“Whereby are given unto us great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature.”— 2Pe 1:4.

Precious faith and precious promise are necessarily linked together (2Pe 1:1-4). The promises excite the faith, and faith reckons upon the fulfillment of promise. One is sometimes asked why it is that God’s Word seems to fail, and that the righteous do appear to be forsaken! But surely the reason is, not that there is any failure on God’s side to fulfill His promises, but that the promise is not claimed. It is possible to carry around a pocket-full of bank notes and cheques, and to die of starvation because they have not been cashed. When you have found a promise that just fits your need, do not rest content until you have laid it before God, and claimed its fulfillment.

Note that everything which is needed for life and godliness is already granted to us in Jesus our Lord (2Pe 1:3). We have not to pray to our Father for things which He has not anticipated, but to claim those which He has already given. The one purpose of God’s preparation is that we should not only escape the corruption which is in the world, but become “partakers of His Divine Nature.” What a marvellous promise is this, which almost passes human thought and comprehension, that we should become animated and filled by the very nature of God!

Note the recurrence of the phrase “these things” in the following verses. When they abound in us we cannot be idle or unfruitful. The octave of qualities enumerated reminds us of those Chinese boxes, each of which contains a smaller one, until we finally arrive at some precious article enclosed in the innermost. Faith apprehends everything else–manly courage, knowledge, sell-control, patience, godliness, kindness, and above all, love. To be deficient in “these things” is to be short-sighted.

The Apostle says that the soul which has incorporated into itself these qualities of character will be welcomed into the Eternal Kingdom. It will enter the Harbour royally, with every sail set and pennant flying, and receive a choral entrance from the eager crowds that await its approach (2Pe 1:11). Let us be diligent in our appropriation of God’s great and precious promises, so that we shall never fail.

Grant us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, always to seek Thy kingdom and righteousness; and of whatsoever Thou seest us to stand in need, mercifully grant us an abundant portion; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN— F B Meyer

“And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”– Mark 4:39

He spoke to the storm and to the tossing sea as if they were intelligent creatures, — just as a man would speak to his servants. The truth we learn here is that He is Lord of nature; that the elements recognize His voice, and obey Him even in their wildest moods. If we only fully believed this, it would bring a great deal of peace to our lives. No tempest ever breaks from the control of Him who is our Lord and Redeemer. No wave ever rolls any farther than He permits. There is nothing in this world that is not under the sway of the hand that was nailed on the cross.

There is a story of a Christian army officer at sea with his family in a storm. There was great terror among the passengers, but he was calm. His wife, in her consternation, chided him, saying that he ought to be concerned for her and the children, if not for himself, in such danger. He made no reply, but soon came to her with his sword drawn, and with a stern countenance pointed it at her heart. She was not the least alarmed, but looked up into his face with a smile. “What!” said he, ” are you not afraid when a drawn sword is at your breast?” “No,” she replied, “not when I know it is in the hands of one that loves me.” “And would you have me,” he asked, “to be afraid of this tempest when I know it to be in the hand of my heavenly Father, who loves me?” Thus even in the wild tumults of nature we should be at peace, since our Saviour is Lord of nature. Some one tells of being at sea in a terrible cyclone, and of seeing a little bird fly down, when the storm was at its height, and light on the crest of a wave, where it sat as quietly as if it had been perching on some green bough in the quiet forest. So should the believer in Christ repose in quietness and confidence in the wildest terror.–J. R. Miller

“Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.”-– 1 Kings 8:56

It is nearly three thousand years since Solomon uttered this testimony; but we can say now, just as confidently as the king did that day, that in all these centuries since not one word of all God’s good promise has failed any one of his people. No one has ever trusted a promise of God—and had that word fail of fulfillment.

The most real and sure things in this world—are the words of God. In every one of them, God’s own almighty hand is gloved. We clutch them—and find ourselves clutched in turn by divinity, out of whose clasp we never can fall, nor be torn away. We lean upon these words—and find ourselves encircled and upborne by the everlasting arms. We pillow our head in weariness or sorrow upon God’s words of love and comfort—and find ourselves drawn close to our Father’s heart, held in his warm bosom, and soothed by his tenderness, which is gentler than a mother’s.

So all through life, in every experience, we may trust the promises of God, and commit all our interests to them, and be assured in our heart that not one of them will ever fail us. We may trust them, too, in death, and we shall find everything just as God has said: the divine presence with us in the valley, dying but a going to be at home, absent from the body at home with the Lord, in eternal blessedness. Not one Word of God can fail.–Copied

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”–Jer. 2:13

I. A sinner’s life is laborious. Have your dreams of ease in sin been fulfilled? Have you not found the life of sin to be a toilsome, thankless drudgery? Be honest to your own heart if you cannot confess it to man. Has not sin been an universal deceiver, a cruel, remorseless taskmaster? Have not all the fairy visions of our fancy been converted into bushes of thorns and barren rocks of desolation?….

II. A sinner’s work is worthless..… Power, glory, fame, are but a broken cistern to the soul of man. You may get it by becoming a vestryman, an alderman, a popular novelist, a member of Parliament, a Cabinet minister, or a hundred other ways, but the end will be the same dissatisfaction and unrest which overwhelmed the great Napoleon. Ah, when will saints give as much diligence to their high and holy calling as the servants of pleasure give to theirs?

III. A sinner’s state is appalling. Shall we witness the blindness, madness of our own friends and neighbours, of our fellow citizens, and have no bowels of compassion for them? Let us fervently, kindly, personally appeal to them; lot us watch for their souls, invent wise contrivances, and lovingly use them till the scales fall from their eyes, and we bring them to the Fountain of living waters.

IV. A sinner’s condition is not hopeless. God is still the Fountain of living waters. In Him abides the fulness which alone can supply all the lawful and infinite longings which rise up within the mysterious nature of man. Do we want knowledge, wisdom, love, life, peace, rest, immortality? They are all in God. From Him is ever issuing a stream bearing upon its bosom the richest spiritual blessings His mercy can provide. The grace of God is wider, deeper, richer, than in the era when the prophet of lamentation poured forth his sorrowful strains over the folly of sinners.–W. A. Esscry.