Simpson Devotional

Simpson Devotional - Thursday, May 15, 2008

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

We have thought much about what we have received. Let us think of the things we have not received, of some of the vessels that have not yet been filled, of some of the places in our lives that the Holy Spirit has not yet possessed for God and signalized by His glory and His presence. Shall the coming months be marked by a diligent, heart-searching application of the rest of the oil (see Leviticus 14:17-20) to the yet unoccupied possibilities of our life and service? Have we known His fullness of grace in our spiritual lives? Have we tasted a little of His glory? Have we believed His promise for the mind, the soul, the spirit? Have we known all His possibilities for the body? Have we tested Him in His power to control the events of nature and to move the hearts of men and nations? Has He opened to us the treasure house of God and met our financial needs as He might? Have we begun to understand the ministry of prayer, as God would have us exercise it? God give us the rest of the oil!

I press toward the mark
Philippians 3:14

Simpson Devotional - Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Wed, 14 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

What else do we really need? What else is He trying to make us understand? The religion of the Bible is wholly supernatural. The one resource of faith has always been the living God, and Him alone. The children of Israel were utterly dependent upon Jehovah as they marched through the wilderness. The one reason their foes feared them and hastened to submit themselves was that they recognized among them the shout of a King and the presence of One compared with whom all their strength was vain. Wherein, asked Moses, shall it be known here that Iand thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? (Exodus 33:16). A church relying on human wisdom, wealth or resources ceases to be the body of Christ and becomes an earthly society. When we dare to depend entirely upon God and do not doubt, the humblest and feeblest agencies will become mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). May the Holy Spirit give to us at all times His own conception of these two great words, But God!

But God
Luke 12:20

Simpson Devotional - Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Christianity may mean nothing more than a religious system. The Christian life may mean nothing more than an earnest and honest attempt to follow and imitate Christ. The Christ life is more than these and expresses our actual union with the Lord Jesus Christ. He is actually in us as the life and source of all our experience and work. This conception of the highest Christian life is at once simpler and more sublime than any other. We do not teach that the purpose of Christ's redemption is to restore us to Adamic perfection, for if we had it we should lose it tomorrow. Rather, it is to unite us with the second Adam, and to lift us up to a higher plane than our first parents ever knew. This is the only thing that can reconcile the warring elements of diverse schools of teaching with respect to Christian life. The Spirit of God will lead us to have no controversy respecting mere theories. Rather, we are simply to hold to the person and life of Jesus Christ Himself and the privilege of being united to Him through living in constant dependence upon His keeping power and grace.

Abide in me
John 15:4

Simpson Devotional - Monday, May 12, 2008

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Beloved, do you not long for God's quiet, the inner chambers, the shadow of the Almighty, the secret of His presence? Your life has been, perhaps, all driving and doing; or perhaps straining, struggling, longing and not obtaining. You long for rest! you long to lie down close to His heart and know that you have all in Him, that every question is answered, every doubt settled, every interest safe, every prayer answered, every desire satisfied. Lift up the cry, Tell me, 0 thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon! Blessed be His name! He has for us His exclusive love-a love which each individual feels is all for himself, one in which he can lie alone upon His breast and have a place which no other can dispute. And yet His heart is so great that He can hold a thousand millions just as near, and each heart seems to possess Him as exclusively for his own as the thousand little pools of water upon the beach can reflect the sun, and each little pool appears to have the whole sun captured in its beautiful depths. Christ can teach us this secret of His inmost love.

Tell me . . . where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon
Song of Solomon 1:7

Simpson Devotional - Sunday, May 11, 2008

Sun, 11 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

First and foremost Christ teaches resurrection and life. The power of Christianity is life. It brings us not merely law, duty, example, with high and holy teaching and admonition; it brings us the power to follow the higher ideal and the life that spontaneously does the things commanded. And it is not only life, but resurrection life. It begins with a real crisis, a definite transaction, a point of time as clear as the morning dawn. It is not an everlasting dying and an eternal struggle to live. But it is all expressed in a tense that denotes definiteness, fixedness and finality. We actually died at a certain point and as actually began to live the resurrection life. Let us reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:11). And death is only the pathway and portal To the life that shall die nevermore; And the cross leadeth up to the crown everlasting, The Jordan to Canaan's bright shore.

Whosoever will save his life shall lose it
Luke 9:24

Simpson Devotional - Saturday, May 10, 2008

Sat, 10 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Here is the message of the Christ of the cross and the still more glorious and precious Christ of the resurrection. It is beautiful and inspiring to note the touch of light and glory with which these simple words invest the cross. It does not say, I am he that was dead and liveth, but I am he that liveth and was dead, and, behold, I am alive forevermore. Life is mentioned before the death. There are two ways of looking at the cross. One is from the death side and the other from the life side. One is the Ecce Homo (behold the man) and the other is the glorified Jesus with only the marks of the nails and the spear. It is thus we are to look at the cross. We are not to carry about with us the mold of the sepulcher, but the glory of the resurrection. It is not the Ecce Homo, but the Living Christ. Our crucifixion is to be so complete that it shall be lost in our resurrection, and we shall even forget our sorrow and carry with us the light and glory of the eternal morning. So let us live the death-born life, ever new and full of a life that can never die because it is dead and alive forevermore.

I am alive forevermore
Revelation 1:18

Simpson Devotional - Friday, May 09, 2008

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

It was a stirring greeting which the Lord of Life spoke to His first disciples on the morning of the resurrection. It is a bright and radiant word which, in His Name, we would speak to His beloved children at the commencement of another day. it means a good deal more than appears on the surface. It is really a prayer for our health, but which none but those who believe in the healing of the body can fully understand. A thoughtful friend suggested once that the word "hail" really means health, and it is just the old Saxon form of the word. We all know that a hale person is a healthy person. Our Lord's message, therefore, was substantially that greeting which from time immemorial we give to one another when we meet: "How is your health?" "How are you?" or, better still, "I wish you health." Christ's wish is equal to a promise and command. It is very similar to the apostle John's benediction to his dear friend Gaius, and we would re-echo it to our beloved friends according to the fullness of the Master's will. I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth (3 John 2).

All hail
Matthew 28:9