Search Me O God

December 28, 1988

Prayer Meeting Devotional: Galatians 6:7-10

Focus: Psalm 139: "Search Me O God ..."

We do not have a 'Watch Night' as such— this is our last official meeting together in 1988. What sort of year has this been for you?

LOOK BACK IN GRATITUDE: Thank God for His blessings:

LOOK BACK IN 'WISDOM:' What do you see in your life that you might wish to change in the coming year?

LOOK WITHIN WITH GOD'S HELP, to find light and strength to walk closer to the Lord in whatever time we may have left to us: A FEW "YEAR END" QUOTES FROM BERTHA MUNRO's classic, Truth for Today: (Several days under the theme "Life At its Best")

  1. What have you set out to do with your life? You have only one to spend. What is your slogan? "Getting by"? "As good as the rest"? "Can't do that and be sanctified"? Or are you reaching out for "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ"? (Ephesians 4:13) Let us all lift up our eyes, and stretch our souls, and look truth full in the face— truth and Jesus.
  2. The best Christian life is spontaneous. Life in the Spirit. Have I made a good start? Have I received the Holy Spirit's cleansing baptism? A holy heart is not the end, but the beginning.
  3. The best Christian life is practical. (Headings only here:) Develop spiritual poise. Develop a healthy self- reliance. Develop the giving attitude. 4. Walk in the Spirit. Hands, feet and voice all do heart errands— always. The Spirit's life will move the body— else paralysis.
  4. Treatment of others. Perfect love for our neighbor exists in the sanctified heart potentially. It is developed by agitation under stress. It is made positive, active by life's demands and strains. I react to my neighbor's honors, to his faults, to his burdens; and as I react in love, my love is strengthened. I become more like Christ whose every contact brought forth from Him nothing but pure love.

    My neighbor gets ahead of me in my special field— an opportunity for my love to be glad in his gladness, for my lips to say kind things to him and to others about him— sincerely. I could depreciate his achievement. But love will grow as I exercise it here.

    My neighbor falls- an opportunity for love to help him up. How? By prayer for him- in secret, probably. Not by spreading the story, even to my close friends. Not by cherishing a superior feeling. For the failure of a brother Christian is an occasion for love to catch a fresh glimpse of the Cross and to remember that my sins nailed Christ there. Love will grow as it says, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

  5. The best Christian life is purposeful. Sow to the Spirit. Three questions and three imperatives, if we really wish to make progress.
  1. What are the priorities of your life? Be Spiritual.

    It is easy to say, "God first." The test comes when two claims actually conflict, and we must choose between doing the thing that will give us material satisfaction and the thing that will give us soul development— between pleasing ourselves and pleasing Jesus. Have we decided our priorities, and do we maintain them?

  2. Are you investing or spending? Be positive. The law of growth is sowing, not scattering. We all spend our energies on something. This little poem is searching:

    I read in a Book
    Of a Man called Christ
    Who went about doing good.
    To me it is very disconcerting
    That I am so easily satisfied
    With just going about.-Unknown

  3. Do you have fainting spells? Be steady. "Be follower of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise." With all your best and God's best there will be stretches of apparent failure. Then remember the weapon, All Prayer; keep the contact with heaven clear and a heavenly current flowing. "If you pray, you will not faint. If you faint, you have not prayed."

    In one of Schubert's symphonies the directions for the conductor read on one page, "As loud as possible." And a little farther on, "Still louder!" More than our best in the coming year by the grace of God!

    Stand up. Stand up for Jesus,
    The strife will not be long;
    This day the noise of battle,
    The next the victor's song.

EH #42 Glory be to God on High

#51 Because I Have Been Given Much

#75 Jesus, My Strength, My Hope

WS #173 As With Gladness Men of Old

#177 Good Christian Men, Rejoice

#283 Dear Lord and Father of Mankind

#460 No One Understands Like Jesus

#334 I Feel Like Traveling On