June 24, 2020

Lord, how can we know the way?

(J.R. Miller, "Evening Thoughts" 1907)

Thomas said to Him, "Lord, how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way" John 14:5-6

This is the first day of a new year. We are setting out on a journey of which we can have no knowledge in advance. The road is one on which we never have gone hitherto. We know not what any day will have for us . . .
  what our duties will be,
  what burdens shall be laid upon us,
  what sorrows we shall have to endure,
  what battles we shall have to fight.

We cannot see one step before us! How can we know the way?

As we sit in the quiet, this first evening, and ask the question, we hear an answer which is full of comfort. Jesus says to us, "I am the way!"

All we shall have to do, therefore, will be to follow Jesus. He has made a way through this dark world for us. He has gone over all the journey and opened a road for us at great cost. He went over the way Himself--we shall find His shoe-prints at every step. 

He has a definite way for each one of us. Every mile of the journey He has chosen--and every place where I pitch my tent He has selected for me!

"Leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps!" 1 Peter 2:21

BONUS GEM!

"So Abraham called that place Jehovah-Jireh--The Lord Will Provide!" Genesis 22:14

(J.R. Miller)

Write deep in your heart this New Year's day, this word of sublime confidence: Jehovah-Jireh. It tells you . . .
   that you can trust God always;
   that no promise of His ever fails;
   that He does all things well;
   that out of all seeming loss and destruction of human hopes, He brings blessing.

"You have never traveled this way before." Joshua 3:4. There will be sorrows and joys, failures and successes, this year, just as there were last year. You cannot forecast individual experiences. You cannot see a step before your feet! Yet Jehovah-Jireh calls you to enter the new year with calm trust in Him. It bids you put away all anxieties and forebodings, "The Lord will provide!"

The Lord Will Provide-2014

--Addition Dr. Morris

            The above says it all. Facing the New Year, 2014.

            How does the unsaved face any day? The troubles and trials which we all encounter?

1 Peter 1:7  ^"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:"

            This writer, every day of my life, starts the day, early in the morning with prayer and a private communion service. When that four-inch thick veil was wrent top to bottom, we were given access to God. It is not necessary to go to God through a priest or a preacher. That veil, four layers, the layer closest to the holy of holies--white; purity; scarlet; sacrifice, purple--royalty, blue; humanity. Then, now, later, "Jesus paid it all." I take a taste of wine in humble thankfulness for His shed blood. A small piece of bread, humble thankfulness, for his healing. (You see, I believe that Jesus died for our healing as well as for our salvation.)

            And, I can go directly to Him seeking continuous forgiveness, continuous healing, continuous pleading for daily peace, providing. I know that He is at the crossroads before I get there.

            Too many have said to me, "I don't understand how a totally blind person can continue their faith when they have so many aggravations." For instance, this very day, I paid an employee to clean carpets in a large building which I own and rent out to others. . . I had already paid him for doing the work. Today, I find that he had not cleaned the carpets at all. He lied to me in order to get money from me. These are the "troubles and trials" of this present world (Mark 4:19). We have a generation of people who want something for nothing. How could I, an old, blind veteran, "keep on keeping on" unless I have "blessed assurance" that God is taking care of good as well as bad. This is the way you face every day of this New Year and every year.

"Trusting and Obeying--" Hymn