I am beside you. A very human Jesus, who understands all your weaknesses, and sees too your struggles and conquests.
Remember, I was the Companion of the Weak. Ready to supply their hunger. Teaching My followers their responsibility towards all, not only those near and dear to them, but to the multitude.
"Lord, send them away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves victuals," said My disciples, with no sympathy for the fainting, exhausted men, women and children.
But I taught that Divine Sympathy includes responsibility. "Give ye them to eat," was My reply. I taught that pity, without a remedy for the evil, or the need, is worthless.
The Ideal Man. - December 2
Draw nigh, shoes off thy feet, in silent awe and adoration. Draw nigh, as Moses drew near to the Burning Bush.
I give you the loving intimacy of a friend, but I am God too, and the wonder of our intercourse, the miracle of your intimacy with Me, will mean the more to you, if sometimes you see the Majestic Figure of the Son of God.
Draw nigh in the utter confidence that is the sublimest prayer. Draw nigh. No far-off pleading, even to a God clothed with majesty of fire. Draw nigh. Draw nigh, not as a suppliant, but as a listener. I am the Suppliant, as I make known to you My wishes. For this Majestic God is Brother too, longing so intensely that you should serve your brother-man, and longing, even more intensely, that you should be true to that Vision He has of you.
You speak of your fellow-man as disappointing you, as falling short of the ideal you had of him. But what of Me? For every man, there is the ideal man I see in him. The man he could be, the man I would have him be.
Judge of My Heart when he fails to fulfill that promise. The disappointments of man may be great and many, they are nothing as compared with My disappointments. Remember this, and strive to be the friend I see in My vision of you.
A Journey with Me. - December 3
Fret not your souls with puzzles that you cannot solve. The solution may never be shown you until you have left this flesh-life.
Remember what I have so often told you, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." Only step by step, and stage by stage, can you proceed, in your journey upward.
The one thing to make sure of is, that it is a journey with Me. There does come a Joy known to those who suffer with Me. But that is not the result of the suffering, but the result of the close intimacy with Me, to which suffering drove you.
Man of Sorrows. - December 4
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. - Isa. 53:3.
That these words strike a note of Beauty in the hearts of those attuned to hear the Beautiful, shows truly that the heart recognizes the need for the Man of Sorrows. That it sees nothing contemptible in One despised by the world. That it recognizes the vast difference between the values of Heaven, and those of the world. Fame and acclamations are accorded to Earth's great, contempt and rejection to the Son of God.
One of the things My disciples must ever seek to do, is to set aside the valuation of the world, and judge only according to the values of Heaven. Do not seek the praise and the notice of men. These are not for you. You follow a despised Christ. See the mob is hooting, throwing stones, jeering, and yet in that quiet little throng there is a happiness and Joy the reviling crowds could never know.
Follow that little throng with stones and gibes, and it appears to be of men, mean, ludicrous, contemptible. Be one of the throng, and you feel the Majesty of God in the presence of Him, Who was despised and rejected by men. Wreaths around His Brow, and shouts of applause, would belittle that Majesty.
In your dark hours, when human help fails, keep very close to the Man of Sorrows. Feel My Hand of Love press yours in silent but complete understanding. I, too, was acquainted with grief. No heart can ache without My heart aching too. "He was despised, and we esteemed Him not."
Law of Supply. - December 5
The first law of giving is of the spirit world. Give to all you meet, or whose lives touch yours, of your prayers, your time, yourselves, your love, your thought. You must practise this giving first.
Then give of this world's goods and money, as you have them given to you. To give money and material things, without having first made the habit daily, hourly, ever increasingly, of giving on the higher plane, is wrong.
Give, give, give all your best to all who need it. Be great givers - great givers. Give as I said My Father in Heaven gives. He Who makes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Remember, as I have told you before, give according to need, never according to desert. In giving, with the thought of supplying a real need you most closely resemble that Father in Heaven, the Great Giver.
As you receive, you must supply the needs of those I bring to you. Not questioning, not limiting. Their nearness to you, their relationship, must never count. Only their need is to guide you. Pray to become great givers.
Expect Temptation. - December 6
Lord, give us Power to conquer temptation as Thou didst in the wilderness.
The very first step towards conquering temptation is to see it as temptation. To dissociate yourself from it.
Not to think of it as a something resulting from your tiredness, or illness, or poverty, or nerve-strain, when you feel you might well excuse yourself for yielding, but first to realize very fully that when you have heard My voice ("the Heavens opened," as it were) and are going to fulfill your mission to work for Me and to draw souls to Me, there is no excuse for yielding, you must expect a mighty onslaught from the evil one, who will endeavor with all his might to frustrate you, and prevent your good work. Expect that.
Then when these little temptations, or big ones, come, you will recognize them as planned by evil to thwart Me. Then for very love of Me you will conquer.
Food of Life. - December 7
I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
Those were My words to My Disciples in early days of My Ministry. Later I was to lead them on to a fuller understanding of that Majestic Union of a soul with God in which strength, Life and food pass from One to the other.
Meat is to sustain the body. To do the Will of God is the very strength and support of Life. Feed on that Food.
Soul-starvation comes from the failing to do, and to delight in doing, My Will. How busy the world is in talking of bodies that are undernourished! What of the souls (Beings) that are undernourished?
Make it indeed your meat to do My Will. Strength and Power will indeed come to you from that.
My Kingdom. - December 8
And greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto My Father.
While I was on earth, to the great number of those with whom I came in contact, Mine was a lost cause. Even My Disciples only believed, half doubting, half wondering. When they all forsook Me and fled, it was not so much fear of My enemies, as the certainty that My Mission; however beautiful they thought it; had failed.
In spite of all I had taught them, in spite of the intimate revelation of the Last Supper, they had secretly felt sure that when the final moment came, and the hatred of the Pharisees (the politicians) was openly declared against Me, I should sound some call to action, and that I should lead My many followers, found My Earthly Kingdom. Even the disciples who had eyes to see My Spiritual Kingdom had thought material forces had proved too strong for Me.
But with My Resurrection came hope. Faith revived. They would remind each other of all I had said. They would have assurance of My Divinity, Messiahship, the lack of which had hindered My work on Earth, and they would have all My Power (Force) in the Unseen - the Holy Spirit - to help them.
Remember, I came to found a Kingdom - The Kingdom. Those who lived in the Kingdom were to do the work - greater works than I was able to do. Not a greater Power shown, not a greater Life lived, but, as men recognized My Godhead, opportunities for works in My Name would increase. My work on earth was to gather around Me the nucleus of My Kingdom, and to teach the Truths of My Kingdom to them. In those Truths they were to live and work.
Your Search Rewarded. - December 9
Lord, all men seek for Thee.
All men seek for Me, but all men do not know what they want. They are seeking because they are dissatisfied, without realizing that I am the object of their quest.
Count it your greatest joy to be the means, by your lives, sufferings, words and love, to prove to the questing ones you know, that their search would end when they saw Me.
Profit by My Example. I left My work - seemingly the greatest work - that of saving souls, to seek communion with My Father. Did I know perhaps that with many it was idle curiosity? Did I know that there must be no rush into the Kingdom, that the still small voice, not the shoutings of a mob, would alone persuade men I was the Son of God?
Why be surrounded by multitudes if the multitudes were not really desiring to learn from, and to follow, Me. Follow the Christ into the quiet places of prayer.
The Quiet Time. - December 10
There may be many times when I reveal nothing, command nothing, give no guidance. But your path is clear, and your task, to grow daily more and more into the knowledge of Me. That this quiet time with Me will enable you to do.
I may ask you to sit silent before Me, and I may speak no word that you could write. All the same that waiting with Me will bring comfort and Peace. Only friends who understand and love each other can wait silent in each other's presence.
And it may be that I shall prove our friendship by asking you to wait in silence while I rest with you, assured of your Love and understanding. So wait, so love, so joy.
A Sunrise Gift. - December 11
To those whose lives have been full of struggle and care, who have felt, as you both have, the tragedy of living, the pity of an agonized heart for My poor world - to those of My followers I give that Peace and Joy that brings to age its second Spring, the youth they sacrificed for Me, and for My world. . . .
Take each day now as a joyous sunrise gift from Me. Your simple daily tasks done in My strength and Love will bring the consciousness of all your highest hopes. Expect great things. Expect great things.
Care-Free. - December 12
Perfect love casteth out fear.
Love and fear cannot dwell together. By their very natures they cannot exist side by side. Evil is powerful, and fear is one of evil's most potent forces.
Therefore a weak vacillating love can be soon routed by fear, whereas a perfect Love, a trusting Love, is immediately the Conqueror, and fear, vanquished, flees in confusion.
But I am Love because God is Love, and I and the Father are as one. So the only way to obtain this perfect Love, that dispels fear, is to have Me more and more in your lives. You can only banish fear by My Presence and My Name.
Fear of the future - Jesus will be with us.
Fear of poverty - Jesus will provide. (And so to all the temptations of fear.)
You must not allow fear to enter. Talk to Me. Think of Me. Talk of Me. Love Me. And that sense of My Power will so possess you that no fear can possess your mind. Be strong in this - My Love.
Perpetual Guidance. - December 13
Fullness of Joy. The Joy of Perpetual Guidance. The Joy of knowing that every detail of your lives is planned by Me, but planned with a wealth of tenderness and Love.
Wait for Guidance in every step. Wait to be shown My Way. The thought of this loving leading should give you great Joy. All the responsibility of Life taken off your shoulders. All its business worry taken off your shoulders. It is indeed a Joy for you to feel so free and yet so planned for.
Oh! the wonder of this - a God-guided life. To think anything impossible in such circumstances is to say it cannot be done by Me. To say that is surely a denial of Me.
Storms. - December 14
Our loving Lord, we thank Thee for Thy marvellous keeping power.
There is no miracle so wonderful as the miracle of a soul being kept by My Power. Forces of evil batter and storm, but are powerless. Tempests rage unavailingly.
It is like a cool garden with sweet flowers and bees and butterflies and trees and playing fountains set in the midst of a mighty roaring city. Try to see your lives as that.
Not only as calm and unmoved, but as breathing fragrance, expressing beauty. Expect storms. Know THIS - you cannot be united in your great friendship and bond to do My work, and in your great Love for Me, and not excite the envy, hatred and malice of all whom you meet who are not on My side.
Where does the enemy attack? The fortress, the stronghold, not the desert waste.
My Shadow. - December 15
Learn that each day must be lived in My Power, and in the consciousness of My Presence, even if the thrill of Joy seems to be absent. Remember that if sometimes there seems a shadow on your lives - it is not the withdrawal of My Presence. It is My shadow as I stand between you and your foes.
Even with your nearest and dearest there are the quiet days. You do not doubt their Love because you do not hear their laughter, and feel a thrill of joy at their nearness.
The quiet grey days are the days for duty. Work in the calm certainty that I am with you.
What Joy Is. - December 16
Lord, give us Thy Joy, that Joy that no man, no poverty, no circumstances, no conditions can take from us.
You shall have My Joy. But Life just now for you both is a march - a toilsome march. . . . The Joy will come, but for the moment do not think of that, think simply of the march. Joy is the reward. . . .
Between My Promise of the Gift of Joy to My disciples and their realization of that Joy, came sense of failure; disappointment; denial; desertion; hopelessness; then hope, waiting, and courage in the face of danger.
Joy is the reward of patiently seeing Me in the dull dark days, of trusting when you cannot see. . . . Joy is as it were your heart's response to My smile of recognition of your faithfulness. . . .
Stop thinking your lives are all wrong if you do not feel it. . . . Remember you may not yet be joyous, but you are brave, and courage and unselfish thought for others are as sure signs of true discipleship as Joy is.
Conditions of Blessing. - December 17
Jesus, we love Thee. We see that all things are planned by Thee. We rejoice in that vision.
Rejoice in the fact that you are Mine. The privileges of the members of My Kingdom are many. When I said of My Father "He maketh His Sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust," you will notice it was of temporal and material blessings I spoke.
I did not mean that believer and unbeliever could be treated alike. That is not possible; I can send rain and sunshine and money and worldly blessings equally to both, but of the blessings of the Kingdom that would be impossible.
There are conditions that control the bestowal of these. My followers do not always understand this, and it is necessary they should do so, if they are remembering My injunction which followed - "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect."
To attempt to bestow on all alike your Love and Understanding and interchange of thought would be impossible. But temporal blessings you too bestow, as does My Father. All must be done in Love and in the spirit of true forgiveness.
See Wonders. - December 18
Think your thought-way into the very heart of My Kingdom. See there the abundance of delights in My storehouse, and lay eager but not greedy hands on them.
See wonders, ask wonders, bear wonders away with you. Remember this beautiful Earth on which you are was once only a thought of Divine Mind. Think how, from your thought, one corner of it could grow and become a Garden of the Lord, a Bethany-Home for your Master, a place to which I have a right to bring My friends, My needy ones, for talk and rest with Me.
Perfect Love. - December 19
Our Lord, give us that Perfect Love of Thee that casts out all fear.
Never let yourselves fear anybody or anything. No fear of My failing you. No fear that your faith will fail you. No fear of poverty or loneliness. No fear of not knowing the way. No fear of others. No fear of their misunderstanding.
But, My children, this absolute casting out of fear is the result of a Perfect Love, a perfect Love of Me and My Father. Speak to Me about everything. Listen to Me at all times. Feel My tender nearness, substituting at once some thought of Me for the fear.
The powers of evil watch you as a besieging force would watch a guarded city - the object being always to find some weak spot, attack that, and so gain an entrance. So evil lurks around you, and seeks to surprise you in some fear.
The fear may have been only a small one, but it affords evil a weak spot of attack and entrance, and then rushing-in, come despondency, doubt of Me, and so many others sins. Pray, My beloved children, for that Perfect Love of Me that indeed casts out all fear.
Depression. - December 20
Fight fear as you would fight a plague. Fight it in My Name. . . . Fear, even the smallest fear, is the hacking at the cords of Love that bind you to Me.
However small the impression, in time those cords will wear thin, and then one disappointment, or shock and they snap. But for the little fears the cords of Love would have held.
Fight fear.
Depression is a state of fear. Fight that too. Fight. Fight. Depression is the impression left by fear. Fight and conquer, and oh! for Love of Me, for the sake of My tender, never-failing love of you, fight and love and win.
Smile Indulgently. - December 21
Children, take every moment as of My Planning and ordering. Remember your Master is the Lord of the day's little happenings. In all the small things yield to My gentle pressure on your arm. Stay or go, as that pressure, Love's pressure, indicates.
The Lord of the moments, Creator of the snowdrop and the mighty oak. More tender with the snowdrop than the oak.
And when things do not fall out according to your plan, then smile at Me indulgently, a smile of Love, and say, as you would to a human loved one, "Have your way then" - knowing that My loving response will be to make that way as easy for your feet as it can be.
Practise Protection. - December 22
Fear no evil because I have conquered evil. It has power to hurt only those who do not place themselves under My protection, or lose that protection by doubting it. This is not a question of feeling, it is an assured fact.
All you have to do is to say with assurance that whatever it is cannot harm you, as I have conquered it. Children, in not only the big, but the little things of life, be sure of My conquering Power. Know that all is well. Be sure of it. Practise this. Learn it until it is unfailing and instinctive with you.
But practise it in the quite small things, and then you will find you will do it easily, naturally, lovingly, trustingly, in the big things of life.
The World's Song. - December 23
Bless us, O Lord, we beseech Thee and show us The Way in which Thou wouldst have us walk.
Walk with Me in The Way of Peace. Shed Peace, not discord, wherever you go. But it must be My Peace.
Never a Peace that is a truce with the power of evil. Never harmony if that means your life-music being adapted to the mood and music of the world.
My disciples so often make the mistake of thinking all must be harmonious. No! Not when it means singing the song of the world.
I, the Prince of Peace, said that I came "not to bring Peace but a sword."
He is Coming. - December 24
Our Lord, Thou art here. Let us feel Thy nearness.
Yes! but remember the first Hail must be that of the Magi in Bethlehem stable. Not as King and Lord in Heavenly triumph must you first hail Me. But as amongst the lowliest, bereft of Earth's pomp like the Magi.
So to the humble the worship of humility - the Bethlehem Babe - must be the first Hail.
Then the worship of repentance. As Earth's sinner, you stand by Me, in the Jordan, baptized of John, adoring Me the Friend and Servant of Sinners.
Dwell much on My Life. Step out beside Me. Share it with Me. Humility; Service; Worship; Sacrifice; Sanctification - Steps in the Christian Life.
Babe of Bethlehem. - December 25
Kneel before the Babe of Bethlehem. Accept the truth that the Kingdom of Heaven is only for the lowly, the humble, the simple.
Bring to Me, the Christ-child, your gifts, truly the gifts of Earth's wisest.
The Gold - your money.
Frankincense - the adoration of a consecrated life.
Myrrh - your sharing in My sorrows and those of the world.
"And they presented unto Him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh."
Health and Wealth. - December 26
Be not afraid, health and wealth are coming to you both. My wealth which is sufficiency for your needs, and for My work you long to do.
Money, as some call wealth, to hoard, to display, you know is not for My Disciples.
Journey through this world simply seeking the means to do My Will and work. Never keep anything you are not using. Remember all I give you will still be Mine, only given to you to use. Could you think of Me hoarding My Treasures? You must never do it. Rely on Me.
To store for the future is to fear, and to doubt Me. Stop every doubt of Me at once. Live in the Joy of My constant Presence. Yield every moment to Me. Perform every task, however humble, as at My gentle bidding, and for Me, for love of Me. So live, so love, so work.
Young are the Apostles of the Little Services.
Glorious Work. - December 27
I have stripped you of much, that it should be truly a life of well-being. Built up stone by stone upon a firm foundation, and that Rock is your Master - that Rock is Christ, not Peter.
A life of discipline and of joyous fulfillment is to be yours. . . . Never lose sight of the glorious work to which you have been called.
Let no riches, no ease entice you from The Way of miracle-working with Me upon which your feet are set. Love and Laugh. Trust and pray. Ride on now in a loving humility to victory.
Signs and Feelings. - December 28
Our Lord, Thou art here. Let us feel Thy nearness.
I am here. Do not need feeling too much. To ask for feeling, too much, is to ask for a sign, and then the answer is the same as that I gave when on earth: "There shall no sign be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. . . . For as Jonah was three days and three nights . . . so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights (72 hours - from Wednesday 21