Isaiah 61:1-4

For Reading and Meditation:     Mark 6:45-51

Yesterday we said that we all want to be happy - and rightly so. This is a deep-rooted instinct which God has built into us. But happiness is not something you make but something you receive. You cannot make happiness any more than you can make love. You can express love but you cannot make love. So it is with happiness....

For Reading and Meditation:     Luke 24:28-35

Another thing that brings about a changed perspective when we make our way to the house of God is the reading and exposition of the Scriptures. I make this statement on the assumption that the Scriptures are expounded in your church, for, sadly, in some congregations this is not so. In the days of the psalmist, of...

THE Lord's people are all mourners; grace sets and keeps them mourning over sin committed, depravity discovered, evidences needed, comforts forfeited and lost, apparent uselessness, the sins of others, the state of the church, or for the salvation of relatives and friends. We mourn after Jesus when we do not enjoy His love, and over Him as suffering when we do. But He has declared, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Jesus Himself is anointed and appointed to be our...

In this exalted passage, the Messiah is describing some of the marvelous exchanges which He brings to those who receive Him. He gives beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for heaviness.

We bring Him the ashes of a life burned out with pleasure, the ashes of a body ruined by liquor or drugs. We bring Him the ashes of wasted years in the wilderness, or the ashes of frustrated hopes and shattered dreams. And what do we get? He gives us beauty, the beauty of a dazzling bridal diadem....

Happy is he whose heart is broken in such a sense that he will no longer expect from earth what earth cannot give, and who is in despair of all below the sky. Yes; though he may esteem himself the most wretched of beings, and though he indeed have sorrows far more poignant than those of other men. Other men do not discover their true misery, their true bankruptcy, and do not so intensely feel their need of a special provision sent from the throne of God. They are reconciled to the...

I am the Lord who heals you.Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. § You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. § All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like...

Be] strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power. § As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. § They may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. § Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being...

Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. § He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth.“Messiah” . . . (who is called Christ.) § The Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the...

When Ahithophel saw that his advice was not followed, he saddled a donkey, and arose and went home to his house, to his city. Then he put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died. § Who can bear a broken spirit?Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery for the health of the daughter of my people? § The Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, … to comfort all who mourn,...