June 15
William Booth (1829–1912), founder of The Salvation Army, labored for the Lord among the poor and destitute in London’s East End. He would “stumble home night after night haggard with fatigue; often his clothes were torn and bloody bandages swathed his head where a stone had struck,” wrote his wife Catherine. “‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say,” wrote Booth. “Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for...
Read MoreJune 14
Peace has been defined as the “tranquil state of the soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fears nothing from God and is content with its lot.” It is a sense of well-being, enjoyed by resting in Christ who “is our peace” (Eph 2:14). It is both through justification (Rom 5:1), and reconciliation that the Lord Jesus Christ “made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col 1:20). He personally “came and preached peace” both to the Jews who were “near” and to the “far off” Gentiles (Eph 2:17) and we ought to follow His example: “preaching peace by Jesus Christ: He is Lord of all”...
Read MoreJune 13
George David writes: “In order to make disciples of others we need to be practicing disciples ourselves…This is what is implied by the words of our Lord Jesus in Matthew 5:13-14 when He says, “You are the salt of the earth…you are the light of the world.” The “you” in these verses is not a singular you, but a plural, corporate you. You as a community of disciples have to be the salt of the earth. You as a community of disciples need to be the light of the world. To be salt and light in a particular place involves what is called non-verbal communication—communication without words by...
Read MoreJune 12
“I being in the way, the Lord led me” (Gen 24:27). I was packing for a coastal boat trip in Iceland. With a prayer for guidance, I was selecting some leaflets that explained God’s good news when my eye fell on some French ones. I took them with me…After steaming round the coast for some days, the shipwrecked crew of a French trawler was taken on board. I got in touch with the captain and asked him how many the crew numbered. “Twenty-three,” he replied. I told him I had something for them to read, but was not sure if I had enough. I went below and hunted for the French tracts. There were...
Read MoreJune 11
The message we preach is “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24) for now grace reigns in life and through righteousness (Rom 5:17, 21). It is “the gospel of His Son” (Rom 1:9) for God gave His only Son that He might bring many sons to glory (Heb 2:10). It is also “the gospel of Christ” (Rom 1:16), the climax to the story of the long-promised Messiah; this fulfillment of God’s promises is the message of which Paul was not ashamed (he uses it 10x). And “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace” (Rom 10:15) for it is the Word of Reconciliation. Thus sinners can...
Read MoreJune 10
A.T. Pierson told of Alexander MacLaren using the illustration of a compass “with one foot firmly set in the true center, and the other describing a circle which, while that center was preserved, could not possibly err in width or range of circumference. Our first necessity is to get the truth center and fix there the point of our compass, and then, however wide the circle of our activity, we shall always be right, scriptural, spiritual; and, on the contrary, if we have not the true center and do not keep it, our best enterprises, by whatever name called, will be more or less failures.”...
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