<p><span class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold">For Reading and Meditation:</span><br><span class="italic">     <span class="scriptRef" ref="1pe+3:1-12">1 Peter 3:1-12</span></span></p><p>We are seeing that meekness is not a natural quality, but a spiritual one, and by reason of this all Christians should possess it. Over the past couple of days we have examined the importance of meekness and seen something of its nature; today, we examine what meekness is not. First, meekness (or humility) is not indolence. There are people who appear to be spiritually meek, but really they are not so at all - they are indolent. Again, meekness is not an easy-going type of attitude - the attitude seen in those who just take life as it comes. That is not meekness; that is flabbiness. There are some Christians who have such a casual air about them that one can easily mistake this for the quality which Jesus is referring to in the Beatitudes. Another thing that meekness ought not to be confused with is niceness. There are people who are nice by nature. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said of such people: "Natural niceness is something biological, the kind of thing you get in animals. One dog is nicer than another, one cat nicer than another." Finally, meekness is not passivity, or a desire to obtain peace at any price. How often is the person regarded as meek who adopts the attitude that anything is better than a disagreement. This is the kind of passivity which does not make for good mental or spiritual health. The most greatly used men and women of God down the ages have been people who were meek without being weak - strong men and women, yet meek men and women. They were meek enough to absorb the resources of God. </p><p class="center-it italic bold mlr40 mtb20">O Father, I see that so much depends on my understanding of what meekness really is. I pray yet again for Your continuing light to be shed around me as I pursue these thoughts day by day. I ask this in Jesus' Name. Amen.</p><div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="2ti+4:1-16">2 Timothy 4:1-16</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="ps+37:11">Psalm 37:11</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="ps+149:4">Psalm 149:4</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="isa+29:19">Isaiah 29:19</span></li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>How did Paul display meekness?</li><li>What does meekness increase?</li></ul></div></div>

Let a little light into your soul every day with this wonderful devotional from English pastor Selwyn Hughes.

Every Day Light with Selwyn Hughes

"' the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." (v. 4)

<p><span class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold">For Reading and Meditation:</span><br><span class="italic">     <span class="scriptRef" ref="2ti+4:1-8">2 Timothy 4:1-8</span></span></p><p>There can be no doubt that the Bible presents the death of the ungodly as being terrible. How differently, however, does it portray the death of the righteous. Even a hireling prophet like Balaam, bad as he was, recognised that there was something different about the death of the godly. Listen to his words in  <span class="scriptRef" ref="nu+23:10">Numbers 23:10</span>: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his" (NKJ). The book of Proverbs puts the same thought in this way: "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day" (4:18). I heard one preacher say that the happiest woman he had ever seen was a dying woman. She lay on her bed and clapped her hands at the approach of death. Very many people came to look at her bright countenance. "They tell me this is death," she said. "It's not death at all - it's life." People were converted by her bedside, including her son. A theologian by the name of W. Cosley Bell, when he sensed that he was about to leave this world, sent these words to the staff of the college where he was employed: "Tell the young men that I've grown surer of God every year of my life, and I've never been so sure as I am right now. Why it's all so! It's a fact - a dead certainty. I'm so glad I haven't the least shadow of shrinking or uncertainty. I've been preaching and teaching these things all my life and I'm so interested to find that all we've been believing and hoping is so." That is the way to die. One of John Wesley's proudest claims for the early Methodists was this: "Our people die well.". </p><p class="center-it italic bold mlr40 mtb20">Father, the empty tomb of Jesus makes all our fears lies, and all our hopes truths. That empty tomb is the birthplace of eternal certainty. Because He lives I shall live also. I am eternally grateful. Amen.</p><div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="2ti+1:1-12">2 Timothy 1:1-12</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="1co+15:45-58">1 Corinthians 15:45-58</span></li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>What was Paul's testimony?</li><li>Why is there no fear in death for the believer?</li></ul></div></div>

"Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day " (v. 8) 

<font size="2" face="Verdana">
<p align="justify"><i>Be ready to spread the word whether or not the time is right. Point out 
errors, warn people, and encourage them. (2 Timothy 4:2 GW)</i></p>
<p align="justify">Even good people who have been blessed of the Lord, to whom He has shown His 
favor and whom He has used very greatly, may in the end be involved in 
spiritual tragedy if for some reason compromise has entered in. It may have come 
in because of policy. What a snare policy is! We tell ourselves we must be very 
careful that we do not do this or that because it may have such and such a 
result. It is all policy and diplomacy. "We must be careful to avoid..." – what? 
Just what we seek to avoid betrays the whole case. Are we afraid of losing 
prestige with men, support, friends, position, opportunity? Do these things 
weigh with us as over against implicit obedience to the Lord? If so, there is 
divided loyalty; and if we allow it, we may at the end pass into terrible 
tragedy; the tragedy that always follows compromise....</p>
<p align="justify">If spiritual fullness is to be reached, we have to be governed by Divine and 
heavenly principles, and not by human considerations. Divine principles; not, 
"What will the consequences be?" not, "What shall we lose?" not even, "What will the 
Lord lose?" because that is a very subtle argument. The Lord does not ask us to 
reason this thing out on that level at all. He says, "What is the Divine 
principle? Let that principle govern and guide." You may not see at all how it 
is going to work out. If you are governed by Divine principles you may seem to 
lose a lot here; you may, for a time, have to go out with David and wait. But in 
the end the principles will be vindicated. You have to recognize that compromise 
on principle only brings disaster. You see it everywhere.... We must say, "What 
has the Lord revealed? It will mean this, it will cost that, it will involve me 
thus; but that is not the point. I am not going to be influenced or governed by 
consequences at all. Policy must have no place with me. What God has revealed – 
that is the only argument for me."</p>



</font>

<p>This devotional contains short daily portions from a selection of Mr. Austin-Sparks' messages. In his own words, “Perhaps this is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot. You can see great things and you can see far things. But the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing - how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!” </p><p>Open Windows messages have been selected and compiled by Austin-Sparks.Net from the works of T. Austin-Sparks. In some cases they appear in abridged form. The introductory verse and its associated Bible version have been selected by the editor and did not always appear within the original message.</p>

Open Windows

The Peril of Divided Loyalties

 Divine Considerations not Human Compromise 

<p>He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. § The Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith.<br><br>Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.<br><br>Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. § Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. § [Look] for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.</p>

Daily Light on the Daily Path or Daily Light is a Christian daily devotional scripture reading published by Bagster & Sons about 1875. It has been reprinted continually since then. It consists of brief groupings of scripture passages which speak to prominent Biblical themes—two themes (morning and evening) for each day of the year. It appends no commentary, but simply allows scripture to speak for itself.

Evening Daily Light

 When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? 

<p>The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” § We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us. § The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.<br><br>It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. § Knowing therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.<br><br>Be ready in season and out of season. § Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of hosts § [He] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.</p>

 You were like a firebrand plucked from the burning. 

<p>The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. § He who waters will also be watered.<br><br>My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, “There are still four months and then comes the harvest”? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. § The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.<br><br>Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. § Do business till I come. § I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.</p>

 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. 

<p>It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. § To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.<br><br>I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. § Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business? § Leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.<br><br>Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. § Each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it. § Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.</p>

 Do business till I come. 

<p><span class="bible-text "> <sup class="verse-num ">2 </sup>Preach   the word;   be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke   and encourage  —with great patience and careful instruction. </span></p>

Preach<cr>1</cr>  the word;<cr>2</cr>  be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke<cr>3</cr>  and encourage<cr>4</cr> —with great patience and careful instruction.

2 Timothy 4:2

 2 Preach   the word;   be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke   and encourage  —with great patience and careful instruction.

From Wikipedia: 

The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The NIV was published to meet the need for a modern translation done by Bible scholars using the earliest, highest quality manuscripts available. Of equal importance was that the Bible be expressed in broadly understood modern English.

The NIV is published by Zondervan in the United States and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. The NIV was updated in 1984 and 2011 and has become one of the most popular and best-selling modern translations.

OT: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia; additional sources;
NT: UBS Greek New Testament; Novum Testamentum Graece; additional sources;

New International Version

 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

<p><span class="bible-text ">Preach   the word;   be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke   and encourage  —with great patience and careful instruction. </span></p>

 Preach   the word;   be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke   and encourage  —with great patience and careful instruction.

Bible Verse of the Day

April 29, 2024

2 Timothy 4:2 NIV

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