the example of Mary

"'Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his home.' What kind of night did Mary pass that night and the next? Try to picture her anguish, her agony of mind, in her new home, with the loving but also broken-hearted John doing all he could to console her as his own mother. BUT, look at her pale face as John bursts into the room and she rises from her couch: 'Mother,' says he, 'Jesus is alive, the tomb is empty.' And Mary Magdalene would come and tell her the whole wonderful story, and her tears of joy would flow and her spirit revive, and presently she too would see Jesus, and her heart would rejoice and her joy no one could take from her. No wonder that the last glimpse we are allowed of Mary is with the disciples and in prayer!"

Let us not forget that if we endure and overcome the trials and tribulation of today that one day we will have everlasting joy, serving God alongside Jesus. There will be no updates on this website until September. Thank you for reading and hopefully it has inspired you to become a living sacrifice.

trust Him

"As a Father, just, omniscient, omnipotent Father, we must trust Him to accentuate or modify our trials, to prolong them or to end them, exactly, correctly, wisely, opportunely, according to our needs and in harmony with His declared purpose and revealed methods of bringing His sons and daughters to glory."

there must be a humble submission

"The difference between God's family and others lies also in the attitude of the former. This must be one of faith, trust, implicit confidence in the Father's arrangements, conditions, circumstances, as prepared or allowed for His sons and daughters. There must be a humble submission to Him, a sincere trust that all is well, that what now appears even tragedy is for our eternal good, and what is inexplicable now will be perfectly clear, when our thoughts become attuned to the Divine and the veil is removed from our limited vision."

directed towards purifying us

"Then the trials we have, though they be experiences common to mankind, are directed to one end-- to our being purified and made fit associates of our Captain, who was also perfected through suffering. As he has now a fellow-feeling true towards us, so we, if accounted faithful, shall likewise have the same towards those in the kingdom for whom we shall be priests and mediators."

for a reason

"Wherein lies the difference between those who are in the family of God and others? In two vital ways the difference lies. First in His Fatherly interest and control. We have obeyed the commandment: 'Come out from among them... and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.' To such 'the exhortation speaketh'. 'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faitnt when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receieveth.' And further, He chastens us for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness."

everyone has trials

"...we have trials such as men and women generally have to endure. 'As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me.' 'There be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous.' 'There is one even to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner.'

We share the trials of humanity. but, seeing we have promise of such great reward, even the immortality in the Kingdom of God with all its boundless prospects, is it not reasonable that our trials should be keener than those of others, our experience more bitter, our difficulties greater, our suffering more acute? Were this to be actually the case, might there not be room for boasting, and what part does boasting play in the bringing of God's sons and daughters to glory? 'It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith."

it is never too late

"...there are so many troubles and problems [in the ecclesia] that are neither obvious or easy, and that need patience over long periods. And there is no better recipe for meeting one's own frustrations than to be active in helping others to cope with theirs. It is never too late for us, individually and ecclesially, to widen and deepen our spiritual education and fellowship so that we are the better able to feed Christ's lambs, filling the lives of the lonely with companionship, the homes of the aged with the warmth of youthful service, and the minds of these who are anxious, troubled or strained, with the assurance of all the help that they may need."

learning obedience

"How could Jesus, who was from the first perfect in obedience--never disobedient--how could he 'learn obedience'? He, too, like his brethren, had to build and strengthen the mental character of joyful enlightened obedience and faithfulness to Divine principles of conduct under great trial. He never failed, never disobeyed, but still he, too, grew in grace and knowledge and spiritual strength and stature."

gradually we develop

"The purging, purifying, perfecting of our faith is the process of putting us through a long series of adverse experiences wherein, by practice and self-control, we gradually develop a godly character."

have the true point of view

"'Though now for a season'--'for a short time'--'for a little while.' This is an important aspect. The trial is short, the results are eternal. Sometimes seventy, eighty or ninety years do not seem short, when they are filled with difficulties and struggles and sorrows and bereavement and long lonely waiting. But that is just the fleshly point of view. We must get the spiritual point of view. Paul says--'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory' (II Cor. 4:17). Because Paul had the true point of view, he was joyful and contented and continuously thankful through the most terrible trials; therefore he could look forward to a crown of glory that fadeth no away."

in much patience

"'Ministers of God, in much patience.'--Paul says as he begins the list of trials. Sometimes we are, in our weakness, overwhelmingly impressed with the fact that patience is our primary problem--learning first to hold back all the surging natural reactions--learning to calmly and quietly analyze both self and the circumstances of the moment. Patience here is not so much just the first item of a list, but rather the basic approach to all the trials that follow. 'MUCH patience,' he says: meeting whatever comes with cheerfulness, meekness, and godly self-control."

but joy cometh in the morning

"There was no humor in the life of our Great Example, and his life was perfect in the sight of God. He was a man of sorrows and deep, intimate acquaintance with grief. With the knowledge and discernment and spiritual depth of sympathy and fellowfeeling that he possessed, it would be impossible to be otherwise than sorrowful in a world like this.

Nothing would have been more jarringly out of place, or more destructive of the power of his influence for good, than shallow, jangling humor. His mission was to those who had bitterly experienced the sorrow and tragedy of life. with them he had a fellowfeeling born of the same experiences. And to them he said--'Blessed are they that weep now; for ye shall laugh.' 'Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep.' A mutual sorrow is a far stronger bond of affection than a mutual pleasure, and the consolation of the mutual communion that is born of sorrow is often adequate compensation for it--'By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better' (Eccl. 7:3). 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning' (Psalm 30:5)."

awake and sing

"Though bright expectations have turned to ashes, and joy has been changed to mourning, the promise is that there will be given to all who are worthy in the days of trial, 'Beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for the spirit of mourning'. 'Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust'--no longer to dwell there, for dust is the serpent's meat, not the portion of those who share Christ's victory over the serpent. There is no snake in the grass of the green pastures of the days of Immanuel; no dust; the souls of men will be as watered gardens, as trees planted by the river of God, bearing fruit in all seasons."

set-backs make you stronger

"Disappointments may come that seem to cripple our services and blast the first flowering of our endeavours. So withering, so needless, and cutting through all the pleasant platitudes with which we have comforted others--words so true, but so ineffective whent he iron is biting at the soul. Is it idle to speak of victory in such extremity? No, but the victory may be delayed. The tree from which the gardener shears the vigorous shoot might, if it could, feel that its best efforts were being thwarted, but the gardener knows, and the tree knows later, that the set-back for one year meant the putting forth of stronger, closer growth for the time to come. This year's life is not the whole life of the tree. Small comfort, one may say, for the shoot withering on the ground. True, but its real life remains in the tree, and the symmetry and beauty at last declares the wisdom of the gardener and the end at which he aimed. The disappointed one has perhaps lost that which was hped for now, but if the true life is in him, he will not die but will serve God better in another direction, and perhaps not in this life at all. As with trees so with men and women, present pruning is grievous, nevertheless afterwards grief is swallowed up in victory."

resurrection daily

"We all know our spiritual life is not a succession of victories, that it is not always upward, that there come times when we fail and fall. We are not alone in this experience. Paul said, 'I die daily'. David said, 'Though I fall, I shall arise; rejoice not against me, O mine enemy'. Both needed resurrection daily as we all do to the higher life we are trying to live. Thus is God's glory worked out in our weakness, but in an intermittent way. We rise and fall, but must not fall continually in the same place. There may be constant progress, even though we fall often."

it is necessary to exercise faith continually

"Belief would be compelled, and God has no use for a mechanical obedience; He calls for that which is worked out in struggle against the natural desires of men. He has wrapped up His revelation in such a way that it is necessary to exercise faith continually; and faith is not attained except by this same struggle. We have continually to insist upon this fact because of that which would pull us down. We have to maintain a faith that looks past the immediate appearance and presses upwards as the tree towards the light."

help is provided

"When the cross pressed too heavily upon Christ help was provided, and the figure holds true with burden-bearers for his sake. There shall no trial or burden come upon you greater than you can bear without a way of escape or help being provided (I Cor. 10:13)."

lean upon the promise of guidance

"We may lean upon the promise of guidance however unlikely present conditions may be. We have many examples in the past history of God's ways with men to teach us the Ways of Providence and how they work out in the most heart-breaking conditions, and how indeed the very conditions of present evil are working to the desired end. If we are led in days and years of disappointment, pain and sacrifice, we are in no untrodden ways. These are paths well-worn by the feet of the children of God, and if we look we shall see their footprints in the records of their lives, and even hear their voices, as when Paul breaks out, 'O wretched man that I am!' and speaks of the continual pain at his heart--pain bodily and mental. But he has another note: 'What persecution I endured! But out of them all the Lord delivered me.'"

it cannot last for ever

"If in tribulation we seek God's help, and endure the unpleasant experience moment by moment in the realization that it cannot last for ever, we will ultimately emerge from it with the knowledge that we did not rest on God's help in vain, and that we manifested the strength to endure."

the opportunity to think again

"Desolation is the opportunity to think again and remember and retrace the steps and seek the way of rescue."

adversity does benefit

"If... we feel in these days that our experience is rough and humiliating, it simply presents an analogy to that portion of Israel's history which is, in a special sense, offered to us as an example and a warning; and if we feel that the adversity we have to endure cannot in any way benefit us, it suggests a terrible alternative, that instead of being numbered among the faithful to be purified, we are joining the ranks of the rebels to be purged out."

producing a personality

"From God's point of view there is no limit to the possible production of human personalities, and those who sin and perish are of no more account than those who have never been. Therefore, since God calls us from the dust, and gives us all things we possess, what possible analogy can we suggest which will be a real illustration of the position? We are the products of an alien world, only living through God's longsuffering, and if, by adoption, we become children, and are subjected to chastisement, it is only through God's withholding for a while some of His good gifts. A fair consideration of the elementary truths we have learned will bring us to the attitude of Job: 'the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be his name.' The chastening is grievous, we are made sorrowful by it; but our apprehension of the truth should make us 'sorry after a godly manner'. The trouble with grumblers is that they accept all blessings as a matter of course, and comparing the best they can imagine of life with the limitations of their experience, think that they have in some way been wronged. Whatever happens, they have no ground for complaint, unless it was wronging them to give them a personality at all."

the struggle against our own weakness

"There is one kind of tribulation experienced at all times by those who try to serve God, and from which the thorough-going servants of sin are quite exempt. It is described most vividly in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. It is the struggle against our own fleshly weakness, which may become so severe as to lead one to exclaim, 'O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' All those who are described as having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, will have passed through severe tribulation of this kind. There is no escape from it, and generally speaking, the more spiritually-minded a man is, the greater will be the struggle, the more severe the trial."