Light is always costly and comes at the expense of that which produces it.

An unlit candle does not shine, for burning must come before the light. And we can be of little use to others without a cost to ourselves. Burning suggests suffering, and we try to avoid pain.

We tend to feel we are doing the greatest good in the world when we are strong and fit for active duty and when our hearts and hands are busy with kind acts of service. Therefore when we are set aside to suffer, when we are sick, when we are consumed with pain, and when all our activities have been stopped, we feel we are no longer of any use and are accomplishing nothing.

Yet if we will be patient and submissive, it is almost certain we will be a greater blessing to the world around us during our time of suffering and pain than we were when we thought we were doing our greatest work. Then we are burning, and shining brightly as a result of the fire.

The glory of tomorrow is rooted in the drudgery of today.

Many people want the glory without the cross, and the shining light without the burning fire, but crucifixion comes before coronation.

Have you heard the tale of the aloe plant, Away in the sunny clime? By humble growth of a hundred years It reaches its blooming time; And then a wondrous bud at its crown Breaks into a thousand flowers; This floral queen, in its blooming seen, Is the pride of the tropical bowers, But the flower to the plant is sacrifice, For it blooms but once, and it dies.

Have you further heard of the aloe plant, That grows in the sunny clime; How every one of its thousand flowers, As they drop in the blooming time, Is an infant plant that fastens its roots In the place where it falls on the ground, And as fast as they drop from the dying stem, Grow lively and lovely all ’round? By dying, it liveth a thousandfold In the young that spring from the death of the old.

Have you heard the tale of the pelican, The Arabs’ Gimel el Bahr, That lives in the African solitudes, Where the birds that live lonely are? Have you heard how it loves its tender young, And cares and toils for their good, It brings them water from mountains far, And fishes the seas for their food. In famine it feeds them—what love can devise! The blood of its bosom—and, feeding them, dies.

Have you heard this tale—the best of them all— The tale of the Holy and True, He dies, but His life, in untold souls Lives on in the world anew; His seed prevails, and is filling the earth, As the stars fill the sky above. He taught us to yield up the love of life, For the sake of the life of love. His death is our life, His loss is our gain; The joy for the tear, the peace for the pain.

The autumn season we are now entering is one of cornfields ripe for harvest, of the cheerful song of those who reap the crops, and of gathered and securely stored grain. So allow me to draw your attention to the sermon of the fields. This is its solemn message: “You must die in order to live. You must refuse to consider your own comfort and well-being. You must be crucified, not only to your desires and habits that are obviously sinful, but also to many others that may appear to be innocent and right. If you desire to save others, you cannot save yourself, and if you desire to bear much fruit, you must be buried in darkness and solitude.”

My heart fails me as I listen. But when the words are from Jesus, may I remind myself that it is my great privilege to enter into “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10 KJV) and I am therefore in great company. May I also remind myself that all the suffering is designed to make me a vessel suitable for His use. And may I remember that His Calvary blossomed into abundant fruitfulness, and so will mine.

Pain leads to plenty, and death to life—it is the law of the kingdom! In the Hour of Silence

Do we call it dying when a bud blossoms into a flower? SELECTED

Finding, following, keeping, struggling, Is He sure to bless? Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs, Answer, “Yes.”

Our faith is the center of the target God aims at when He tests us, and if any gift escapes untested, it certainly will not be our faith.

There is nothing that pierces faith to its very marrow—to find whether or not it is the faith of those who are immortal—like shooting the arrow of the feeling of being deserted into it.

And only genuine faith will escape unharmed from the midst of the battle after having been stripped of its armor of earthly enjoyment and after having endured the circumstances coming against it that the powerful hand of God has allowed.

Faith must be tested, and the sense of feeling deserted is “the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual” (Daniel 3:19) into which it may be thrown.

Blessed is the person who endures such an ordeal! CHARLES H. SPURGEON

Paul said, “I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7), but his head was removed! They cut it off, but they could not touch his faith.

This great apostle to the Gentiles rejoiced in three things: he had “fought the good fight,” he had “finished the race,” and he had “kept the faith.”

So what was the value of everything else? The apostle Paul had won the race and gained the ultimate prize—he had won not only the admiration of those on earth today but also the admiration of heaven.

So why do we not live as if it pays to lose “all things . . . that [we] may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8)?

Why are we not as loyal to the truth as Paul was? It is because our math is different—he counted in a different way than we do.

What we count as gain, he counted as loss.

If we desire to ultimately wear the same crown, we must have his faith and live it.

We should remember that John wrote these words while on the island of Patmos. He was there “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). He had been banished to this island, which was an isolated, rocky, and inhospitable prison. Yet it was here, under difficult circumstances—separated from all his loved ones in Ephesus, excluded from worshiping with the church, and condemned to only the companionship of unpleasant fellow captives—that he was granted this vision as a special privilege. It was as a prisoner that he saw “a door standing open in heaven.”

We should also remember Jacob, who laid down in the desert to sleep after leaving his father’s house. “He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and . . . above it stood the LORD” (Genesis 28:12–13).

The doors of heaven have been opened not only for these two men but also for many others. And in the world’s estimation, it seems as if their circumstances were utterly unlikely to receive such revelations. Yet how often we have seen “a door standing open in heaven” for those who are prisoners and captives, for those who suffer from a chronic illness and are bound with iron chains of pain to a bed of sickness, for those who wander the earth in lonely isolation, and for those who are kept from the Lord’s house by the demands of home and family.

But there are conditions to seeing the open door. We must know what it is to be “in the Spirit” (Revelation 1:10). We must be “pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8) and obedient in faith. We must be willing to “consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:8). Then once God is everything to us, so that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), the door to heaven will stand open before us as well.

God has His mountains bleak and bare, Where He does bid us rest awhile; Cliffs where we breathe a purer air, Lone peaks that catch the day’s first smile.

God has His deserts broad and brown— A solitude—a sea of sand, Where He does let heaven’s curtain down, Unveiled by His Almighty hand.

Every great life has had in it some great renunciation.

Abraham began by letting go, and going out, and all the way it was just giving up: first his home, his father, and his past; next his inheritance to Lot, his selfish nephew; and finally the very child of promise on the altar of Moriah; but he became the father of the faithful, whose inheritance was as the sands of the sea and the stars of the heavens.

Hear David saying, “Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing” (2 Samuel 24:24 KJV). David paid the full price. And we read, “The throne of David shall be established before the LORD for ever” (1 Kings 2:45 KJV).

Hannah gave up her boy, and he became the prophet of the restoration of ancient Israel.

Paul not only suffered the loss of all things but also counted them but refuse that he might win Christ. And Paul stood before the common people and in the palaces of kings.

So it is always: real sacrifice, unto complete surrender of self, brings to us the revelation of God in His fullness. As we have already seen, it was only on condition of Jacob’s releasing and the brothers’ bringing the best they had, Benjamin, that they could even see Joseph’s face again. And when Judah went farther than this and offered himself to be Joseph’s slave forever, then it was that Joseph could keep back nothing, but found himself compelled to reveal everything to those for whom his heart yearned. It is God’s own way with us. God in Jesus Christ does not, and apparently cannot, make Himself fully known in His personality and love, until we have surrendered to Him unconditionally and forever not only all we have, but all we are. Then God can refrain no longer, but lavishes upon us, in Christ, such a revealing of Himself that it cannot be told in words.

But the supreme sacrifice!

God had to sacrifice Himself, in Christ, in order thus to reveal Himself to us; but His sacrifice alone will not suffice. Not until we in turn have sacrificed ourselves to Him is the revelation possible and complete. But what a revelation it is! What glory God gives us in the life that is Christ as our lives! How it changes everything for us thereafter from famine to royal abundance!

MESSAGES FOR THE MORNING WATCH

I heard a voice so softly calling:

“Take up thy cross and follow me.”

A tempest o’er my heart was falling,

A living cross this was to me.

His cross I took, which, cross no longer,

A hundredfold brings life to me;

My heart is filled with joy overflowing,

His love and life are light to me.

SELECTED

The Swedish Nightingale, Jennie Lind, won great success as an operatic singer, and money poured into her purse. Yet she left the stage while she was singing her best, and never returned to it. She must have missed the money, the fame, and the applause of thousands, but she was content to live in privacy.

Once an English friend found her sitting on the steps of a bathing machine on the sea sands with a Bible on her knee, looking out into the glory of a sunset. They talked, and the conversation drew near to the inevitable question: “Oh, Madame Goldschmidt, how is it that you came to abandon the stage at the very height of your success?”

“When every day,” was the quiet answer, “it made me think less of this (laying a finger on the Bible) and nothing at all of that (pointing to the sunset), what else could I do?”

May I not covet the world’s greatness! It will cost me the crown of life!

He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.—Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.—Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.—Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

Put . . . on the lord Jesus Christ.—That I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.—The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.

He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.—I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children Light.

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them.

All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

Awake thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

See then that ye walk circumspectly.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

He hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

Unto you . . . which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.

Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee.

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.

Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.

Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might: . . . but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.

Christ Jesus, . . . is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.

He that winneth souls is wise.

We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him.

To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord … that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord.

I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.

I have whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God.

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

My heart rejoiceth in the Lord . . . . I rejoice in thy salvation.

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.

My meditation of him shall be sweet.—My beloved is . . . the chiefest among ten thousand.—A chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.—Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips.—God . . . hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.—It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.

Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.