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Pause to ponder on the word of God

Psalm 23:4  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me”

2 Corinthians 7:5-6 “For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn-fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus,”

Jeremiah. 8:21"Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.”

Jeremiah 9:1 “If only my head were a pool of water and my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night for all my people who have been slaughtered.”

Psalm 121:1-2  “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

Stop and read

John T. Cacioppo, Professor at the University of Chicago explains why loneliness is bad for you.
“Loneliness not only increases wear and tear, by keeping the body in alert mode, but also may prevent people from recharging their batteries with rest and relaxation… His work has convinced Cacioppo that loneliness is a health risk on its own, apart from conditions such as depression or stress that are common fellow travellers. More specifically, it seems to be the subjective experience of loneliness that’s important for people’s well-being, rather than any objective measure of social connectivity (the number of close contacts someone has, for example). It’s an important distinction that most previous studies had ignored, says Daniel Russell, a psychologist at Iowa State University in Ames. “Some people are socially isolated and they’re not lonely,” Russell says. “By contrast, some people are lonely even if they have a lot of social contacts.”

Because loneliness is a negative feeling, it, of course, affects us physically and mentally. In fact, studies have shown that life can become so distorted through loneliness that some people want to commit suicide. Some people would do anything to get attention, others become drug addicts, and some drink heavily, all to escape their own world. Some people gain weight, some become irritated and irrational, there is also sleep deprivation, and some exhibit various levels of anger. 

Here is a partial list associated with the effect of loneliness in our lives.
1.      Lead to depression
2.      Depression and suicide
3.      Antisocial behaviour
4.      Sleeplessness
5.      May trigger substance abuse for those in addiction recovery
6.      Altered brain function
7.      Poor decision-making
8.      It affects your spiritual life with God
9.      Causes drastic decrease of memory
10.    Cardiovascular disease and stroke

It does not matter which study you look into, they will all tell you that loneliness can be overcome. After you go through all the psychobabble, you find that the bottom line is helping those who are affected by loneliness and depression to shift their attention and interpretation of their situation in a more positive direction.  This brings me to ask you a question about your loneliness. Have you thought about making the God that you serve, your all and all? I have one verse from Revelation 12:11 “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

Pray to God  

Oh my dear Savior, I no longer want to live a fragmented and unhealthy life. Restore my life in you and make me whole. I need your light to shine within me today and take the darkness away.  Come and take my burden away and let me experience your peace. Teach me how to delight in you. Teach me how to make you my God. Teach me how to learn to focus on you and yearn for you. Unchangeable God, right now I feel like a hypocrite because the self has never decreased. Help me trust myself to your care. Help me to stop serving my own ends and let you deal with me. Fear, doubt and self-centeredness are all I know. Help me live a life of trust in you alone. A life completely subdued and overpowered by you. Above all else, help me to live out my identity in you. Shed your love in my heart and help me walk in fellowship with you. Give me wisdom to see clearly and understand your mighty sacrifice for me. Teach my heart how to trust you. Make me willing to be willing to do your will, make me willing to walk the walk and die to self so that I can leave behind loneliness, depression, fear, paranoia,  anxiety and everything else that comes with not trusting you to care for my life. Help me to experience life lived in you.

John Newton Shared Some of His Grief After his Wife Passed Away!

From: Letter from John Newton's to His Wife
John wrote this after his wife passed away.

Through the whole of my painful trial, I attended all my stated and occasional services, as usual; and a stranger would scarcely have discovered, either by my words or looks, that I was in trouble. Many of our intimate friends were apprehensive, that this long affliction, and especially the closing event, would have overwhelmed me; but it was far otherwise. It did not prevent me from preaching a single sermon—and I preached on the day of her death.

After she was gone, my willingness to be helped, and my desire that the Lord's goodness to me might be observed by others for their encouragement, made me indifferent to some laws of established custom—the breach of which is often more noticed than the violation of God's commands. I was afraid of sitting at home, and indulging myself by poring over my loss; and therefore I was seen in the street, and visited some of my serious friends the very next day. 

I likewise preached three times while she lay dead in the house. Some of my brethren kindly offered their assistance; but, as the Lord was pleased to give me strength, both of body and mind, I thought it my duty to stand up in my place as formerly. And after she was deposited in the vault, I preached her funeral sermon, with little more sensible emotion than if it had been for another person. I have reason to hope that many of my hearers were comforted and animated under their afflictions, by what they saw of the Lord's goodness to me in my time of need. And I acknowledge that it was well worth standing a while in the fire, for such an opportunity of experiencing and exhibiting the power and faithfulness of his promises.

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I was not supported by lively sensible consolations—but by being enabled to realize to my mind some great and leading truths of the Word of God. I saw, what indeed I knew before—but never until then so strongly and so clearly perceived, that, as a sinner, I had no right; and, as a believer, I could have no reason to complain. I considered her as a loan, which He who lent her to me had a right to resume whenever He pleased; and that as I had deserved to forfeit her every day from the first, it became me rather to be thankful that she was spared to me so long, than to resign her with reluctance when called for. 

Farther, that his sovereignty was connected with infinite wisdom and goodness; and that consequently, if it were possible for me to alter any part of his plan, I could only spoil it—that such a short-sighted creature as I, so blind to the possible consequences of my own wishes, was not onlyun worthy—but unable, to choose well for myself; and that it was therefore my great mercy and privilege that the Lord condescended to choose for me. May such considerations powerfully affect the hearts of my readers under their troubles, and then I shall not regret having submitted to the view of the public, a detail which may seem more proper for the subject of a private letter to a friend. They who can feel for me, will, I hope, excuse me. And it is chiefly for their sakes that I have written it.

When my wife died, the world seemed to die with her—I hope to revive no more! I see little now—but my ministry and my Christian profession, to make a continuance in life, for a single day, desirable; though I am willing to wait my appointed time. If the world cannot restore her to me, (not that I have the remotest wish that her return was possible,) it can do nothing for me. The Bank of England is too poor to compensate for such a loss as mine. But the Lord, the all-sufficient God, speaks, and it is done. Let those who know him, and trust him, be of good courage. 

He can give them strength according to their day; he can increase their strength as their trials are increased, to any assignable degree. And what he can do, he has promised he will do. The power and faithfulness on which the successive changes of day and night, and of the seasons of the year, depend, and which uphold the stars in their orbits, is equally engaged to support his people, and to lead them safely and unhurt (if their path is so appointed) through floods and flames. Though I believe she has never yet been (and probably never will be) out of my waking thoughts for five minutes at a time; though I sleep in the bed in which she suffered and languished so long; I have not had one uncomfortable day, nor one restless night, since she left me. I have lost a right hand, which I cannot but miss continually; but the Lord enables me to go on cheerfully without it.

May his blessing rest upon the reader! May glory, honor, and praise, be ascribed to his great and holy name, now and forever! Amen.

"Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains!" Habakkuk 3:17-19

Set Your House in Order!

James Smith, 1860 excerpt from: Fruit From the Tree of Life

Food and Medicine for the Soul

It is not of every event, that we can say that all are interested in it; and there may be events in which all are interested - but all are not equally interested. But there is one event in which all are interested, and all are equally interested in it, and that event is DEATH. All must die, and each one must die for himself; no substitution is admitted here. Each one must die alone - no friend is allowed to accompany him through that dark valley. A few words on this subject may be profitable.

Let us then, very briefly, consider the message sent to king Hezekiah, for a similar message will soon be sent to every one of us. "Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order - because you are going to die; you will not recover." Isaiah 38:2.

Death is a very solemn event. The most solemn event in a man's history. Death is certain, for it is appointed unto man once to die, and there is a time fixed when each of us must die. Vain is the surgeon's experience, vain the physician's skill, and vain the kindness of friends - we must die! But to us, the hour of death is very uncertain; there may be but a step between us and it. At any moment, for anything we can tell - we may die.

But the consequences of death are either dreadful - or delightful.

To the unconverted sinner, how dreadful! He comes at once into contact with the wrath of God - and of all dreadful things, the wrath of God is the most dreadful. It has been pent up all the days of his sojourn on earth - but it now bursts forth like a long smouldering fire, to feed upon and torment him forever!

After death is the judgment, the righteous judgment of God; then the sinner is to be tried, publicly condemned, and the degree and kind of his punishment fixed for eternity!

Then comes the infliction of that punishment - the casting him into the lake of fire, the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. O how terrible, how inconceivably terrible are the consequences of death to the soul that dies in sin!

But to the Christian, they are equally delightful. He dies, and ascends to Heaven, enjoying the approbation of his God. He goes to the judgment, not as a criminal to be punished - but as a just person to be publicly acquitted, and eternally rewarded. To him, after death, nothing remains but perfect holiness, and perfect happiness. He goes to see Jesus - that Jesus whom he has loved and served here below. He goes to be with Jesus - that Jesus who loved him, and laid down his life for him.

He goes to inherit the kingdom prepared for him from the foundation of the world. He enters into peace, rests from his labors, and is forever with the Lord! O how delightful, how inconceivably delightful are the consequences of death to the believer in Jesus!

Yet when the message comes suddenly, it is sometimes startling. "Set your house in order - because you are going to die; you will not recover!" Prepare for the most solemn event in life's history. Settle your affairs for time and eternity.

If your will is not made, make it. For no Christian should live a day without a will, if he has property to leave. Making the will not hasten death - but it may prevent much sin, and preserve peace among relatives. If therefore the disposal of your property is not settled, settle it.

Prepare to stand before God. Be ready to render your account, whenever called upon to do so. Get your sins pardoned, if they are not, while the fountain is open, and the promise stands good. Get your person justified; not only get acquitted from all charges - but get the righteousness of Jesus into your possession, that you may plead it, and wear it before God. Get your nature sanctified, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

Get into union with Christ, that so you may be entitled to the merit of all he did for sinners, and to all he has for those who believe on his name. Get clear evidences for Heaven, that so you may have no doubts or fears - but arise, and with confidence, accompany the messenger when he comes. In one word, get a well-grounded assurance of salvation, arising from a sense of freedom from condemnation, and a persuasion that you can never be separated from the love of God in Christ.

Settle your affairs at once, you will die safer, and happier.

Let us then think of the importance of death, consider how uncertain it is, whether we shall have time to prepare for it in future, and therefore get ready at once. God sends the message to us in mercy, he sends it beforehand, so giving us time, and thus takes away all excuse, if we are not found prepared. Death often comes suddenly. It comes to many when least expected. It finds multitudes unprepared; all their affairs, both temporal and spiritual, in confusion - and without pity, with a stroke cuts them down!

Lost sinner, you shall die. I do not know when - but it may be very soon. I do not know where - but it may be where no friend will be found to pray by you, or point you to the way of life. I do not know how - but it may be by an accident, a stroke, a spasm at the heart, or by some fever that renders you insensible, and forbids the possibility of preparation then. But though I know not when, where, or how you will die - I know that you must die, and therefore I present the solemn message to you, "Set your house in order - prepare to meet your God!"

Believer, you shall die. But the time when, the place where, and the means by which - are wisely, and in mercy concealed from you. Get ready, therefore. Live as for eternity. Become familiar with death, by dying daily. "Set your house in order," let everything be arranged and settled there. Set your heart in order, and see to it that all is right there. Keep your faith steadily fixed on Jesus, who conquered death for you, and is the resurrection and the life.

 Keep your hope fixed on the inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away, which is reserved in Heaven for you. Keep your love centered in God, as your Father and Friend in Jesus. Keep your affections set on things above, not on things on the earth. Let the eye, the heart, and the aim, be directed, not to the things which are seen, and which are temporal; but to the things which are not seen, which are eternal. So shall your life be spent in honorable service, so shall your days peaceably pass away, and so shall your death be happy, and the end shall crown the whole. You shall only sleep in Jesus.

Asleep in Jesus! blessed sleep!

From which none ever wakes to weep;

A calm and undisturbed repose,

Unbroken by the last of foes!

Asleep in Jesus! oh, how sweet

To be for such a slumber meet:

With holy confidence to sing

That death has lost its venomed sting!

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The Love Of God!

James Smith, 1860 excerpt from: Fruit From the Tree of Life

Food and Medicine for the Soul

What subject can be compared to the love of God? What subject is so sweet, so profitable, so full of wonders!

God, loving his people.

The infinite, loving the finite.

The Creator, loving his creature.

The Most High God, loving a worm.

The Holy One, loving the unholy.

The Sovereign, loving his rebellious subject.

The Eternal God, loving poor sinners in his Son. For God puts us into Christ, and there he blesses us, saves us, and loves us with an infinite love.

I want to think over, to meditate for a little while, on the love of God this morning. Holy Spirit, it is yours to enlighten the mind, and to direct the heart into the love of God. O direct my heart into this glorious subject, and shed abroad the love of God in my heart, that tasting its sweetness, and feeling its power - I may write from experience on this delightful theme!

God loved his people first. No one ever loved God, or wished to love him - but as the effect of his own love. We love him -because he first loved us. He loved all of his people before time began, as he says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love."

God's love was fixed upon, and flowed out to his people freely. That God loves his people is clearly revealed, and powerfully proved; but WHY did he love them? How did he come to fix his love upon them? How did he come to reveal and communicate that love to them? This he has not told us. He has assured us that it was not for anything in them, or done by them. He loves freely. He loves - just because he will love, or because it pleases him to love.

His love is great beyond expression or conception. No one can possibly conceive the greatness of God's love, and if it cannot be conceived, then it cannot be expressed. It is as vast as eternity, and as infinite as his own divine nature. How wonderful, that God should love one like me - and love me with such a love!

His love is fraught with every blessing, and is the fountain from which flows every good. Yes, in the love of God is comprised and comprehended, every blessing that can be conferred on sinners in time, or be enjoyed by believers in eternity.

The love of God is as unchangeable as his nature. He is without variableness - and so is his love. His works may change, do change, must change; but he is the same, and as he is, so is his love. It ever was, what it is; it is, what it ever was; and what it is, it ever will be.

His love is eternal in its duration. Once fixed, it is fixed forever. Having loved his own - he loves them unto the end. No object of his love is ever lost. No one cared for by him, will ever perish. He is able to keep us from falling, and we are kept by his power, through faith unto salvation.

God's love is sweet and powerful, and it wins over all its objects to itself. God is loved - because he loves. The sweet power of his love, as displayed in the gift of his Son, and as shed abroad in the heart by his Spirit - wins us over to himself, and we love him - but never feel as if we loved him enough.

Oh, that I could enter into the love of God more fully! Oh, that I felt the love of God more powerfully! Oh, that I could love God more heartily and constantly, in return for his love to me! Oh, to illustrate and commend the love of God in my temper, conduct, and conversation with my fellow-men!

Nothing will make me happy - but this love.

Nothing will make me holy - but this love.

Nothing will give me strength and energy for duty - but this love.

If I realize that God loves me, loves me infinitely, loves me eternally - then I can do anything for God, I can suffer anything from the hand of God.

God's love to me, is like . . .
light in darkness,
manna in the wilderness, and
a sweet song in the night.

God's love to me, is . . .
my joy in sorrow,
my solace in suffering, and
my life in the midst of death.

God's love to me, will make me happy anywhere, satisfied with anything, and raise me above the most trying circumstances of time. O may this love comfort me in my lonely hours, in seasons of sickness and sorrow; and may it inspire me with courage, in every conflict with the foe.

Father of mercies, God of love, may I know and believe the love you have to me! Precious Lord Jesus, you are the proof and exposition of the Father's love! May I study you more, know you better, that so I may rejoice in your Father's love! Heavenly Comforter, it is yours to reveal, unfold, and impart the love of God to poor sinners; do more clearly reveal, more fully unfold, and more plentifully impart - the love of God to me, that I may be filled with all the fullness of God!

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