"Jesus said to him, 'Have I not been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?' " (John 14:9).

    These words were not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; Jesus was encouraging Philip to draw closer.  Yet the last person we get intimate with is Jesus.  Before Pentecost the disciples knew Jesus as the One who gave them power to conquer demons and to bring about a revival (see Luke 10:18-20).  It was a wonderful intimacy, but there was a much closer intimacy to come: "... I have called you friends..." (John 15:15).  True friendship is rare on earth.  It means identifying with someone in thought, heart, and spirit.  The whole experience of life is designed to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with Jesus Christ.  We received His blessing and know His Word, but do we really know Him?

    Jesus said, "It is to your advantage that I go away..." (John 16:7).  He left that relationship to lead them even closer.  It is a joy to Jesus when a disciple takes time to walk more intimately with Him.  The bearing of fruit is always shown in Scripture to be the visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ (see John 15:1-4).

    Once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely and we never lack for understanding or compassion.  We can continually pour out our hearts to Him without being perceived as overly emotional or pitiful.  The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control.  This is the outcome of allowing Jesus to satisfy every area of life to its depth.  The picture resulting from such a life is that of the strong, calm balance tha our Lord gives to thos who are intimate with Him.

"May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless..." (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

    Your whole spirit...."  The great, mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is in the deep recesses of our being which we cannot reach.  Read Psalm 139.  The psalmist implies--"O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea.  But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God.  I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize.  My God, search me."

    Do we believe that God can fortify and protect our thought processes far beyond where we can go?  "... the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanse us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).  If this verse means cleansing only on our conscious level, may God have mercy on us.  The man who has been dulled by sin will say that he is not even conscious of it.  But the cleansing from sin we experience will reach to the heights and depths of our spirit if we will "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1:7).  The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit.  It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus--no longer condemned in God's sight.

    We should more frequently allow our minds to meditate on these great, massive truths of God.

"Because you have kept My command to persevere ..." (Revelation 3:10).

    Perseverance means more than endurance--more than simply holding on until the end.  A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer.  God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, "I can't take any more."  Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly.  Entrust yourself to God's hands.  Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now?  Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith.  Proclaim as Job did, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).

    Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love.  And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him.  Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love.  Faith is the supreme effort of your life--throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.

    God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him.  There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet--places still untouched by the life of God.  There were none of those places in Jesus Christ's life, and there are to be none in ours.  Jesus prayed, "This is eternal life, that they may know You..." (John 17:3).  The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering.  If we will take this view, life will become one great romance--a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time.  God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.

"When they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples" (Mark 4:34).

    Our Solitude with Him.  Jesus doesn't take us aside and explain things to us all the time; He explains things to us as we are able to understand them.  The lives of others are examples for us, but God requires us to examine our own souls.  It is slow work-so slow that it takes God all of time and eternity to make a man or woman conform to His purpose.  We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character.  It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves!  We don't even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it.  But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held without ourselves before His grace began to work.  How many of us have learned to look inwardly with courage?

    We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves.  That is always the last bit of pride to go.  The only One who understands us is God.  The greatest curse in our spiritual life is price.  If we have ever had a glimpse of what we are like in the sight of God, we will never say, "Oh, I'm so unworthy."  We will understand that this goes without saying.  But as long as there is any doubt that we are unworthy, God will continue to close us in until He gets us alone.  Whenever there is any element of pride or conceit remaining, Jesus can't teach us anything.  He will allow us to experience heartbreak or the disappointment we feel when our intellectual pride is wounded.  He will reveal numerous misplaced affections or desires--things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone.  Many things are shown to us, often without effect.  But when God gets us alone over them, they will be clear.

"...that you may know what is the hope of His calling..." (Ephesians 1:18).

    Remember that you have been saved so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in your body (see 2 Corinthians 4:10).  Direct the total energy of your powers so that you may achieve everything your election as a child of God provides; rise every time to whatever occasion may come your way.

    You did not do anything to achieve your salvation, but you must do something to exhibit it.  You must "work out your own salvation" which God has worked in you already (Philippians 2:12).  Are your speech, your thinking, and your emotions evidence that you are working it "out"?  If you are still the same miserable, grouchy person, set on having your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.

    God is the Master Designer, and He allows adversities into your life to see if you can jump over them properly--"By my God I can leap over a wall" (Psalm 18:29).  God will never shield you from the requirements of being His son or daughter.  First Peter 4:12 says, "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you . . . ."  Rise to the occasion--do what the trial demands of you.  It does not matter how much it hurts as long as it gives God the opportunity to manifest the life of Jesus in your body.

    May God not find complaints in us anymore, but spiritual vitality--a readiness to face anything He brings our way.  The only proper goal of life is that we manifest the Son of God; and when this occurs, all of our dictating of our demands to God disappears.  Our Lord never dictated demands to His Father, and neither are we to make demands on God.  We are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants.  Once we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine with which to feed and nourish others.

". . . you may be partakers of the divine nature . . ." (2 Peter 1:4).

    We are made "partakers of the divine nature," receiving and sharing God's own nature through His promises.  Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing gold habits.  The first habit to develop is the habit ofrecognizing God's provision for us.  We say, however, "Oh, I can't afford it."  One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement.  We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny!  We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, "Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle."  And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus!  And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him.  Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult?  Why shouldn't they be!  If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder other from entering into His provision.  No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests.  It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges-- always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied.  And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.

    Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, "All my springs are in You" (Psalm 87:7).  If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible.  "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you . . . may have an abundance . . ." (2 Corinthians 9:8)--then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself.  Be marked and identified with God's nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.

"Look to Me, and be saved . . ." (Isaiah 45:22).

    Do we expect God to come to us with His blessings and save us?  He says, "Look to Me, and be saved . . . ."  The greatest difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God, and His blessings are what make it so difficult.  Troubles almost always make us look to God, but His blessings tend to divert our attention elsewhere.  The basic lesson of the Sermon on the Mount is to narrow all your interests until your mind, heart, and body are focus on Jesus Christ.  "Look to Me . . . ."

    Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians' lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God.  This is not salvation--it is not simple enough.  He says, in effect, "Look to Me and you are saved," not "You will be saved someday."  We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him.  We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, Look to Me, and be saved . . . ."  Our difficulties, our trials, and our worries about tomorrow all vanish when we look to God.

    Wake yourself up and look to God.  Build your hope on Him.  No matter how many things seem to be pressing in on you, be determined to push them aside and look to Him.  "Look to Me . . . ."  Salvation is yours the moment you look.

"We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image . . ."  (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The greatest characteristic a Christian can exhibit is this completely unveiled openness before God, which allows that person's life to become a mirror for others.  When the Spirit fills us, we are transformed, and by beholding God we become mirrors.  You can always tell when someone has been beholding the glory of the Lord, because your inner spirit senses that he mirrors the Lord's own character.  Beware of anything that would spot or tarnish that mirror in you.  It is almost always something good that will stain it--something good, but not what is best.

    The most important rule for us is to concentrate on keeping our lives open to God.  Let everything else including work, clothes, and food be set aside.  The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God.  We must maintain a position of beholding Him, keeping our lives completely spiritual through and through.  Let other things come and go as they will; let other people criticize us as they will' but never allow anything to obscure the life that "is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).  Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him.  This is an easy thing to allow, but we must guard against it.  The most difficult lesson of the Christian life is learning how to continue "beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord . . . ."

"He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you' " (Hebrews 13:5).

What line of thinking do my thoughts take?  Do I turn to what GOD says or to my own fears?  Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then to respond after I haveheard what He says?  "For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'  So we may bold say: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.  What can man do to me?' "  (13:5-6).

    "I will never leave you . . ." --not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness.  Have I really let GOD say to me that He will never leave me?  If I have not truly heard this assurance of GOD, then let me listen again.

    "I will never . . . forsake you."  Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think GOD will forsake me.  When there is no major difficulty to overcome, no vision form GOD, nothing wonderful or beautiful--just the everyday activities of life--do I hear GOD's assurance even in these?

    We have the idea that GOD is going to do some exceptional thing--that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future.  But as we grow in His grace we find that GOD is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment.  If we have GOD's assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.

"If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them"  (John 13:17).

    Be determined to know more than others.  If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea.  Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened.  If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock.  You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself--begin to have spiritual discernment.

    When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more.  Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do.  You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it.  But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled.  It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.

    The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment.  It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2.  It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice.  "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice . . ." (1 Samuel 15:22).  Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been.  "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." (John 7:17).

"Everyone who asks receives . . ." (Luke 11:10).

    Ask if you have not received.  There is nothing more difficult than asking.  We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask.  It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask.  Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty?  "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God . . . " (James 1:5), but be sure that you do lack wisdom before you ask.  You cannot bring yourself to the point of spiritual reality anytime you choose.  The best thing to do, once you realize you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit, basing your request on the promise of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13).  The Holy Spirit is the one who makes everything that Jesus did for you real in your life.

    "Everyone who asks receives . . . ."  This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (see Matthew 5:45).  To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God.

    "If any of you lacks wisdom . . . ."  If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality--do not put the blinders of reason on again.  The work ask actually means "beg."  Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest.  Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty.  A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty.  He is not ashamed ot beg--blessed are the paupers in spirit (see Matthew 5:3).

"We . . . plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain" (2 Corinthians 6:1).

    The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today.  Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed.  ". . . in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses"--that is where our patience is tested (6:4).  Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there?  Are you saying to yourself, "Oh well, I won't count this time"?  It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you--it is taking the grace of God now.  We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible.  Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God.  Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray."  Pray now--draw on the grace of God in your moment of need.  Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God.  We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.

    ". . . in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors . . ." (6:5)--in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that you are a miracle of His.  Draw on His grace now, not later.  The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now.  Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself.  One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.

    ". . . having nothing . . . ."  Never hold anything in reserve.  Pour yourself out, giving the best that you have, and always be poor.  Never be diplomatic and careful with the treasure God gives you.  ". . . and yet possessing all things"--this is poverty triumphant (6:10).

" '. . . I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord" (Jeremiah 1:8).

    God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally--" . . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . ." (Jeremiah 39:18).  That is all God promises His children.  Wherever God sends u, He will guard our lives.  Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose.  If this is not eh case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress.  Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God's personal deliverance.

    The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, ther is no time to stand up for ourselves.  Jesus says, in effect, "Don't worry about whether or not you are being treated justly."  Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him.  Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it.  If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, "Why should I be treated like this?"  If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust.  In essence, Jesus says, "Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life.  If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance."  Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard-- we do not believe Him.  We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God's name to it.  We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6).

"Those who wait on the Lord . . . shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31).

    There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities.  To "walk and not faint" is the highest stretch possible as a measure of strength.  The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character of a person-- ". . . John . . . looking at Jesus as He walked . . . said, 'Behold the Lamb of God! " (John 1:35-36).  There is nothing abstract or obscure in the Bible; everything is vivid and real.  God does not say, "Be spiritual," but He says, "Walk before Me . . ." (Genesis 17:1).

    When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life.  In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy SPirit; in our emoti9onal life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up "with wings like eagles" (40:31), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.

    Having the reality of God's presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually.  Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence.  The experience the psalmist speaks of--"We will not fear, even though . . . " (Psalm 46:2)--will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God's presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it.  Then we will exclaim, "He has been here all the time!"  At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, "Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that."  Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already!  If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit.  Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.

"In that day you will ask in My name . . ." (John 16:26).

  We too often think of the Cross of Christ as something we have to get through, yet we get through for the purpose of getting into it.  The Cross represents only one thing for us--complete, entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ--and there is nothing in which this identification is more real to us than in prayer.

  "Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8).  Then why should we ask?  The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him.  If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God.  We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer.  We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God's grace.

  ". . . I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you . . ." (John 16:26-27).  Have you reached such a level of intimacy with God that the only thing that can account for your prayer life is that it has become one with the prayer life of Jesus Christ?  Has our Lord exchanged your life with His vital life?  If so, then "in that day" you will be so closely identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.

  When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else.  That is always a trap of Satan.  When you seem to have no answers, there is always a reason--God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone but you.

"Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.  And Elisha . . . saw him no more" (2 Kings 2:11-12).

It is not wrong for you to depend on your "Elijah" for as long as God gives him to you.  But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay.  Even the thought of that causes you to say, "I cannot continue without my 'Elijah.'"  Yet God says you must continue.

      Alone at Your "Jordan" (2:14).  The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you.  You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your "Elijah."  You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone.  There is no use in saying that you cannot go--the experience is here, and you must go.  If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your "Jordan" alone.

    Alone at Your "Jericho" (2:15).  Jericho represents the place where you have seen your "Elijah" do great things.  Yet when you come alone to your "Jericho," you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you.  But if you remain true to what you learned while with your "Elijah," you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, what God is with you.

    Alone at Your "Bethel" (2:23).  At your "Bethel" you will find yourself at your wits' end but at the beginning of God's wisdom.  When you come to your wits' end and feel inclined to panic--don't!  Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship.  Put into practice what you learned while with your "Elijah"--use his mantle and pray (see 2:13-14).  Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore.

"Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?"  (Matthew 8:26).

  When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God.  But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him.  God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable.  Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even know God.  We come to our wits' end, showing that we don't have even the slightest amount of confidence in Him or in His sovereign control of the world.  To us He seems to be asleep, and we can see nothing but giant, breaking waves on the sea ahead of us.

  ". . . O you of little faith!"  What a stinging pain must have shot through the disciples as they surely thought to themselves, "We missed the mark again!"  And what a sharp pain will go through us when we suddenly realize that we could have produced complete and utter joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, in spite of what we were facing.

  There are times when there is no storm or crisis in our lives, and we do all that is humanly possible.  But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely.  If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking our confidence in Him.

  We have been talking quite a lot about sanctification, but what will be the result in our lives?  It will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him.  And this oneness will make us not only blameless in His sight, but also profound joy to Him.

"You shall not go out with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard"  (Isaiah 52:12).

    Security from Yesterday.  ". . . God requires an account of what is past"  (Ecclesiastes 3:15).  At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays.  Our present enjoyment of God's grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders.  But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future, God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

    Security for Tomorrow.  ". . . the Lord will go before you . . . ."  This is a gracious revelation--that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so.  He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our "rear guard."  And God's hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

    Security for Today.  "You shall not go out with haste . . . ."  As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness.  But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us.  Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us.  It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

    Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.