November 16 – Union Is Power
For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20
Claim that promise always. Know it true that when two of My lovers meet I am the Third. Never limit that promise.
When you two are together in My Name, united by one bond in My Spirit, I am there. Not only when you meet to greet Me, and to hear My Voice.
Think what this means in Power. It is again the lesson of the Power that follows two united to serve Me.
Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
Exodus 25:8
November 17 – Quiet Lives
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant …
enter into the joy of thy Lord.” Matthew 25:21
These words are whispered in the ears of many whom the world would pass by unrecognizing. Not to the great, and the world-famed, are these words said so often, but to the quiet followers who serve Me unobtrusively, yet faithfully, who bear their cross bravely, with a smiling face to the world. Thank Me for the quiet lives.
These words speak not only of the passing into that fuller Spirit Life. Duty faithfully done for Me does mean entrance into a Life of Joy – My Joy, the Joy of your Lord. The world may never see it, the humble, patient, quiet service, but I see it, and My reward is not earth’s fame, earth’s wealth, earth’s pleasures, but the Joy Divine.
Whether here, or there, in the earth-world, or in the spirit-world, this is My reward. Joy. The Joy that carries an exquisite thrill in the midst of pain and poverty and suffering. That Joy of which I said no man could take it from you. Earth has no pleasure, no reward, that can give man that Joy. It is known only to My lovers and My friends.
This Joy may come, not as the reward of activity in My service. It may be the reward of patient suffering, bravely borne.
Suffering, borne with Me, must in time bring Joy, as does all real contact with Me. So live with Me in that Kingdom of Joy , My Kingdom, the Gateway into which may be service, it may be suffering.
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
Isaiah 12:3
November 18 – Dazzling Glory
Arise, shine; for thy light is come and the glory
of the Lord is risen upon thee. Isaiah 60:1
The glory of the Lord is the Beauty of His Character. It is risen upon you when you realize it, even though on earth you can do so only in part.
The Beauty of the Purity and Love of God is too dazzling for mortals to see in full.
The Glory of the Lord is also risen upon you when you reflect that Glory in your lives, when in Love, Patience, Service, Purity, whatever it may be, you reveal to the world a something of the Father, an assurance that you have been with Me, your Lord and Savior.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18
November 19 – Hills of the Lord
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh form the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1,2
Yes! always raise your eyes, from earth’s sordid and mean and false, to the Hills of the Lord. From poverty, lift your eyes to the Help of the Lord.
In moments of weakness, lift your eyes to the Hills of the Lord.
Train your sight by constantly getting this long view. Train it to see more and more, further and further, until distant peaks seem familiar.
The Hills of the Lord. The Hills whence comes your help. A parched earth looks to the Hills for its rivers, its streams, its life. So look you to the Hills. From those Hills comes Help. Help from the Lord – who made Heaven and earth.
So, for all your spiritual needs, look to the Lord, who made Heaven, and for all your temporal needs look to Me, owner of all this, the Lord who made the earth.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and he shall lift you up. James 4:10
November 20 – Mysteries
Your Hope is in the Lord. More and more set your hopes on Me. Know that whatever the future may hold it will hold more and more of Me. It cannot but be glad and full of Joy. So in Heaven, or on earth, wherever you may be, your way must be truly one of delight.
Do not try to find answers to the mysteries of the world. Learn to know Me more and more, and in that Knowledge you will have all the answers you need here, and when you see Me Face to Face, in that purely Spiritual world, you will find no need to ask. There again all your answers will be in Me.
Remember, I was the answer in time to all man’s questions about My Father and His Laws. Know no theology. Know Me. I was the Word of God. All you need to know about God you know in Me. If a man knows me not, all your explanations will fall on an unresponsive heart.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted
within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the
health of my countenance, and my God. Psalm 43:5
November 21 – Radiate Joy
Not only must you rejoice, but your Joy must be made manifest. “Known unto all men.” A candle must not be set under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that it may give light to all who are in the house.
Men must see and know your Joy, and seeing it, know, without any doubt, that it springs from trust in Me, from living with Me.
The hard dull way of resignation is not My Way. When I entered Jerusalem, knowing well that scorn and reviling and death awaited Me, it was with cries of Hosanna, and with a triumphal procession. Not just a few “Lost Cause” followers creeping with Me into the city. There was no note of sadness in My Last Supper Talk with My disciples, and “when we had sung an hymn” we went out unto the Mount of Olives.
So trust, so conquer, so joy. Love colors the way. Love takes the sting out of the wind of adversity.
Love. Love. Love of Me. The consciousness of My Presence, and that of My Father, we are one, and He – God – is Love.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Matthew 5:16
November 22 – Only Love Lasts
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a a tinkling cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1
SEE that only Love tells. Only what is done in Love lasts, for God is Love, and only the work of God remains.
The fame of the world, the applause given to the one who speaks with the tongues of men and of angels, who attracts admiration and compels attention, it is all given to what is passing, is really worthless, if it lacks that God-quality, Love.
Think how a smile, or word of Love, goes winged on its way, a God-Power, simple though it may seem, while the mighty words of an orator can fall fruitless to the ground. The test of all true work and words is – are they inspired by Love?
If man only saw how vain is so much of his activity! So much work done in My Name is not acknowledged by Me. As for Love. Turn out from your hearts and lives all that is not loving, so shall ye bear much fruit, and by this shall all men know ye are My disciples, because ye have Love one toward another.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but
the greatest of these is charity. 1 Corinthians 13:13
November 23 – Earth’s Furies
In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world. John 16:33
Then you may ask why have you, My children, to have tribulation if I have overcome the world.
My overcoming was never, you know, for Myself, but for you, for My children. Each temptation, each difficulty, I overcame as it presented itself.
The powers of evil were strained to their utmost to devise means to break Me. They failed, but how they failed was known only to Me, and to My Father, who could read My undaunted spirit. The world, even My own followers, would see a Lost Cause. Reviled, spat upon, scourged, they would deem Me conquered. How could they know My Spirit was free, unbroken, unharmed?
And so, as I had come to show man God, I must show him God unconquered, unharmed, untouched by evil and its power. Man could not see My Spirit untouched, risen above these earth furies and hates, into the Secret Place of the Father. But man could see My Risen Body and learn by that, that even the last attempt of man had been powerless to touch Me.
Take heart from that, for you must share My tribulations.
And in My conquering Power you walk unharmed today.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested,
that he might destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8
November 24 – Suffer To Save
Take each day’s happenings as work you can do for Me. In that Spirit a blessing will attend all you do. Offering your day’s service, thus to Me, you are sharing in My Life-work, and therefore helping Me to save My world.
You may not see it, but the power of vicarious sacrifice is redemptive beyond man’s power of understanding here on earth.
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance:
for ye serve the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-24
November 25 – The Heavenly Beggar
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Revelation 3:20
Oh, ponder again these words and learn from them My great humility.
There is that gracious invitation, too, for those who yearn to realize a happiness, a rest, a satisfaction they have never found in the world and its pursuits. To them, the pleading answer to their quest is “Come to Me and I will give you rest.”
But to those who do not feel their need of Me, who obstinately reject Me, who shut the doors of their hearts so that I may not enter, to these I go, in tender, humble longing. Even when I find all closed, all barred, I stand a Beggar, knocking, knocking. The Heavenly Beggar in His Great Humility.
Never think of those who have shut you out, or forgotten you, that now they must wait, you have no need of them. No! remember that, the Heavenly Beggar, and learn of Me, humility.
Learn too the value of each man’s happiness, and peace and rest, to Me, his God; and learn, and learning, pray to copy the Divine Unrest until a soul finds rest and peace in Me.
I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved,
and shall go in and out, and find pasture. John 10:9
November 26 – My Beauty
The prophet realized the Truth of My later saying “He that hath ears to hear let him hear” which might be rendered “he that hath eyes to see let him see.”
The God who was to be born upon earth was not to be housed in a body so beautiful that men would follow and adore for the beauty of His Countenance.
No! He was to be as one whom the world would despise, but to the seeing eye, the Spirit that dwelt in that body should be so beautiful as to lack nothing. “Yet when we shall see Him, there is no Beauty that we should desire Him.”
Pray for the seeing eye, to see the Beauty of My Character, of My Spirit. Nay, more, as faith saw the Beauty of the Godhead in One who had no form or comeliness, so pray to have that faith to see the Beauty of My Love in My dealings with you, in My actions. Till, in what the world will distort into cruelty and harshness, you, with the eyes of faith, will see all that you could desire.
Know Me. Talk to Me. Let Me talk to you, so that I may make clear to your loving hearts what seems mysterious now and purposeless (“having no form nor comeliness.”)
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root
out of a dry ground … and when we shall see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2
November 27 – Not Thwarted
Not our wills but Thine, O Lord.
Man has so misunderstood Me in this. I want no will laid grudgingly upon My Altar. I want you to desire and love My Will, because therein lies your happiness and Spirit-rest.
Whenever you feel that you cannot leave the choice to Me, then pray, not to be able to accept My Will, but to know and love Me more. With that knowledge, and the Love, will come the certainty that I know best, and that I want only the best for you and yours.
How little those know Me who think I wish to thwart them. How often I am answering their own prayers in the best and quickest way.
Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me;
nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. Luke 22:42
November 28 – The Way of The Spirit
Jesus, we come to Thee with Joy.
The Joy of meeting Me should more and more fill your lives. It will. Your lives must first of all be narrowed down, more and more, into an inner circle of life with Me (the three of us), and then, as that friendship becomes more and more engrossing, more and more binding, then gradually, the circle of your interests will widen.
For the present do not think of it as a narrow life. I have My Purpose, My Loving Purpose, in cutting you away from other work and interests, for the time.
To work from large interests and a desire for great activities and world movements, to the inner circle life with Me, is really the wrong way. That is why so often, when, through all these activities and interests, a soul finds Me, I have to begin our Friendship by cutting away the ties that bind it to the outer and wider circle. When it has gained strength and learned its lesson in the inner circle, it can then widen its life, working this time from within out, taking then to each contact, each friendship, the inner circle influence.
And this is to be your way of life.
This is the way of the Spirit. Man so often misunderstands this.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught
up together with them in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air. 1 Thessalonians 4:17
November 29 – When Two Agree
If two of you shall agree.
I am the Truth. Every word of Mine is true. Every promise of Mine shall be fulfilled.
First, “gathered together in My Name,” bound by a common loyalty to Me, desires only of doing My Will.
Then, when this is so, I am present too, a self-invited guest, and when I am there and one with you, voicing the same petition, making your demands Mine, then it follows the request is granted.
But what man has failed perhaps to realize is all that lies behind the words. For two to agree about the wisdom of a request, to be certain it should be granted, and will be granted (if it should be), is not the same as two agreeing to pray that request.
Nor forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is; but exhorting one another, and so much the
more, as ye see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:25
November 30 – From Self to God
The eternal God is thy refuge. Deuteronomy 33:27
A place to flee to, a sanctuary. An escape from misunderstanding, from yourself. You can get away from others into the quiet of your own being, but from yourself, from the sense of your failure, your weakness, your sins and shortcomings, whither can you flee?
To the Eternal God your refuge. Till in His Immensity you forget your smallness, meanness, limitations.
Till the relief of safety merges into Joy of appreciation of your refuge, and you absorb the Divine, and absorbing, gain strength to conquer.
The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God
of Jacob defend thee: Send thee help from the sanctuary,
and strengthen thee out of Zion. Psalm 20:1,2