give if thou would'st keep, that good thing from above; ceasing to give, we cease to have–this is the law of love.​
"The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you, to the end He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father" (I Thessalonians 3:12, 13).
Miles J. Stanford; April 1985.

WONDER OF WEAKNESS

"He said to me, My strength is sufficient, for it is only by means of conscious weakness that perfect power is developed" (2 Corinthians 12:9, Wms.).

Our Father does not test our faith so much as He exercises and develops it. In time, He makes us aware of our utter weakness; and, in time, we trust and rest in His all-sufficient strength.

"Until we are carried quite out of our depth, beyond all our own wisdom and resources, we are no more than beginners in the school of faith. Only as everything fails us and we fail ourselves, do we draw upon abiding strength. 'Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee'; not partly in Thee and partly in himself. The devil often makes men strong, strong in themselves to do evil–great conquerors, great acquirers of wealth and power. The Lord on the contrary makes His servant weak, puts him in circumstances that will show him his nothingness, that he may lean upon the strength that is unfailing. It is a long lesson for most of us, but it cannot be passed over until deeply learned. And God Himself thinks no trouble too great, no care too costly to teach us this."

"Faith counts on the Word of God outside and apart from everything and everyone here. When you are in faith your life is centered in the Lord Jesus. The moment the heart is detained by anything here, faith is obstructed. The visible is antagonistic to the invisible. If you walk in the Spirit you will be sensible of this in a moment; the effects and influences of the visible are counter to the invisible. Eve had lost faith when she saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes. If she had kept faith–dependence upon God–she would not have looked, but she had parted with the faith which overcometh the world when she 'saw.' The moment one becomes occupied with the visible one has parted company with faith." -J.B.S.

"Since His power is so glorious, may you be strengthened with strength of every kind, and be prepared for cheerfully enduring all things with patience and longsuffering" (Colossians 1:11, Wey.).

http://www.withchrist.org/MJS/HHDevotional.htm


 
CROSS PURPOSES - Miles J Stanford

"The Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and guard you from evil" (2 Thessalonians 3:3, R.V.).

When once we see and accept His purpose for our lives to the extent that it becomes our will also, the details of His process cease to matter. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job. 13:15).

"The one purpose our Father has in view, in all His ways, is to conform us to the image of His Son. This may explain our perplexities as to the past; it will govern our behavior in the present; it is to be our guide in the future. The chief concern of our Lord is not to instruct us about a multitude of details, not to explain to us the reason for the trials which we are called to pass through. He is working out everything to serve His one supreme aim in manifesting the character of His Son in His saints." -H.F.

"The God-given experiences of the Spirit's working within many a time passes away, and leaves the believer apparently dull and dead. This is only until the double lesson has been fully learned: (1) that a living faith can rejoice in the Living God, even when all feeling and experience appear to contradict the truth (Romans 8:28, 29); and (2) that the Divine life only predominates as the life of the old man is held in the place of death, inoperative (Romans 6:11a). The life of the Lord Jesus is revealed as His death works in us (2 Corinthians 4:11,12), and as in weakness and nothingness we look to Him (2 Corinthians 3:18)." -A.M.

"While our Father is dealing with someone in discipline, when He is applying the Cross in a life, be careful how you sympathize with him. You may be taking sides with him against God. By such sympathy, you may, indeed, draw him away from the work of the Cross."

"For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11).

http://www.withchrist.org/MJS/HHDevotional.htm
 
STAND YOUR GROUND! -Miles J Stanford

"The law is not of faith" (Galatians 3:12).

The law will break you; grace will make you.

"Nothing can be more sure than the steps of one guided by the Spirit of God and the Word of God, and yet nothing more complicated than to have to walk in 'separation' from all that exists around. It is indeed difficult to have to wind one's way through things so perplexing and so complex as the religious systems of our own day. We have to avoid on the one hand organizations formed in imitation of things past (Israel-law), and on the other systems more characterized by anticipation of things future (Kingdom-law). We have to allow that such things were once given by God, and that they will yet again be introduced by Him; while invariably contending that they are positively opposed to His present working by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven." -J.L.H.

"With many Christians, it may be almost thought that the Lord Jesus was but the introduction to Moses. That His death procured the payment of sin's debt, so that the debt being paid, the believer might be in a position to keep the law, and that, accordingly, the law, and not the 'Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,' might be the believer's rule of life." -H.F.W.

"The walk of the believer should ever be the natural result of realized privilege, and not the constrained result of legal vows and resolutions–the proper fruit of a position known and enjoyed by faith, and not the result of one's own efforts to reach a position 'by works of law.' All true believers are a part of the Bride of Christ; hence, they owe Him those affections which become that relation. The relationship is not obtained because of the affections, but the affections flow out of the relationship." -C.H.M.

"For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God" (Galatians 2:19).

http://www.withchrist.org/MJS/HHDevotional.htm
 
MY FATHER REIGNS! - Miles J Stanford

"Put on the whole armor of God " (Ephesians 6:11a).

My sovereign Father gives me a subservient Satan.

"Our Father has better thoughts for us than a portion here. He is educating us for a blessed and eternal rest, free from evil and all that could cause it, and He is bent on the blessing of His children; and moreover He is bound by His holiness to purge us suitably (though most graciously) for the place He has called us to. How often He lets Satan do this painful work, and try to sift us as Job! But the Father's hand and will are behind it all. He gives His saints up to Satan's hand to a certain point, but only so far as to bring the heart fully to a bearing before Himself." -J.N.D.

"It is a wonderful thing to see the way in which through the overruling power of the Father, the efforts of Satan against His people only bring them out the more distinctly in their own place of blessing."

"We cannot judge God's ways without judging God: we may love Him in His ways, but the moment we judge or question that which He has revealed, we get above God, we make ourselves gods, and we put Him in the place of the creature as subject to us. This brings our souls under the power of everyone that is more clever than ourselves: we are in their hands, and they can do what they please with us.

"Now the devil is more clever than we are. Therefore we ought to keep God ever in His place of God in our souls, lest Satan should make gods of us, and set us judging God Himself. If God be displaced, we get into the place of those who are irresponsible, and as creatures the prey of any more cunning than ourselves." -J.N.D.

"That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Ephesians 6:11b).

http://www.withchrist.org/MJS/HHDevotional.htm
 
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