Category Archives: James_Smith

When My Mind Wanders

Posted on by
4

You know how it goes, one day -almost without noticing- you entertain one thought, one worry, one doubt, one fear, one question, one… and then two days later, and then three days later, and the next week, and the week after that you have a wandering mind, with no limits whatsoever, your spirit is troubled, and of course, you feel heavy burdened.

What to do now?
Go back to the Word of God.

Go back to the Scriptures and mediate on them day and night.  Memorize God’s Word, pray it, recite it, mutter it. The Word of God will dissipate all doubts, all fears, it will strengthen your heart. It will help you fight those vain thoughts.

James Smith said,

“We must mix faith with the Word; seek to hold fellowship with God through every portion; and realize the presence of the Holy Spirit, who alone can render the Word profitable”

How true this is! Let us come, to the Word. Let us abide in it, let us persevere with all diligence to keep it in our heart and mind.

Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.”  How do we come to Him? We come to Him in prayer and we find Him in the Word. It is there where we hear Him speak to our need, to our troubled soul.

Is your heart troubled and your mind wandering today?

Go back to the Word of God.

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky

Recommended article:

Profiting from the Scriptures by J.C. Ryle

**********************

Waking up to New Mercies

Posted on by
5

 

Annie Pliego Photography

 

“Because of the Lord’s mercies, we are not consumed — for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!” Lamentations 3:22-23

Oh, to wake up every morning to new mercies!  To open the windows and let the sun in, to open the Word and let it warm our hearts, speak to us, satisfy us.

“New mercies flow in upon you every morning — yes, every moment! Every friend is a mercy. Every morsel of provision. Every hour’s sleep. Every kind word. Every moment’s freedom from racking pain. Medicine is a mercy. A house is a mercy. You are therefore surrounded by mercies. But look at spiritual things — to know God, to have the revelation of His mind, will, and purpose, to have a throne of grace, an advocate in Heaven, a good hope beyond the grave, the prospect of a glorious resurrection! Here are mercies heaped upon mercies, and favors heaped upon favors. Mercies that would fill us with wonder, admiration, and gratitude, if our hearts were not like adamant, harder than a flint!”  James Smith, 1842

Let us be aware today of His many mercies, all undeserved, all grace.

 

Becky

Continue and Be Watchful.

Posted on by
12
©Katie Lloyd Photography

A new year is at hand and the reminder that our lives happen in cycles, in seasons is at the door. I take a time to consider how I have lived this past year, a year purposely “lived in the Sacred.” A year of laughs and many tears; a year of sharing so much with my family, a year of big changes, of great gains but also with many hard providences. Living in the Sacred, open before the face of God, knowing that He is Holy and Sovereign, has deeply changed me.

But I am not where I should be… I am fragile; so many times this past year I woke up feeling fragile, so vulnerable to my own sin. So blind.

I have quietly prayed, and have considered this verse over and over:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. Col.4:2

Holding fast to what I have attained, continuing in the progresses that I have made, persevering to the end; Oh to finsh the race by God’s grace is something that I want to do. And I pray I will with God’s help. This coming year, 2012, will be a year, God willing, of continuity and watchfulness. Prayer and thanksgiving will be my bread.

James Smith said it well,

“Pray without ceasing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17

How important is a spirit of prayer! It is . . .
the proof of regeneration,
the manifestation of grace in our hearts, and
the evidence our title to mansions in the skies!

Prayer is . . .
the breath of the renewed soul,
the beating of the sanctified heart,
the effect of the life of God within us.

O that I had prayed more!

Prayer should become a habit with us — then everything would furnish us with matter for prayer. Prayer should mingle with our pleasures and our pains, with our labor and our rest. O for more prayer!

We should never do — what we cannot pray God to bless.

We should never go — where we cannot ask God to go with us.

If we would hold fast our profession,
if we would adorn the gospel,
if we would honor Jesus,
if we would enjoy our mercies,
if we would get good by our trials,
if we would see all things working together for good,
if we would conquer Satan,
if we would overcome the world,
if we would crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts
— we must pray!

Prayer, if it is believing prayer . . .
opens Heaven to us,
unveils the glorious face of God, and
brings down foretastes of the joys of paradise,
makes us a match for all our foes,
enables us patiently to carry every cross, and with perseverance to climb and pass over the loftiest hills we meet with on our heaven-bound pilgrimage!

Those who pray, will, by deriving strength from Heaven, by drawing down wisdom from above — withstand every storm, and shout God’s praises at last.

If I want to be watchful, I must continue to live in prayer, like the Children of Light are called to live; there is simply no other way to do this.

“But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.” I Thessalonians 5:4-6

Puritan Thomas Brooks said:

The best way to be safe and secure from all Satan’s assaults is, with Nehemiah and the Jews, to watch and pray, and pray and watch. By this means they became too hard for their enemies, and the work of the Lord did prosper sweetly in their hands…

Our whole life is beset with temptations. Satan watches all opportunities to break our peace, to wound our consciences, to lessen our comforts, to impair our graces, to slur our evidences, and to dampen our assurances. Oh! what need then have we to be always upon our watch-tower, lest we be surprised by this subtle serpent. Watchfulness includes a waking, a rousing up of the soul. It is a continual, careful observing of our hearts and ways, in all the turnings of our lives—that we still keep close to God and his Word.

Watchfulness is the heart busied and employed with diligent observation of what comes from within us, and of what comes from without us and into us.

May God give us grace to keep pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

May our soul’s strength be renewed as we continue to watch and pray.

Under His sun and by His grace,

post signature

Rest and Give Thanks

Posted on by
1
Annie Pliego Photography©

Rest and Give Thanks

“This motto was inscribed on a fountain, intended for the accommodation of travelers. Weary, the traveler needs rest. Thirsty, he needs drink. Both are provided and presented to him freely, he may well therefore be directed to give thanks. The fact is,we are not half thankful enough. Perhaps if we were kept in more need — we would be more grateful for what we have. But the Lord daily loads us with his benefits. Most of us have cause to say, “My cup runs over!” The lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places, yes, we have a goodly heritage… But I fear we are very ungrateful, and are apt to dwell more on a few trials — than on a thousand mercies. May the Lord, by his Holy Spirit, open a fountain of gratitude in all our hearts.

But the motto of the fountain, is very much like the gospel. That calls us to REST:

To rest from labor and useless toil.

To rest from cares and fears.

To rest from doubts and misgivings.

To rest in the midst of a restless world.

To rest at the feet of Jesus.

To rest on the Word of Jesus.

To rest on the finished work of Jesus.

To rest and be safe.

To rest and be happy.

Faith, is resting on Jesus — staying ourselves on his Word, on his perfect work. Trusting him to save us. Confiding in him to answer for our sins, provides for us a title to Heaven, and prepares us for going there.

Jesus gives . . .
rest to the troubled conscience,
rest to the weary heart,
rest to the anxious spirit,
the moment we believe on him.

Sinner, here is rest for you. Carry your burden no further. Labor for life no longer. You are heavy laden, “Rest and Give Thanks!”

Thank God for such a precious Savior.

Thank God for such a seasonable rest.

Thank God for a fountain of living water.

Thank God for a free salvation — a full salvation;

so that it is represented by an ever full, an ever flowing fountain.

Thank God that you live in such a day — in such a place.

Rest and enjoy yourself, and then praise God.

Drink and satisfy your soul, and for such a favor give God thanks.

May I, as I pass along the journey of life, and amidst all its weariness, keep my eye on Jesus, and “rest and give thanks.”

James Smith, 1860

I am grateful because the Lord is teaching me what it means to pray without ceasing.

The Valley of Vision and my friends who are praying along.

For the examples of women of faith who have challenged me to consider how I am living in the moment of History in which it has pleased God to frame my life.

“I Thank you for showing me the vast difference between knowing things by reason, and knowing them by the Spirit of faith” The Valley of Vision

Being reminded that “good works are our response to the finished good work of Christ…that good works as worship are acts of thankfulness and joy” J.C. Wilson, Gospel Wakefulness

It is Monday, today we start our labor, our business, but I’d like to encourage you, whenever you feel weary, tired, when the burdens of the day are many, when the bad news come, when the day seems too long, when the tears can’t find a way out because your children are seeing you, when your soul feels heavy to take time during the day, to seek him,  to just “rest and give thanks”.

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky

 

A Birthday Meditation

Posted on by
Reply

 

“How great has been the mercy of my God to me… I trace his goodness from my birth to the present moment.

I was born in a land where the gospel can be preached—when I might have been born in heathen darkness.

I was instructed to read God’s holy word—when I might have been left like others, in nature’s ignorance.

I was preserved in Christ Jesus during the years of my unregeneracy, when many who were born about the time I was, have been cut down and consigned to the grave.

I was called by the sovereign grace of a covenant God, when running post-haste to eternal destruction!

I was taught by the Holy Spirit my sinful state, the value of my soul, the need of a Savior, the way of escape, and the freeness of salvation.

I was given a saving interest in Christ, and feel love to his dear name, and obtained a knowledge of his saving work.

I was kept by his mighty power in the midst of temptations, persecutions and snares, to publish the glad tidings of salvation.

I was sent to proclaim to poor sinners round the danger they are in, the glorious salvation of the cross, and Jehovah’s boundless love. Blessed with many seals to my ministry in different parts of the land, and with repeated testimonies of the power of the word in the hearts of the people of God.

I was preserved from my depraved heart, the various errors that lead multitudes astray, and the opposition of all my foes.

I was supplied with every temporal mercy, gospel privilege, and promised blessing.

I was brought through innumerable trials, difficulties and distresses, to the glory of Jehovah’s grace.

I was spared, notwithstanding my hardness, rebellion and backslidings, until I am forty years of age.

I appear before God this morning—willing, heartily willing, to be, to do, to suffer whatever he sees proper, so that I may but be kept from sin, and dishonoring his dear name and gospel.

When I reflect upon WHAT I WAS, how circumstanced, and situated, and view the way the Lord has led me, what he has done for me, and what he has done by me—I am astonished! O, that I did but feel humbled, grateful and thankful—as I desire to be filled with love to God, zeal for God, and concern to glorify God. I want to be entirely devoted to him, body, soul, and spirit, that my all may be for him and not for another. When I consider my coldness, carelessness, and ingratitude, I cannot but wonder that the Lord has not long ago disowned me! But blessed be his holy name,

“Whom once he loves—he never leaves.
But loves him to the end!”

He changes not—therefore I am not consumed.

O my soul, lay low before the Lord under a sense of your manifold infirmities and follies, and seek grace from Jesus to live holy, righteously, and usefully in this present evil world.

Gracious Lord, grant unto your servant light to see your will, power to do your pleasure, love to follow you wherever you go, and an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of my Lord and Savior. O give me an increasing love to souls, success in your work, and growth in grace, that my own personal concerns be not neglected! O make me like my Savior in spirit, temper and conduct!

See, gracious God, I do afresh on this my birthday, surrender myself entirely to you to be your servant, to be used as you please, and to be led where you will! O grant that I may serve you with a son’s heart, a bride’s affection, and a servant’s submission! Lord, take me, and enable me to remember evermore that I am yours! May I leave myself and all my concerns in your hands, and go about your business. O save me from every snare, from every foe, and from my wretched self! Get glory in me, by me, and through me—for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

 

*edited from the words of James Smith (1849)

Becky

>I will Arise and Go to My Father.

Posted on by
1

>

 

My Father!

(James Smith, “Daily Bible Readings”)

“My Father!” Jeremiah 3:4

This is a child’s cry!

It is full of meaning.

It is full of love.

It is full of comfort.

It is a title which the Lord loves to hear us use!

Lord, give us the Spirit of adoption this morning,
and let us see and feel, that we are Your children!

Believer!
To whom will you repair in trouble?
To whom will you look in difficulty?
To whom will you cry in danger?
From whom will you ask when in need?
Surely I hear you say, “My Father!”

Who speaks to you in the Bible?
Who tries you by His providence?
Who chastens you with His rod?
Who purifies and cleanses you?
Who humbles and reproves you?
Again you will say, “My Father!”

Who supports the world?
Who controls the nations?
Who chains up Satan?
Who comforts the believer?
Who pardons the backslider?
Again you reply, “My Father!”

Then I exhort you to . . .
trust your Father’s Word,
abide in your Father’s house,
expect from your Father’s hand,
and say in every trial:

“I will arise and go to my Father!”

May you find rest and comfort in the Father’s arms this Lord’s Day.

Becky