John 17:6-19

On our farm in Pennsylvania there were cherry trees which were attacked by little parasites of some sort. A parasite would get into a little branch, pierce the bark and exude a gum. Then the branch would get a knot on it and bend. All over the trees were those little bent places with gummy knots. After two or three years, those cherry trees would not bloom. If they did, the blooms usually dropped early and the cherries did not come to fruition. If the blooms did not drop early, the cherries...

Two other considerations may help us here. One is that our Lord did on at least one occasion pray for sinners. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing," was a request made to God on behalf of evil men. Is it not reasonable that if Christ prayed for sinners once, He may be expected to pray for them again" Also we must remember that Jesus was a Son of man and frequently referred to Himself by that title. As such, He had and has a relationship to the whole human race. Is...

The doctrine of the divine indwelling is one of the most important in the New Testament, and its meaning for the individual Christian is precious beyond all description. To neglect it is to suffer serious loss. The apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith. Surely it takes faith of a more than average vitality to grasp the full implications of this great truth. Two facts join to make the doctrine difficult to accept: the supreme...

For Reading and Meditation:     2 Timothy 3:12-17

We continue from where we left off yesterday in saying that persecution is one of the proofs that we are true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many Christians find great difficulty in coming to terms with this issue of persecution, and because they have never understood that those who reject Christ will also...

For Reading and Meditation:     Hebrews 6:1-20

Out of all the aspects of truth that surround the fact of our Lord's ascension, one of the greatest is surely this - Christ is our Precursor. A precursor is really a forerunner - an advance runner - and that is precisely the term which our text for today applies to the climactic ministry of our ascended Lord. The NIV...

Sanctification begins in regeneration. The Spirit of God infuses into man that new living principle by which he becomes "a new creature" in Christ Jesus. This work, which begins in the new birth, is carried on in two ways-mortification, whereby the lusts of the flesh are subdued and kept under; and vivification, by which the life which God has put within us is made to be a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. This is carried on every day in what is called "perseverance," by...

It is a sweet and blessed event which will occur to all believers in God's own time-the going home to be with Jesus. In a few more years the Lord's soldiers, who are now fighting "the good fight of faith" will have done with conflict, and have entered into the joy of their Lord. But although Christ prays that his people may eventually be with him where he is, he does not ask that they may be taken at once away from this world to heaven. He wishes them to stay here. Yet how frequently does...

Twice in His great high priestly prayer, our Lord prayed that His people might be one (verses 21 and 22, 23). This prayer for unity has been seized as Scriptural support for the ecumenical movement - a great organizational union of all professing Christian churches. Unfortunately this ecumenical unity is achieved through abandoning or reinterpreting fundamental Christian doctrines. As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, "By one of our time's larger ironies, ecumenicalism is triumphant just when there...

God is faithful and true. He cannot lie or deceive. He cannot go back on His word. He is absolutely trustworthy. No promise of His can ever fail.

"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"(Numbers 23:19). "Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God" (

John 17:15-26

A writer tells of quietly opening the door of his mother's room one day in his boyhood, seeing her on her knees, and hearing her speak his own name in prayer. He quickly and quietly withdrew from the sacred place - but he never forgot that one glimpse of his mother at prayer, nor the prayer for himself, which he heard her speak to God. Well did he know that what he had seen that moment, was but a