Daily Reflections
July 30
GIVING BACK
… he has struck something better than gold. He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 129
My part of the Seventh Tradition means so much more than just giving money to pay for the coffee. It means being accepted for myself by belonging to a group. For the first time I can be responsible, because I have a choice. I can learn the principals of working out problems in my daily life by getting involved in the “business” of A.A. By being self-supporting, I can give back to A.A. what A.A. gave to me! Giving back to A.A. not only ensures my own sobriety, but allows me to buy insurance that A.A. will be here for my grandchildren.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
July 30
A.A. Thought For The Day
The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow, with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise, and perhaps its poor performance. Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control. Tomorrow’s sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds, but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is as yet unborn. Do I still worry too much about tomorrow?
Meditation For The Day
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is not seeing, but believing. Down through the ages, there have always been those who obeyed the heavenly vision, not seeing but believing in God. And their faith was rewarded. So shall it be to you. Good things will happen to you. You cannot see God, but you can see the results of faith in human lives, changing them from defeat to victory. God’s grace is available to all who have faith-not seeing, but believing. With faith, life can be victorious and happy.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may have faith enough to believe without seeing. I pray that I may be content with the results of my faith.
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As Bill Sees It
July 30
Reaching for Humility, p. 211
We saw we needn’t always be bludgeoned and beatened into humility. It could come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering.
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“We first reach for a little humility, knowing that we shall perish of alcoholism if we do not. After a time, though we may still rebel somewhat, we commence to practice humility because this is the right thing to do. Then comes the day when, finally freed in large degree from rebellion, we practice humility because we deeply want it as a way of life.”
1. 12 & 12, p. 75
2. Letter, 1966
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Walk In Dry Places
July 30
Founders with clay feet
Sound thinking
With any organization or society, the time comes when people find fault with the founders. The faults of these pioneering leaders are examined and perhaps even used to discredit them.
Founders are only human beings, and they are likely to exhibit the human shortcomings all of us have. If these founders turn out to have clay feet, perhaps the fault is ours for idolizing them in the first place.
The real role of a founder is to lay the foundation for further building. Unless the society grows, improving over what the founder had in mind, it is not likely to survive. Its real work should be to surpass the fonder so as to be of greater service to others.
I’ll be careful not to put anyone on a pedestal and then complain about his or her clay feet.
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Keep It Simple
July 30
Beauty may be said to be God’s trademark in creation.
—Henry Ward Beecher
Our addiction was like a veil over our heads. We saw the world as an ugly place.
We saw people as trouble. We thought our drinks and drugs were beautiful. But even they became ugly over time. Life became ugly because we had put distance between our Higher Power and ourselves.
Now we are blessed because the veil is lifted, and we are part of the healing process. We help others step into the beauty of recovery.
Our spirits are again free to seek a relationship with God and others. Through these relationships, we get our hope back. This hope help us focus on the beauty of the world. Hope is the rain that helps our souls grow.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, the world is both beautiful and ugly. For to long I only saw the ugly. Help me focus on the beauty.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll keep an eye out for the beauty recovery holds for me. Throughout the day, I’ll pray for this.
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Each Day a New Beginning
July 30
It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God.
—Mary Daly
God’s presence is within us, now and always, even though we feel alone, alienated, scared, and forgotten much of the time. We often overlook God’s presence because we don’t recognize it. Our talents, our desires, and our pursuits are the evidence – all the evidence we’ll ever need once we understand it – that God is present within and about us all the time.
The creative potential goes unrealized among so many of us, perhaps because we have a rigid definition of what creativity is. We are creative. We are all, each of us, creative. We must be because God’s presence is here now. When we choose to let it guide us, we’ll be able to offer our own unique gifts to the world of friends around us. Encouraging creativity, our own and someone else’s, may mean breaking old habits. It surely does mean stepping out of our own way. It also means giving ourselves fully to the experience of the moment and trusting that God’s presence will prompt the deliverance of our special gift.
In the moment lives God within us. In the moment I am creative, blessed with gifts like no other. I will stay in the moment and offer them, guided by the God within.
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Alcoholics Anonymous
July 30
Jim’s Story
This physician, one of the earliest members of A.A.’s first black group, tells of how freedom came as he worked among his people.
I went back to my mother’s for a few days until things cooled off, because the district attorney had put out a summons for me to come to see him in his office. A policeman came to the door and asked for James S., but there wasn’t any James S. There. He came back several times. Within ten days I got locked up for being drunk, and this same policeman was in the station house as I was being booked. I had to put up a three-hundred-dollar bond because he was carrying the same summons in his pocket for me. So I went down to talk to the district attorney, and the arrangement was made that I would go home to stay with my mother, and that meant Vi and I was separated. I continued to work and continued to go to lunch with Vi, and none of our acquaintances on the job knew that we had separated. Very often we rode to and from work together, but being separated really galled me deep down.
p. 240
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
July 30
Step Twelve – “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”
We may often pass through Twelfth Step experiences where we will seem to be temporarily off the beam. These will appear as big setbacks at the time, but will be seen later as stepping-stones to better things. For example, we may set our hearts on getting a particular person sobered up, and after doing all we can for months, we see him relapse. Perhaps this will happen in a succession of cases, and we may be deeply discouraged as to our ability to carry A.A.’s message. Or we may encounter the reverse situation, in which we are highly elated because we seem to have been successful. Here the temptation is to become rather possessive of these newcomers.
Perhaps we try to give them advice about their affairs which we aren’t really competent to give or ought not give at all. Then we are hurt and confused when the advice is rejected, or when it is accepted and brings still greater confusion. By a great deal of ardent Twelfth Step work we sometimes carry the message to so many alcoholics that they place us in a position of trust. They make us, let us say, the group’s chairman. Here again we are presented with the temptation to over-manage things, and sometimes this results in rebuffs and other consequences which are hard to take.
But in the longer run we clearly realize that these are only the pains of growing up, and nothing but good can come from them if we turn more and more to the entire Twelve Steps for the answers.
pp. 110-111
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Xtra Thoughts
July 30
Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
–Ursula K. Le Guin
If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow, you have no today for which you can be thankful.
–Anonymous
God will never give you more than you & Him together can handle.
–unknown
“As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
–Audrey Hepburn
AA is my “God with skin on.”
–unknown
If you drink at the bad news you got today, you’ll never know you could get through it without drinking.
–unknown
“Every single act of love releases blocked energy in your body. Unconditional love heals the body and the mind. Keep reminding yourself of this truth until it becomes your reality. Love is a frequency that you can choose to tune into, just as you tune into a frequency on the radio.”
–Wayne Dyer
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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
July 30
WORDS
“Hear the meaning within the word.”
–William Shakespeare
When I hear or see the word “sobriety”, I am made to think of relationships: my relationship with God, man and, more importantly, myself. Sobriety means humor, hope and joy. It means a silence at the center of my being that “wonders” at it all. Sobriety means a sexuality that is both noble and free — that risks rejection and criticism. Sobriety argues against prejudice and bigotry. It builds a bridge to “the different” and reflects on the creative variety of man. It allows me a God as I understand Him but also respects tradition and the ancient philosophies of the world.
Sobriety evokes a feeling that is beyond words. It echoes the spiritual life.
Let me learn to pray beyond words. Let my relationship with You grow in silence.
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Bible Scriptures
July 30
“Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.”
-Micah 7:8
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.
-Ephesians 4:31
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
-Romans 8:18
“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”
-James 1:19-21
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Daily Inspiration
July 30
Much can be said by the look on your face. Lord, may I be quick to smile and display an attitude of graciousness and peace so that I am able to put those around me at ease and bring out the best in them.
God’s blessings come in packages both large and small. Sometimes they are expected and sometimes not. Sometimes they are recognized and sometimes not. Lord, thank you for the joy You light in me, even in times of sorrow. Please use me to bless someone else.
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A Day At A Time
July 30
Reflection For The Day
When we first come to The Program, the most common variety of self-pity begins: “Poor me! Why can’t I (fill in your own addiction) like everybody else? why me?” Such bemoaning, if allowed to persist, is a surefire invitation for a long walk off a pier — right back to the mess we were in before we came to The Program. When we stick around The Program for a while, we discover that it’s not just “me” at all; we become involved with people, from all walks of life, who are in exactly the same boat. Am I losing interest in my comfortably familiar “pity Pot?”
Today I Pray
When self-pity has me droopy and inert, may I look up, look around and perk up. Self-pity, God wills, vanishes in the light of other people’s shared troubles. may I always wish for friends honest enough to confront me if they see me digging my way back down into my old pity pit.
Today I Will Remember
Turn self-involvement into involvement.
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One More Day
July 30
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
– Joseph Addison
As children, most of us were unreceptive to advice. Our parents offered words of warning and frequently we refused to hear because we needed independence.
Today, when friends or family members make suggestions, we might have some of the same reactions as we did as children. We still need independence, and some advice — no matter how well meant — carries with it the implication that we are less than capable of clearly seeing dangers or knowing our options. We;re better able now to weigh the messages we receive. We have two choices. When our loved ones offer suggestions that we know to be bad or inappropriate for us, we can remind ourselves that they are meant well and merely say thank you. When the advice is good, we can do the same thing.
I will listen carefully to all the loving advice given me.
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Elder’s Meditation of the Day
July 30
“You want to know who’s a real medicine man? He’s the one who doesn’t say ‘I’m a medicine man.’ He doesn’t ask you to come to him. You’ve got to go and ask him. And you’ll find he’s always there among his own people.”
– Louis Farmer, ONONDAGA
The Medicine Man is a role model of what it is like to live in harmony and balance with the Creator. It takes a long time, a lot of sacrifice and discipline to become a Medicine Man. A Medicine Man is humble and never crass about anything. He knows he lives to do the will of the Great Spirit. He knows he is to help the people. He lives very low key – the more low key he lives, the more people seek him out – and such is life. The more one serves the people and is quiet about it, the more he is sought out. The quieter he is, the more powerful is his medicine.
Great Spirit, allow me this day to be humble. Allow me this day not to seek attention, but to live quietly and keep my focus and attention on serving You.
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Journey To The Heart
July 30
Find Your Own Healing Places
When I arrived in Sedona, I met Marianne. She and her husband ran the lodge where I stayed.
“You’ll like it here,” she said. “You’ll find the healing you need.”
“Where should I look?” I asked. “Where should I go? What things should I be sure to do?”
“There is no map for that,” she quietly replied. “You’ll find your own places. They’ll call to you or you’ll call them to you. You’ll be drawn to what you need.”
Sometimes, along the way, people specifically point things out to us. We get a clear plan about where to go next. But we can also reach a place for which there is no map, no itinerary, no set agenda for how to find our way. That’s because we’re supposed to be trusting our heart.
This is an important place on the journey. It tells us our heart can be trusted. It’s a time of joy, a time of trusting what we’ve learned and what we know, a time of trusting the universe and discovering that that trust is well placed.
You don’t need to be shown what to do next. Your heart and soul will lead the way. You’ll learn to tell when something is right, when something works.
Learn to find places of healing. Learn to find people, places, events, and rituals that work for you. Don’t worry about how to find them or wait for someone to point them out. They’ll call to you, or you’ll call them into your life.
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Today’s Gift
July 30
The hopeful man sees success where others see failure, sunshine where others see shadows and storm.
—O. S. Marden
When wise men say, “Hope springs eternal,” they are reminding us that no matter how great are the obstacles, the hope of winning out in the long run still exists. Hope is our friend when all else has failed. When we have strength of character and an energetic mind, hope always flourishes.
We discover that, at the very brink of despair, we will find courage to keep trying as long as there is hope for success. After all, what have we got to lose? Without hope, we have no chance, anyway. Our chance for glory comes when we keep trying even though all seems lost. Our hearts remain strong and brave when hope reminds us that challenges last until a game is over.
What light of hope can I keep burning within me today?
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The Language of Letting Go
July 30
Accepting Powerlessness
Since I’ve been a child, I’ve been in an antagonistic relationship with an important emotional part of myself: my feelings. I have consistently tried to ignore, repress, or force my feelings away. I have tried to create unnatural feelings or force away feelings that were present.
I’ve denied I was angry, when in fact I was furious. I have told myself there must be something wrong with me for feeling angry, when anger was a reasonable and logical response to the situation.
I have told myself things didn’t hurt, when they hurt very much. I have told myself stories such as “That person didn’t mean to hurt me.” . . . “He or she doesn’t know any better.” . . . “I need to be more understanding.” The problem was that I had already been too understanding of the other person and not understanding and compassionate enough with myself.
It has not just been the large feelings I have been at war with; I have been battling the whole emotional aspect of myself. I have tried to use spiritual energy, mental energy, and even physical exertion to not feel what I need to feel to be healthy and alive.
I didn’t succeed at my attempts to control emotions. Emotional control has been a survival behavior for me. I can thank that behavior for helping me get through many years and situations where I didn’t have any better options. But I have learned a healthier behavior – accepting my feelings.
We are meant to feel. Part of our dysfunction is trying to deny or change that. Part of our recovery means learning to go with the flow of what we’re feeling and what our feelings are trying to tell us.
We are responsible for our behaviors, but we do not have to control our feelings. We can let them happen. We can learn to embrace, enjoy, and experience – feel – the emotional part of ourselves.
Today, I will stop trying to force and control my emotions. Instead, I will give power and freedom to the emotional part of myself.
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More Language Of Letting Go
July 30
Trust that feeling
“Let’s turn here,” he said, turning down a short road. We had been looking for a new restaurant to try, and lately they had all been disappointments. The sign at the start of the road was weathered, and I remembered eating at the place it advertised years ago. I didn’t like it very much.
The restaurant had changed some inside. We sat at a walk-in table next to a window looking out on the Pacific Ocean. Our server was gracious and genuine. We ordered crab cakes for breakfast. They were the best crab cakes that I ever had, and we ended up going back for dinner that same night.
The restaurant has become a regular place for us because we ignored what we thought we knew and went with a feeling instead.
After all the omelets, waffles, and crab cakes that we’ve eaten at that restaurant since then, I’m glad that my boyfriend trusted his intuition and his intuitive whim. Both men and women have been given the gift of intuition. It’s not a gender-specific thing, though sometimes we encourage men to focus more on the logical than the intuitive.
Open up. Trust your heart when it whispers quietly to you. Start small. Go for a drive and on a whim take a road you’ve never traveled before. Gradually, as you become more tuned in to your intuitive feelings, they will guide you along your path. Sometimes your intuition will help you find a nice place to eat; sometimes they’ll guide you to a winning career path and sometimes to a best friend.
Listen to your heart. Sometimes you need to ignore what you think you know, and go with your intuition.
God, teach me to listen to my heart.
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Touchstones Meditations For Men
July 30
Many could forego heavy meals, a full wardrobe, a fine house, et cetera; it is the ego they cannot forego.
—Mahatma Gandhi
We inevitably confront our ego in this program. We face our macho self, our powerful self, or our always-right self. We have developed many trappings, which give us an identity: our car, our stereo system, our job, our popularity, or our place to sit in church. The more attached we are to these trappings, the tougher it is for us to make progress on this spiritual path.
In stepping across a stream we must leave the side we are on in order to get to the other side. The repeated challenge in our spiritual life is to leave the secure trappings we know and take comfort in the still unknown new self. That is the leap of faith. We take the risk and trust something will be there for us. We have faith that letting go of our immediate attachments will bring us to a better place, that God will be there for us.
I will let go of external images and use my faith to take the leap forward.
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Daily TAO
July 30
Absolute
They say, “You are god.”
But everyone is.
They say, “All is god.”
They why are there differences?
They say, “All is an illusion.”
But does that include god?
Those who follow Tao declare there is no evidence that a god created our world. They have not found any empirical proof, and they cannot accept the idea philosophically. They reason that god must be absolute and this means oneness, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Naturally, anything separate and distinct would not satisfy this criteria. If there was a god and world that god created, then there would be two things – and god could not then be considered absolute. If there were an absolute god, there could not be anything separate from god.
Everything is god. We are also god. However, we fail to realize this. Why? Because we look for god outside of ourselves. We make the mistake of taking ourselves as the viewer and then seek god as the object of our examinations. Unfortunately, everything we perceive is tainted by our subjectivity, and anything we define as god “out there” cannot be god because it is not absolute. All you’ve found is something that exists in relation to your perceptions.
You are god. The only way to confirm this is to remove the barrier of subjectivity that prevents you from realizing your essential oneness with all things.
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In God’s Care
July 30
Conscience is, in most men, an anticipation of the opinions of others.
-Sir Henry Taylor
We are no longer in doubt about the right actions to take toward others. The program’s Steps clarify what is appropriate behavior. Thus we know that doing any injury — physical or emotional — to other people harms us as well as them.
One of the many rewards of recovery is being free to live without guilt. Name-calling, harmful gossip, intentional put-downs, hateful rejections no longer provide the perverse pleasure of years gone by. We now recognize the subtle joy of sincere and loving efforts. We find this joy in calling a frend who is faced with a painful decision, picking up groceries for an elderly neighbor, extending our friendship to the new person at work. We no longer need the fear of what others will think to curb our spiteful actions.
Our conscience may still guide our actions at times, but as we grow in our recovery, we begin to intuitively now what keeps us on track and in sync with God.
I will follow my God-given intuition today
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Day By Day
July 30
Realizing the consequences
No matter who we are as individuals, we all bear the consequences of our lifestyle and behavior. High, we experience pain, suffering, grief, and eventually insanity or premature death. Clean and sober, we experience rewarding lives.
Getting clean and sober doesn’t mean that we suddenly become conformists. But whoever or whatever we become, we must practice kindness and tolerance. If we do, our lives will be meaningful in ways we cannot imagine.
Am I fully aware of the consequences of my choices?
Higher Power, help me become more thoughtful and patient.
Today I will take stock of my lifestyle by…
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Food for Thought
July 30
Focus on Living
Before we found this program, we were obsessed with food and preoccupied with eating. Instead of concentrating our energies on love and work and play, we were side tracked into the unsatisfactory substitute of overeating.
Abstinence gives us a new lease on life. We can develop more satisfying relationships with our family and friends. Since it has been our habit to withdraw and please ourselves with food, it takes time and effort to learn to relate more closely to those we love. It also takes courage and the willingness to be open and vulnerable.
In our work, we have renewed energy and greater ability to concentrate. Where before we may have avoided difficult tasks, we now have the strength and confidence to attempt them.
When we give up eating as a favorite form of recreation, we can find other activities to enjoy. Being released from bondage to food and fat opens the door to all sorts of new possibilities. Less eating means much more living.
We are grateful for new life.
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Daily Zen
July 30
When the mind is properly adjusted
And quietly applied
The Way is attainable;
But when you are too fervently bent
On it, your body grows tired;
When your body is tired, your spirit
Becomes weary.
When you spirit is weary, your discipline
Will relax, and with relaxation of
Discipline, there follows many distractions
– Sutra of Forty Two Chapters
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Faith’s Check Book
July 30
Promise of Future Meeting
I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.
-John 16:22
Surely He will come a second time, and then, when He sees us and we see Him, there will be rejoicings indeed. Oh, for that joyous return! But this promise is being daily fulfilled in another sense. Our gracious Lord has many “agains” in His dealings with us. He gave us pardon, and He sees us again and repeats the absolving word as fresh sins cause us grief. He has revealed to us our acceptance before God, and when our faith in that blessing grows a little dim, He comes to us again and again and says, “Peace be unto you,” and our hearts are glad.
Beloved, all our past mercies are tokens of future mercies. If Jesus has been with us, He will see us again. Look upon no former favor as a dead and buried thing, to be mourned over; but regard it as a seed sown, which will grow, and push its head up from the dust, and cry, “I will see you again.” Are the times dark because Jesus is not with us as He used to be? Let us pluck up courage; for He will not be long away. His feet are as those of a roe or young hart, and they will soon bring Him to us. Wherefore let us begin to be joyous, since He saith to us even now, “I will see you again.”
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This Morning’s Meditation
July 30
“And when he thought thereon, he wept.”
—Mark 14:72
IT has been thought by some that as long as Peter lived, the fountain of his tears began to flow whenever he remembered his denying his Lord. It is not unlikely that it was so, for his sin was very great, and grace in him had afterwards a perfect work. This same experience is common to all the redeemed family according to the degree in which the Spirit of God has removed the natural heart of stone. We, like Peter, remember our boastful promise: “Though all men shall forsake Thee, yet will not I.” We eat our own words with the bitter herbs of repentance. When we think of what we vowed we would be, and of what we have been, we may weep whole showers of grief. He thought on his denying his Lord. The place in which he did it, the little cause which led him into such heinous sin, the oaths and blasphemies with which he sought to confirm his falsehood, and the dreadful hardness of heart which drove him to do so again and yet again. Can we, when we are reminded of our sins, and their exceeding sinfulness, remain stolid and stubborn? Will we not make our house a Bochim, and cry unto the Lord for renewed assurances of pardoning love? May we never take a dry-eyed look at sin, lest ere long we have a tongue parched in the flames of hell. Peter also thought upon his Master’s look of love. The Lord followed up the cock’s warning voice with an admonitory look of sorrow, pity, and love. That glance was never out of Peter’s mind so long as he lived. It was far more effectual than ten thousand sermons would have been without the Spirit. The penitent apostle would be sure to weep when he recollected the Saviour’s full forgiveness, which restored him to his former place. To think that we have offended so kind and good a Lord is more than sufficient reason for being constant weepers. Lord, smite our rocky hearts, and make the waters flow.
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This Evening’s Meditation
July 30
“Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”
—John 6:37
NO limit is set to the duration of this promise. It does not merely say, “I will not cast out a sinner at his first coming,” but, “I will in no wise cast out.” The original reads, “I will not, not cast out,” or “I will never, never cast out.” The text means, that Christ will not at first reject a believer; and that as He will not do it at first, so He will not to the last.
But suppose the believer sins after coming? “If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” But suppose that believers backslide? “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for Mine anger is turned away from him.” But believers may fall under temptation! “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” But the believer may fall into sin as David did! Yes, but He will “Purge them with hyssop, and they shall be clean; He will wash them and they shall be whiter than snow”; “From all their iniquities will I cleanse them.”