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from J.R. Miller’s Our New Edens–
Parents are the custodians of their children’s lives. If they would meet their responsibility and be able to
look God and their children in the face at the judgment, they must make their homes as nearly ‘gardens of Eden’ as possible.
The way to save your children from the temptations of the streets–is to make your home so bright, so sweet, so beautiful, so happy, so full of love, joy and prayer–that the streets will have no attractiveness for them–no power to win them away. “Do not be overcome by evil–but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21
The place of the home-life among the influences which mold and shape character, is supreme in its importance. Our children are given to us in tender infancy–to teach them and train them for holy, worthy, beautiful living.
It is not enough to have an opulent house to live in! It is not enough to have fine foods, and luxurious furniture, and expensive entertainments! Most of the world’s worthiest men and women, those who have blessed the world the most–were brought up in plain homes, without any luxury!
It is the tone of the home-life, that is important. We should make it pure, elevating, refining, inspiring. The books we bring in, the papers and magazines, the guests we have at our tables and admit to our firesides, the home conversation, the pictures we hang on our walls–all these are educational. As in everything, LOVE is the great master-secret of home happiness.
The religious influences are also vitally important. In that first ‘garden home’, the Lord came and went as a familiar friend. Christ must be our guest–if our home is to be a fit place either for our children or for ourselves. If there is no sincere prayer in it, it is not a true home at all–it is only a heathen lodging-place!
How can we make ‘new Edens’ of our homes? What are some of the secrets of home happiness? I might gather them all into one word and say–CHRIST! If we have Christ as our guest–our home will be happy! He must be welcomed into all our life. He must be in each heart. He must sit at our tables and mingle with us in all our family interaction. Christ can bless our home, only through the lives of those who make the home 
circle.
Make your home so sweet, so heavenly, with love and prayer and song and holy living–that all through it, there shall be the fragrance of the heart of Christ!
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HT: Grace Gems
“Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side. After leaving them, He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray. He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves. About three o’clock in the morning He came to them, walking on the water.”
Mark 6:45, 46, 48
Jesus did not come immediately; indeed, it was almost morning when He came, and the disciples had been struggling all night in the storm. Yet He had not been indifferent to them meanwhile. From the mountainside where He was praying–He kept His eye upon them. “He saw that they were in serious trouble.” All that dark night, He kept a watch upon that little boat that bore His disciples in the midst of the waves.
There is something very suggestive in the narrative. This ‘boat in the storm’, is a picture of ‘Christ’s friends in this world, in the storms of life’. Sometimes we think we are forgotten–but from His place in glory, Christ’s eye is always on us! He sees us struggling, battling with the waves, beaten, and distressed. He has full sympathy with us in all our struggles. It ought to be a great strength and comfort to us in trial, to know this. Jesus intercedes for us in our distresses!
It may not be best always to deliver us immediately–but His prayer continually ascends, that our faith may not fail in the struggle. This also should encourage us.
Then, He always comes in time. He may delay long–but it is never too long. If we call upon Him in trouble–we may be sure that He hears and sees us, and knows just how hard it is for us to endure; that He prays for us that we may not fail, and that He will come at the right time for our deliverance
~J. R. Miller, “Miller’s Year Book–a Year’s Daily Readings”
HT: Grace Gems
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“Cast your burden on the Lord–and He will sustain you.”
Psalm 55:21
Cast your troubles where you have cast your sins; you have cast your sins onto Jesus–cast your troubles there also! As soon as the
trouble comes, quick, the first thing, tell it to your Father in heaven! Remember, that the longer you take telling your trouble to God–the more your peace will be impaired. The longer the frost lasts–the more likely the ponds will be frozen.
Oh! It is a happy way of smoothing sorrow, when we can cast our burden upon the Lord. Oh, you agitated Christians, do not dishonor your religion by always wearing a ‘frown of concern’. Come, cast your burden upon the Lord. I see you staggering beneath a weight, which He would not feel. What seems to you a crushing burden–would be nothing but a bit of dust to Him. See! The Almighty bends His shoulders, and He says, “Here–put your troubles here!”
“Cast all your cares upon Him–because He cares about you!”
1 Peter 5:7
~Charles Spurgeon quoted on Grace Gems
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“I hate vain thoughts–but I love Your law!” Psalm 119:113
“Many of you know more about your magazines and novels–than what God has written! Many of you will read a novel from the beginning to the end, and what have you got? A head full of froth when you are done! But you cannot read the Bible–that solid, lasting, substantial, and satisfying food goes uneaten, locked up in the cupboard of neglect–while anything that man writes, a best-seller of the day–you greedily devour!” ~Charles Spurgeon
“Set your minds on things above–not on earthly things!” Colossians 3:2
from Grace Gems
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“For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory!”
2 Corinthians 4:17
Oh Christians! under your greatest troubles–lie your greatest treasures!
“It is good for me to be afflicted–that I might learn Your statutes!”
Psalm 119:71
By the greatest affliction–God teaches us the greatest instruction. When a believer lies under God’s hand which afflicts him–he lies in God’s heart which loves him!
Afflictions are good–but not pleasant.
Sin is pleasant–but not good.
There is more evil in a drop of sin–than there is in a sea of afflictions!
God by affliction, separates the sin He hates so deadly–from the soul He loves so dearly!
The believer studies more how to adorn the cross–than how to avoid the cross! Tell me, oh believer, is not Christ with His cross–better than the world with its crown?
“God disciplines us for our good–that we may share in His holiness.” Hebrews 12:10
Suppose, Christian, that the furnace is hot, seven times hotter–it is but to make you seven times more holy! Fiery trials–make golden Christians! Sin has brought many a believer unto suffering–and suffering has kept many a believer from sinning! It is better to be preserved in brine–than to rot in honey!
“I know, O Lord, that Your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness You have afflicted me!”
Psalm 119:75
–William Dyer “Christ’s Famous Titles”–
from Grace Gems
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To bless God for mercies–is the way to increase them; 
to bless Him for miseries–is the way to remove them.
Christ uncrowned Himself–to crown us!
He put off His robes–to put on our rags!
He came down from heaven–to keep us out of hell!
He fasted forty days–that He might feast us to all eternity!
He came from heaven to earth–that He might send us from earth to heaven!
There is no going to the fair haven of glory–without
sailing through the narrow strait of repentance.
by William Dyer
HT: Grace Gems
From: Letters of John Newton
“In order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are very familiar with his evil schemes.”
2 Corinthians 2:11
Satan knows knows how to suit his temptations to our personal tempers and circumstances. And if, like Achilles, you have a vulnerable heel–the old serpent will be sure to strike there!
“Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies and tricks of the Devil.”
Ephesians 6:11
HT: Grace Gem
(from Letters of John Newton)
August, 1772
My dear Miss,
I received some instruction where I little expected it–at Mr. Cox’s Museum. The efforts of his ingenuity amazed me–while at the same time I was struck with their insignificance. His fine things were curious beyond all I had any idea of; and yet what are they better than toys and amusements, suited to the taste of children! And notwithstanding the variety of their motions, they were all destitute of life.
There is unspeakably more wisdom and skill in the mechanism of a butterfly or a bee which flutters unnoticed in the fields–than in all his 
fancy apparatus put together! But the works of God are disregarded, while the feeble imitations of them which men can produce gain universal applause! If you and I could make self-moving lions and elephants, what would it profit us?
Blessed be God, that He has given us some glimpses of His wisdom and love–by which our hearts, more hard and lifeless by nature than the stones in the street–are constrained and enabled to move upwards, and to seek after Him. He has given us in His Word, a greater treasure than all that we ever beheld with our eyes, and a hope which shall flourish when the earth and all its works shall be burnt up! What will all the fine things of men’s devising be worth on that day?
My Father in heaven, draw near to me in Your infinite mercy. May all vain and wandering thoughts be silenced and repressed, as I now approach Your footstool. I adore You for the rich blessings that are treasured up in Christ. In Him I have . . .
pardon,
peace,
acceptance,
eternal life,
a balm for every wound,
a solace for every trial.
May I continually look to His sympathetic hand which dries all tears, and listen to His gracious voice which soothes all sorrows. May it be my habitual desire to follow in His footsteps and to reflect His image; to live and to walk so as to always do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
Gladden me this day with Your presence. Morning by morning, as I set out on my path of duty, may it be my increasing desire to attain a nearer and closer conformity to You and to Your holy will–to have more childlike tenderness of spirit, childlike obedience, childlike fear of grieving or offending a Father so full of pitying love and mercy.
I have to lament, heavenly Father–the proneness of my heart to depart from You–seeking my happiness too often in things which perish with the using. Break the world’s alluring spell. Disenchant its delusive fascinations! Elevate my affections, purify my desires. May I seek to have the consciousness of Your pure, loving eye ever upon me, living under the supremacy of that elevating motive–to walk so as to please You.
Subdue my unmortified sin; quicken me in every good and holy way. Enthrone Yourself in my soul and life, as Lord of all; and bring me to live more constantly and habitually under the constraining influence of Your love.
Let it ever be to me, a gracious and consoling thought, that “the Lord reigns!” I am but clay in the hand of the almighty Potter! All that concerns me is directed and regulated by Your infinite wisdom and unchanging love. Neither is there anything arbitrary in Your dealings with me. I would lie passive at Your feet, saying, “Do to me and with me–as seems good in Your sight!”
I will be still, and know that you are my God. I flee to the sanctuary of Your covenant love, rejoicing in You as my Father, and in Christ as my Redeemer. May it ever be mine, to accept the cup of affliction which You put into my hand–as a cup of love, saying, “Not as I will, but as You will.”
I look forward to that joyous time when, fully purified alike from sin and sorrow, I shall enter within the heavenly gates and stand faultless before Your throne!
I ask these and every other needed blessing, through the all-sufficient merits, and all-prevailing name of Jesus Christ, my only Lord and Savior.
~J.R. MacDuff - A Book of Private Prayers - 1890
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“Bring him unto Me!” Mark 9:19
Despairingly the poor disappointed father turned away from the disciples, to their Master. His son was in the worst possible condition, and all means had failed–but the miserable child was soon delivered from the evil one, when the parent in faith obeyed the Lord Jesus’ word, “Bring him unto Me!”
Your children are a precious gift from God–but much anxiety comes with them. They may be a great joy–or a great bitterness to their parents. They may be filled with the Spirit of God–or possessed with the spirit of evil. In all cases, the Word of God gives us one recipe for the curing of all their ills, “Bring them unto Me!”
O for more agonizing prayer on their behalf, while they are yet babes. Sin is there, let our prayers begin to attack it.
In the days of their youth we shall see sad tokens of that dumb and deaf spirit, which will neither pray aright, nor hear the voice of God in the soul–but Jesus still commands, “Bring them unto Me!”
When they are grown up, they may wallow in sin and foam with enmity against God! Then, when our hearts are breaking–we should remember the great Physician’s words, “Bring them unto Me!” Never must we cease to pray for them–until they cease to breathe. No case is hopeless–while Jesus lives.
The Lord sometimes allows His people to be driven into a corner–that they may experimentally know how necessary He is to them. Ungodly children, when they show us our own powerlessness against the depravity of their hearts–drive us to flee to the Strong One for strength–and this is a great blessing to us!
Whatever this day’s need may be, let it like a strong current–bear us to the ocean of divine love! Jesus can soon remove our sorrow. He delights to comfort us. Let us hasten to Him–while He waits to meet us!
~Charles Spurgeon (Grace Gems)
