Simpson Devotional

Simpson Devotional - Saturday, November 07, 2009

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

God has three ways of helping us. First, He says, I will strengthen thee. In other words, He is saying, "I will make you a little stronger yourself." Second, He adds, I will help thee. By that we understand Him to say, "I will add my strength to your strength, but you shall lead and I will help you." Third, He says, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness-or, "I will lift you up bodily and carry you altogether. It will be neither your strength nor My help, but My complete upholding. When we come to the end of our strength, we come to the beginning of His. In Him the weakest are the strongest, and the most helpless the most helped. He giveth power to the faint, but to them that have no might at all He increaseth strength. His word forever is, My grace is sufficient for thee. The answer is a paradox of contradictions, and yet the most practical of truths. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. . . . For when I am weak, then am I strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Simpson Devotional - Friday, November 06, 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Bless the Lord, 0 my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfeth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's (vv.1-5). Who so well can sing this thanksgiving song as we who rejoice in God's full salvation and praise God for the glorious health of a risen Lord and a continual youth? This psalm and its opening verses is in the very center of the Scriptures by an exact count of letters and verses. So let it stand central in our lives, as we look backward and forward and upward in grateful thanksgiving. Let us sing in the words of its closing strains, Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, 0 my soul (Psalm 103:22). Lord, center my heart in Thee and in the spirit of love and praise.

Simpson Devotional - Thursday, November 05, 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

If we would be enlarged to the full measure of God's purpose, let us endeavor to realize something of our own capacities for His filling. We little know the size of a human soul and spirit. Never, until He renews, cleanses and enters the heart, can we have any adequate conception of the possibilities of the being whom God made in His very image, and whom He now renews after the pattern of the Lord Jesus Himself. We know, however, that God has made the human soul to be His temple and abode. God knows how to make the house that can hold His infinite fullness. We know something of this as all our nature quickens into springtime life at the coming of the Holy Spirit. We know it as from time to time new baptisms awaken the dormant powers and susceptibilities that we did not realize we possessed. Let us give God the right to make the best of us. Filled with wonder, we shall some day behold the glorious temple that He has built and say, Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? (Psalm 8:4).

Simpson Devotional - Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Many a person prays for sanctification but fails to enter into the blessing because he does not intelligently understand and faithfully accept God's appointed means-Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit. Many a prayer for the salvation of others is hindered because the very friend who has prayed takes the wrong course to bring about the answer and resorts to means which defeat his object. There are wives pleading for the salvation of their husbands who hope to win them by avoiding anything that may offend them, yielding to all their worldly tastes in the hope of attracting them to Christ. Far more effective would be an attitude of fidelity to God and fearless testimony to their husbands, such as God could bless. Many a congregation wonders why it is so poor and struggling. it may be because its financial methods are wholly unscriptural and unworthy of even ordinary self-respect. When we ask God for any blessing, we must allow Him to direct the steps which are to bring the answer.

Simpson Devotional - Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

God is our friend. Which of you shall have a friend, . . . at midnight? asked Jesus (Luke 11:5). This concept of God as our friend has deep significance for each one of us. Who has not had a friend, who in some respects was more of a friend than anyone in the family? Reflect upon that friendship. Recall each act of love. Think of all you could trust that friend to do for you and all the ways in which he or she stood by you. Then as you concentrate the whole weight of recollection and affection, put God in that place of confidence and realize He is all that friend has been and infinitely more. Our Friend! The one who is personally interested in us, who has set His heart upon us, who has come near to us in the tender and delicate intimacy of unspeakable fellowship. He has given us invaluable pledges and promises, He has done very much for us, He is ever ready to go to any trouble or expense to aid us. To Him we come in prayer-our heavenly Friend.

Simpson Devotional - Monday, November 02, 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

If we would abide in Christ we must have no confidence in self. Self-repression must be ever the prime necessity of divine fullness and efficiency. How quickly we want to spring to the front when any emergency arises. When something in which we are interested comes up, we say what we think under some sudden impulse. Then perhaps there are weeks of taking back our thoughts and taking the Lord's instead. It is only when we get out of the way of the Lord that He can use us. So, let us leave self behind us, always suspending our will about everything until we have looked at the issue and said: "Lord, what is Your will? What is Your thought about it?" Those who thus abide in Christ have the habit of reserve and quiet; they are not rattling and reckless talkers, they will not always have an opinion about everything-and they will not always know what they are going to do. There will be a deferential holding back of judgment and walking softly with God. It is our headlong, impulsive spirit that keeps us so constantly from hearing and following the Lord.

Simpson Devotional - Sunday, November 01, 2009

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

The idea of trying to obtain a holiness of our own, and then having Christ reward us for it, is not His teaching. Oh, no. Christ is the holiness. He Himself, the Holy One, will come to dwell in the heart forever. When a millionaire buys a piece of property with an old shanty on it, he does not fix up the old shanty. He contracts with someone to tear it down. in its place he then builds a mansion. We are not to try to fix up the old shanty; rather, we are to give Christ the property. He will excavate below our old life and build a suitable house where He will live forever. That is what we mean when we say that Christ will be the preparation for the blessing of holiness and make way for His own approach. Picture a great Assyrian king setting out on a march. He did not command the people to make a road, but he sent his own men on ahead to cut down the trees, fill the ravines and level the mountains. So, if we will let Him, will Christ be the Coming King, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Simpson Devotional - Saturday, October 31, 2009

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

God allowed the crisis that closed around Jacob, on the night when he bowed at Peniel in supplication, to bring him to the place where he could take hold of God as he never would have done. From that narrow pass of peril Jacob came, enlarged in his faith and knowledge of God and in the power of a new and victorious life. God had to compel David, by a long and painful discipline of years, to learn the almighty power and faithfulness of his God, and to grow up into the established principles of faith and godliness which were indispensable for his subsequent and glorious career as the king of Israel. Nothing but the extremities in which Paul was constantly placed could ever have taught him, and taught the Church through him, the full meaning of the great promise he so learned to claim, My grace is sufficient for thee. And nothing but our trials and perils would ever have led some of us to know Him as we do, to trust Him as we have and to draw from Him the measures of grace which our very extremities made indispensable.

Simpson Devotional - Friday, October 30, 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

God's presence blends with every other thought and consciousness, flowing sweetly and evenly through our business plans, our social interactions, our hearts' affections, our manual toll, our entire lives. Like the fragrance of a flower or the presence of a friend consciously near, and yet not hindering in the least the most intense and constant preoccupation of the hands and brain, so God consecrates all and is conscious through all. How beautiful the established habit of this unceasing communion and dependence amid and above all thoughts and occupations! How lovely to see a dear old saint folding away his books at night and humbly saying, "Lord Jesus, things are still just the same between us" and then falling asleep in His keeping. So let us be stayed upon Him. Let us grow into Him with all the roots and fibers of our beings. He will not get tired of our friendship. He will not want to put us off sometimes. Beautiful words of the suffering saint: 44 He never says goodbye. He stays. So let us be stayed on Him.

Simpson Devotional - Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

Two men go to the bank cashier, both holding in their hands a piece of paper. One is dressed expensively and presents a gloved and jeweled hand. The other is a rough, unwashed workman. The first is rejected with a polite sentence; the second receives a thousand dollars over the counter. What was the difference? The one presented a worthless name; the other handed in a note endorsed by the president of the bank. just so, the most virtuous moralist will be turned away from the gates of mercy and the vilest sinner, if he presents the name of Jesus, welcomed in. What shall we give to infinite purity and righteousness? Jesus! No other gift is worthy for God to receive. And He has given Him to us for this very end, to give back as our substitute and satisfaction. And God has "testified" of this gift what He has of no other: in Him He is well pleased, and all who receive Him are accepted in the beloved (Ephesians 2:6). Shall we accept the testimony that God is satisfied with His Son? Shall we be satisfied with Him?

Simpson Devotional - Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

It is not our success in service that counts, but our fidelity. Caleb and Joshua were faithful and God remembered their faithfulness when the day of visitation came. For them it was a very difficult and unpopular position. For us, too. We are called in the crises of our lives to stand alone. In the very matter of trusting God for victory over sin and our full inheritance in Christ we all have to be tested as they. Even in the Church of God our brethren, while admitting in the abstract the loveliness and advantages of life-in Christ, tell us that it is impracticable and impossible. Many of us have had to stand alone for years witnessing to the power of Christ to save His people to the uttermost. Like Joshua and Caleb, we have had to follow God alone as we followed Him wholly. But this is the real victory of faith and the proof of our uncompromising fidelity. Let us not, therefore, complain when we suffer reproach for our testimony or stand alone for God. Let us, rather, thank Him that He so honors us and stand the test so that He can afterwards use us when the multitudes are glad to follow.

Simpson Devotional - Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

Cyrus the king was compelled to fulfill the vision of Jeremiah by making a decree declaring that Jehovah had bidden him rebuild Jerusalem and invite her captives to return to their native home. In this way Jeremiah's faith was vindicated and Jehovah's prophecy gloriously fulfilled, as faith ever will be honored. Oh, for the faith that in the dark present and the darkest future shall dare to subscribe the evidences and seal up the documents for the time of waiting and then begin to testify to its hope like the prophet of Anathoth! The word Anathoth has a beautiful meaning: echoes. So faith is the echo of God, and He always gives the echo to faith as he answers it in glorious fulfillment. Let our faith echo also the brave claim of the ancient prophet and take our full inheritance with his glorious shout, "0 Lord, Thou art the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for [thee]?" Back like an echo will come the heavenly assurance to our hearts, "For the God of all flesh: nothing is too hard."

Simpson Devotional - Monday, October 26, 2009

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

In the parable in Luke 14 of the great supper an ancient lord prepared for his friends and neighbors, there is a significant picture and object lesson of the program of Christianity in this age. In the first place, it is obvious to every thoughtful mind that the Master is hearing an increasing number of excuses from the gospel-hardened people of Christian countries. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to interest the unsaved of our own land, especially those who have been accustomed to hearing the gospel, in the things of Christ. They have asked to be excused from the feast, and the Lord is turning from them. At the same time two remarkable alternatives indicated in the parable are becoming more and more manifest. One is the movement to take the gospel to the slums and the neglected classes at home; the other is the movement to take the gospel to the neglected classes abroad.

Simpson Devotional - Sunday, October 25, 2009

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

Let us wake out of sleep, let us be alert, let us be alive to the great necessities that really concern us. Let us put off the garments of the night and the indulgences of the night, the loose robes of pleasure and the flowing garments of repose. The festal pleasures of the hours of darkness are not for the children of the day. Let us cast off the works of darkness. Let us arm ourselves for the day. As we put on our clothes let us put on our weapons, for we are stepping out into a land of enemies and a world of dangers. Let us put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness and the shield of faith. Let us stand armed and vigilant as the dangers of the last days gather around us. Let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our robe of day-not our own works or righteousness, but the person and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us His very life and becomes to us our All-Sufficiency.

Simpson Devotional - Saturday, October 24, 2009

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

In order to be successful in Christian work, it is essential that a person be loyal not only to Go d but to the work with which he or she is associated. The more deeply a person knows the Lord, the easier it is for him to get along with others. Superficial Christians are apt to be eccentric. Mature Christians are so near the Lord that they are not afraid of missing His guidance. They are not always trying to promote their loyalty to God by their independence from others. The Corinthians, who had given themselves first to the Lord, had no difficulty in giving themselves to His apostle by the will of God. it is delightful to work with true hearts who can be utterly depended upon. May God give us the spirit of a sound mind and a heart to "help along." You can help by holy prayer, Helpful love and joyful song; Oh, the burdens you may bear; Oh, the sorrows you may share; Oh, the crowns you may yet wear, If you help along.