Daily Reflections
March 12
A DAY’S PLAN
“On awakening, let us think of the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.”
—ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 86
Every day I ask God to kindle within me the fire of His love, so that love, burning bright and clear, will illuminate my thinking and permit me to better do His will. Throughout the day, as I allow outside circumstances to dampen my spirits, I ask God to sear my consciousness with the awareness that I can start my day over any time I choose; a hundred times, if necessary.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
March 12
A.A. Thought For The Day
The Prodigal Son “took his journey into a far country and wasted his substance on riotous living.” That’s what we alcoholics do. We waste our substance with riotous living. “When he came to himself, he said, ‘I will arise and go to my father.'” That’s what an alcoholic does in A.A. He comes to himself. His alcoholic self is not his real self. His sane, sober, respectable self is his real self. That’s why we’re so happy in A.A. Have I come to myself?
Meditation For The Day
Simplicity is the keynote of a good life. Choose the simple things always. Life can become complicated if you let it be so. You can be swamped by difficulties if you let them take up too much of your time. Every difficulty can be either solved or ignored and something better substituted for it. Love the humble things of life. Reverence the simple things. Your standard must never be the world’s standard of wealth and power.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may love the simple things of life. I pray that I may keep my life uncomplicated and free.
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As Bill Sees It
March 12
“How Can You Roll With A Punch?”, p. 71
On the day that the calamity of Pearl Harbor fell upon our country, a great friend of A.A. was walking along a St. Louis street. Father Edward Dowling was not an alcoholic, but he had been one of the founders of the struggling A.A. group in his city. Because many of his usually sober friends had already taken to their bottles so that they might blog out the implications of the Pearl Harbor disaster, Father Ed was anguished by the thought that his cherished A.A. group would probably do the same.
Then a member, sober less than a year, stepped alongside and engaged Father Ed in a spirited conversation—mostly about A.A. Father Ed saw, with relief, that his companion was perfectly sober.
“How is it that you have nothing to say about Pearl Harbor? How can you roll with a punch like that?”
“Well,” replied the yearling, “each of us in A.A. has already had his own private Pearl Harbor. So why should we drunks crack up over this one?”
Grapevine, January 1962
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Walk in Dry Places
March 12
Popular Gossip
Higher Thinking
The newsstands are full of publications that seem to delight in exposing the sins and foibles of celebrities and prominent officials. Think of the excitement that’s been generated just over the sexual misadventures of important people running for public office.
While some of these disclosures may be true, we don’t help ourselves by reveling in them or reading them. We may even harm ourselves if we get secret enjoyment over the fall of a celebrity. It’s never beneficial to find ourselves thinking, “It serves him right.”
Reading such trash, even in the daily newspapers, is a form of gossip. We can use our time in better ways if we wish to enhance our sobriety.
If this sounds a little too stringent, we should remind ourselves that growth in sobriety calls for better management of our thinking and attitudes. Nobody ever got drunk simply because he or she read gossipy trash. But neither did that person make progress over the general problem of gossip.
I’ll have no interest in the weaknesses or shortcomings of those who might be in the news. Popular gossip can be just as harmful as personal gossip.
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Keep It Simple
March 12
“The Twelve Step program is spiritual, based on action coming from love …”
—Martha Cleveland
To be spiritual means to be an active person. It means spending time with others. It means sharing love. It means looking for ways to be more loving to others. It means looking for ways to make the world a better place. Step Three helps us to look at the world better. We turn our lives over to the care of our Higher Power. So let’s allow care to direct our lives. Let’s always be asking ourselves, “Is what I’m doing something that shows care?”
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, let me be active in a loving, caring way. Let the love in my heart be my guide.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll do something good for someone and keep it a secret.
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Each Day a New Beginning
March 12
“Love is not getting, but giving. It is sacrifice. And sacrifice is glorious!”
—Joanna Field
How easily we mistake attention for love. Even more easily, we trick ourselves into thinking our ability to control someone signifies love—especially theirs for us. But love is something far different from either attention or control. Far different.
Love frees others from our grasp—and lets them return on their own. Love is placing another’s personal needs above our own, without regret. Love is selfless, yet it exhilarates the self. Giving love softens our edges, completes us, and connects us to the people with whom we are fulfilling our destinies.
Wanting love is a normal human desire, not one we should deny. And we shall receive love, the less our emphasis is on getting it, the more on giving it. We invite love when we freely and honestly give it. Another invitation for love comes from loving ourselves; self-hatred, which trapped many of us for years, hampers us no longer.
Love inspires—ourselves and those we give it to. It brightens our way, lessens our burdens, makes possible our rightful unfolding.
I won’t look for love today. I will just give it. It will bless me tenfold.
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Alcoholics Anonymous
March 12
HE LIVED ONLY TO DRINK
—”I had been preached to, analyzed, cursed, and counseled, but no one had ever said, ‘I identify with what’s going on with you. It happened to me, and this is what I did about it.'”
When I was released from the asylum, I moved to a large city to make a new beginning. My life had become a series of new beginnings. In time I picked up the drink, got good jobs, and lost them as I had in the past. All the fear and remorse and terrible depression returned tenfold. It still did not register that the drinking might be the cause of all this misery. I sold my blood. I prostituted myself; I drank more. I became homeless and slept in the bus and train terminals. I scrounged cigarette butts off the sidewalks and drank from a common wine bottle with other drunks. I drank my way to the men’s municipal shelter and made it my home. I panhandled. By this time I lived only to drink. I did not bathe or change clothes; I stank; I became thin and ill; I had begun to hear voices and accepted them as death omens. I was frightened, arrogant, enraged, and resentful of man, God, and the universe. There was nothing else to live for, but I was too frightened to die.
p. 449
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
March 12
Step Two — “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
Now we come to another kind of problem: the intellectually self-sufficient man or woman. To these, many A.A.’s can say, “Yes, we were like you—far too smart for our own good. We loved to have people call us precocious. We used our education to blow ourselves up into prideful balloons, though we were careful to hide this from others. Secretly, we felt we could float above the rest of the folks on our brainpower alone. Scientific progress told us there was nothing man couldn’t do. Knowledge was all-powerful. Intellect could conquer nature. Since we were brighter than most folks (so we thought), the spoils of victory would be ours for the thinking. The god of intellect displaced the God of our fathers. But again John Barleycorn had other ideas. We who had won so handsomely in a walk turned into all-time losers. We saw that we had to reconsider or die. We found many in A.A. who once thought as we did. They helped us to get down to our right size. By their example they showed us that humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first. When we began to do that, we received the gift of faith, a faith which works. This faith is for you, too.”
pp. 29-30
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Xtra Thoughts
March 12
“Take time for solitude. How else can you contemplate the blessings of recovery,”
—Abby Warman
“What we must realize is that we cannot see everything. We do not know everything. More important, we must understand that it is impossible for us to control anything. The process of life is a spiritual one, governed by invisible, intangible spiritual laws and principles.”
—Iyanla Vanzant
“Everyone who has been mistreated by another has mistreated others at one time or another.”
—Paul Ferrini
“Deep faith eliminates fear.”
—Lech Walesa
“It’s not the burdens of everyday that drive men mad. It is the regret of yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves that rob us of today.”
—Unknown
“I completely, and wholeheartedly trust God’s love, it will never fail me.”
—SweetyZee
“God’s grace can turn pain into joy and blessing.”
—Isabelle Zeigler Ross
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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
March 12
DREAMS
“I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Drugs brought me nightmares, never dreams. For years I lived in fear. In the night I imagined horrible shapes, strange colors and sounds, experienced unspeakable tortures and awoke in tension and sweat.
Today in sobriety my dreams are serene and tranquil; I remember friends and loved ones and those I most admire. I imagine God in the beauty of His creation. He breathes His love through me. My dreams are part of my wellness.
God, who created men to dream their dreams, help me to live mine.
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Bible Verses
March 12
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
—Proverbs 3:5, 6
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”
—Psalms 19:14
“I sought the Lord , and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.”
—Psalm 34:4-5
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Daily Inspiration
March 12
If you count your blessings and answered prayers, there is less time for grumbling and complaining. Lord, may I always appreciate the wonders of my life and celebrate Your presence in it.
You cannot be discouraged for long if you are close to our Heavenly Father, the giver of all hope and blessings. Lord, I will spend time daily with You and strengthen my faith.
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A Day At A Time
March 12
Reflection For The Day
If we examine every disturbance we have had, great or small, we’ll find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. So let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these crippling liabilities. Then we can be set free to live and love. We may then be able to Twelfth-Step ourselves, as well as others, into emotional sobriety. Do I try to carry the message of The Program?
Today I Pray
May I first get my emotional and spiritual house in order before I seek to carry out serious commitments in human relationships. May I look long and thoroughly at “dependency”—upon alcohol or other drugs or upon other human beings—and recognize it as the source of my unrest. May I transfer my dependency to God, as I understand Him.
Today I Will Remember
I am God-dependent.
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One More Day
March 12
“Never bend your head. Look at the world straight in the face.”
—Helen Keller
Pride is elusive when we’re hurting emotionally. We may act and feel overwhelmed. It is very difficult to be mindful of all we can accomplish and we may focus on what is out of our reach. Or we may tend to hide from our problems by withdrawing from social gatherings or by isolating ourselves emotionally. Feeling ashamed that we are hurting makes asking for help very hard.
Now, as we hide less often from our feelings we find it easier to face the world straight on. We may not have made this transition easily or even by ourselves, but we are making it with the help of loving friends. Increasingly we accept our limitations, make the effort to do what we can, and ask for help when we must. And with this, we raise our heads with pride.
I need not be ashamed when I must ask others for help.
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One Day At A Time
March 12
SEASONS OF OUR SOUL
“You will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither and whatever you do prospers.”
—Psalms 1:3
For much of my life I have felt rootless, insecure, lost, ineffectual, and scattered by the seemingly-unforgiving winds of chaos, confusion, change, and pain in my life. I certainly do not feel the sense of strength, stability, and solidity that I imagine I’d feel as a “firmly planted tree.” Many of my choices and behaviors add to the storms and fruitlessness of my life…yet I consider again the Tree. The Tree bears its fruit “in its season”. The Tree participates in the work of its Creator by patiently standing strong through the winds, snow, and barrenness of winter … and the Tree knows that winter is only for a Season. The Tree does not rail against God, nor demand that it produce fruit in its season of barrenness; rather, the Tree patiently rests and knows that Spring will return, as it always does and always will.
Working our program calls us to trust God—to believe that which we might not yet see, feel, or experience. We can choose to accept with Serenity the seasons of our lives.
One day at a time …
I will choose to believe that my Higher Power is at work in me through every season of my life. I will remember that He brings the Life of Spring after the “death” of winter. In trusting Him, I will be stable and fruitful, even when I feel overwhelmed by the winds of life.
~ Lisa
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Elder’s Meditation of the Day March 12
“The old people say, `Learn from your mistakes’. So I try to accept everything for what it is and to make the best of each situation one day at a time.”
—Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA
The Creator did not design us to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. Mistakes are our friends. It is from mistakes that we learn. The more mistakes we learn from, the faster we gain wisdom. The faster we gain wisdom, the more we love. The more we love, the fewer our mistakes. Therefore, mistakes help us to learn love. God is love. Mistakes are sacred and help us learn about God’s will for ourselves.
Great Spirit, help me, today, to learn from my mistakes.
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Journey to the Heart
March 12
You Have the Power to Redefine Your World
One power we gain on our journey to the heart is the ability to redefine what we believe. We learn to see things in a new way.
We usually have a definition for most areas of our lives, particularly important areas such as work, love, money, and ourselves, but we’re not always conscious of it. The experiences we go through can help our definitions surface, help us see more clearly how we define these areas. That’s called growth. This growth, this process of redefining, will happen naturally on our path. But we can also consciously, actively work on our definitions.
Ask yourself if you’re defining something or someone right now in a way that you’d like to change. Perhaps a work relationship, a love relationship, a project, or an issue is causing you distress. You may find you have the power to redefine this area in a way that minimizes or reduces your pain.
A healing professional and friend once taught me a technique that can be used on any subject you’re trying to define. On a sheet of paper write down everything you currently believe, including and especially everything negative, about the subject or issue. Include all the “I Can’t’s” and the “Why Not’s.” That’s your current definition.
On a clean sheet of paper write down how you want to redefine this area, and your involvement in it. Write down everything you want it to be, what you wish for it, what you think the highest truth possible about this subject could be.
Burn the paper with the old definitions. Let the smoke clear away from your eyes. Save your new definition. Then watch how the new definition comes to life and take shape.
You don’t have to let past definitions of life, love, God, and yourself limit you anymore. You are free to redefine and help create the life you choose; you’re free to see life in a new way.
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Today’s Gift
March 12
“Gentleness is not a quality exclusive to women.”
—Helen Reddy
Each of us has our soft side: maybe it’s when we’re petting a kitten, caring for a baby robin with an injured wing, or soothing a crying child who is afraid. Behaving in a gentle way toward others gives us warm feelings inside. It also encourages others to treat us gently, too.
We don’t always feel like being gentle. If we’re sad or worried about school or a friend, we might not even notice the people around us who need our gentleness. But when we remember gentleness, it lifts our spirits. Two people will always be happier when we’re gentle–the person we’ve been gentle to and ourselves.
Who can I share my gentleness with today?
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The Language of Letting Go
March 12
Timing
“If we could untangle the mysteries of life and unravel the energies which run through the world; if we could evaluate correctly the significance of passing events; if we could measure the struggles, dilemmas, and aspirations of mankind, we could find that nothing is born out of time. Everything comes at its appointed moment.”
—Joseph R. Sizoo
Timing can be frustrating. We can wait and wait for something to happen, and it seems to be forever until it comes to pass. Or, suddenly, an event or circumstance is thrust upon us, catching us by surprise. Believing that things happen too slowly or too quickly is an illusion. Timing is perfect.
Today, I will trust and work with Divine Order. I will accept the timing in my life today and in my past as being perfect.
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More Language Of Letting Go
March 12
Don’t cut yourself on your gifts
“Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.”
—James Russel Lowell
Success rains down for no apparent reason. Tragedy strikes like a freight train. We’re left to deal with the results. We can allow our egos to swell over our sudden good fortune, or we can humbly accept the fruit of our labor and continue to better ourselves. We can lie down and give up after a tragedy, or we can grieve, get up, and begin taking steps to move on with our lives.
Look at the situations in your life. Have you been given success? Are you learning the lessons of loss? Perhaps yours is the gift of the ordinary. Don’t walk too boastfully through your successes, nor remain too long in your grief. And don’t sleep through an ordinary life. You’ll lose your sense of wonder and awe, and when it ends, you won’t know where you’ve been.
We cannot always control what will happen to us. We need to let go of any false thoughts that we can. We can choose how we’ll handle the situation just like we choose how we’ll pick up a knife– by grabbing the handle or the blade.
Watch out for the cutting edge.
What you do with what you have been given is important.
God, thank you for what I’ve been given.
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Touchstones Meditation For Men
March 12
“No sooner do we think we have assembled a comfortable life than we find a piece of ourselves that has no place to fit in.”
—Gail Sheehy
We usually think of children going through stages. If we talk about a man going through a stage, there is usually a tone of a put down in it. But adults go through stages in their lives too. We have different drives and needs at 22 than we had at 16. Age 40 brings a different experience than 30. It would be sad to reach age 60 or 70 and have no more wisdom than we had twenty years earlier. An adult life crisis can come anytime. We may have grown out of a formerly comfortable job. Perhaps we feel new urgings for a more satisfactory relationship than we have settled for. From our recovery experience we know that crisis can bring growth.
Courage is required of us from the cradle to the grave. Change continues throughout life. With courage, we can face our crises and the changes that come, and eventually we find the gift of new growth.
Help me find courage enough to live this day and meet the challenges it brings.
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Daily TAO
March 12
ENTERTAINMENT
The mind that turns ever outward
Will have no end to craving.
Only the mind turned inward
Will find a still-point of peace.
It seems people never tire of seeking new thrills. They crave entertainment, and they want newer, sharper experiences. Events do not even need to be actual — people are more than content with recreations, displays, and stimulating machines. Music must be amplified. A historic location must have museums, shops, and festivals. Life must have elaborate ceremonies with images, music, speaking, dining, and drinking.
Followers of Tao regard all reality as being projections of our minds. All phenomena are subjective and relative. Therefore, it is folly to further entangle ourselves in confusion. True reality lies in withdrawal from the swirling variations of the outside world. It lies in looking within and then slowly peeling away the layers of subjectivity. What will remain is not a core of objectivity, but a kernel of truth that absorbs rather than reflects. If we enter into this kernel, our minds cease to continue their habits of creating stimulating realities, and we enter into a silence that feels perfect and whole.
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Daily Zen
March 12
Waking from sleep,
I can hear the dew in the trees.
I open my door
Overlooking the garden.
The winter moon
Clears the eastern cliffs;
Water murmurs
Through roots of bamboo.
The mountain stream’s
Beyond my hearing,
But a mountain bird cries once,
And then again.
Leaning in the doorway,
I follow night through to dawn.
What words can I summon
For such mystery and peace?
– Liu Tzung-yuan (773-819)
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Food for Thought
March 12
Nourishment or Drug?
During our overeating days, many of us used food as an all purpose drug. It was a pep pill when we were depressed and a tranquilizer when we were uptight. We turned especially to refined carbohydrates as uppers and downers. As a result, we spent most of our time either artificially stimulated or lethargic.
When we stop using food as a drug and eat only what our bodies need for proper nourishment, we experience emotions which had been buried by overeating. We feel anxiety, fear, and anger. We also feel joy, enthusiasm, and love. We are alive instead of doped up.
We need to express and share our emotions, and in OA we find people who will help us do that. We no longer have to bury our true feelings with food. As we learn to rely on our Higher Power for support in the little things that come up as well as the big things, then we are able to face the day without a drug.
By abstaining, we learn who we really are and what we really feel.
May I not be afraid to live without a drug.
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In God’s Care
March 12
God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.
~Isaak Dinesen
When our addictive behaviors had control of us, we probably would have laughed if someone told us we would be in a Twelve Step program someday. We spent a lot of our time trying to control and predict the future, and we fought anything that threatened the delusion that we could.
When we were ready, our program was there. We discovered that this is a daily program, that by letting God unfold our life twenty-four hours at a time we are released from our obsession to control everything. One of the best gifts of our program is discovering that our Higher Power is in charge of every situation. And as a result, our obsessive need to control no longer controls us.
So now we are free to fully experience this moment. We can trust we will benefit somehow because each moment is a gift from God.
Whatever God wants me to know today is sufficient.
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Faith’s Check Book
March 12
Going Out with Joy
And of Zebulun he said, Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out.
–(Deuteronomy 33:18)
The blessings of the tribes are ours; for we are the true Israel who worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh. Zebulun is to rejoice because Jehovah will bless his “going out”; we also see a promise for ourselves lying latent in this benediction. When we go out we will look out for occasions of joy.
We go out to travel, and the providence of God is our convoy. We go out to emigrate, and the Lord is with us both on land and sea. We go out as missionaries, and Jesus saith, “Lo, I am with you unto the end of the world.” We go out day by day to labor, and we may do so with pleasure, for God will be with us from morn till eve.
A fear sometimes creeps over us when starting, for we know not what we may meet with; but this blessing may serve us right well as a word of good cheer. As we pack up for moving, let us put this verse into our traveling trunk; let us drop it into our hearts and keep it there; yea, let us lay it on our tongue to make us sing. Let us weigh anchor with a song, or jump into the carriage with a psalm. Let us belong to the rejoicing tribe and in our every movement praise the Lord with joyful hearts.
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This Morning’s Meditation
March 12
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour.”
—Matthew 5:43.
LOVE thy neighbour.” Perhaps he rolls in riches, and thou art poor, and living in thy little cot side-by-side with his lordly mansion; thou seest every day his estates, his fine linen, and his sumptuous banquets; God has given him these gifts, covet not his wealth, and think no hard thoughts concerning him. Be content with thine own lot, if thou canst not better it, but do not look upon thy neighbour, and wish that he were as thyself. Love him, and then thou wilt not envy him.
Mayhap, on the other hand, thou art rich, and near thee reside the poor. Do not scorn to call them neighbour. Own that thou art bound to love them. The world calls them thy inferiors. In what are they inferior? They are far more thine equals than thine inferiors, for “God hath made of one blood all people that dwell upon the face of the earth.” It is thy coat which is better than theirs, but thou art by no means better than they. They are men, and what art thou more than that? Take heed that thou love thy neighbour even though he be in rags, or sunken in the depths of poverty.
But, perhaps, you say, “I cannot love my neighbours, because for all I do they return ingratitude and contempt.” So much the more room for the heroism of love. Wouldst thou be a feather-bed warrior, instead of bearing the rough fight of love? He who dares the most, shall win the most; and if rough be thy path of love, tread it boldly, still loving thy neighbours through thick and thin. Heap coals of fire on their heads, and if they be hard to please, seek not to please them, but to please thy Master; and remember if they spurn thy love, thy Master hath not spurned it, and thy deed is as acceptable to Him as if it had been acceptable to them. Love thy neighbour, for in so doing thou art following the footsteps of Christ.
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The Evenings Meditation
March 12
“To whom belongest thou?”
-—1 Samuel 30:13.
No neutralities can exist in religion. We are either ranked under the banner of Prince Immanuel, to serve and fight His battles, or we are vassals of the black prince, Satan. “To whom belongest thou?”
Reader, let me assist you in your response. Have you been “born again”? If you have, you belong to Christ, but without the new birth you cannot be His. In whom do you trust? For those who believe in Jesus are the sons of God. Whose work are you doing? You are sure to serve your master, for he whom you serve is thereby owned to be your lord. What company do you keep? If you belong to Jesus, you will fraternize with those who wear the livery of the cross. “Birds of a feather flock together.” What is your conversation? Is it heavenly or is it earthly? What have you learned of your Master?—for servants learn much from their masters to whom they are apprenticed. If you have served your time with Jesus, it will be said of you, as it was of Peter and John, “They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”
We press the question, “To whom belongest thou?” Answer honestly before you give sleep to your eyes. If you are not Christ’s you are in a hard service—Run away from your cruel master! Enter into the service of the Lord of Love, and you shall enjoy a life of blessedness. If you are Christ’s let me advise you to do four things. You belong to Jesus—obey him; let his word be your law; let His wish be your will. You belong to the Beloved, then love Him; let your heart embrace Him; let your whole soul be filled with Him. You belong to the Son of God, then trust him; rest nowhere but on him. You belong to the King of kings, then be decided for Him. Thus, without your being branded upon the brow, all will know to whom you belong.