Nazarene Messenger Devotionals
God's Idea - Infinite Love.
God could not have, consistent with His perfections, any other idea than infinite love—that is, God love; and so out of His own nature has flowed and is constantly flowing, an unending stream of infinite love toward His fallen creatures of this world.
This infinite love has been manifested through the life, suffering and death of Christ, who illustrated it in every word, act and disposition of His glorious but lowly life.
He did this so as to bring every redeemed child into real contact with this infinite love by making it the nature of all who are sanctified, and it is God's desire that this world should be so brought under its sway that infinite love would control it.
Oh, what a world it would be, with every heart purified and filled with God love! Why, that would be heaven, wouldn't it? Reader, are you yielded to God's ideal?
R. P.
That Which Abides
The vast majority of things in our lives pass away with the using, having answered their purpose. There are other experiences, which have been epochs in our lives, that while memory lasts will never be effaced; yet they are only matters of memory. But there are other experiences, which not only abide but are continually bringing forth results that tell for eternity.
God never gives spiritual blessings to go to waste, but to abide, and to go on in an ever-increasing cumulative power. If the Baptism with the Holy Ghost is the "anointing which abideth in you," then He is there as an active agent, continually keeping fresh in the soul the things which God has made real to us.
What a glory there is in the fact that there is no need to have to go back along the channels of memory to past blessings, but He keeps the soul in an ever fresh experience of His gracious presence!
A vision passes with the sight, an emotion with its peculiar sensation, and become things of the past, but the glory of the abiding presence of the Comforter—at His work in His temple making us like Jesus in nature, and building a character by volitions controlled by that nature, thus fitting us for the eternities—is a constant abiding joy that will only be superseded by the holy surprise as we make the "abundant entrance" and see our King "face to face."
R. P., Excerpt from The Nazarene Messenger, December 13, 1906. Used with permission from Nazarene Archives.
Please note: This article was originally published in 1906. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.
Used for devotions with Holiness Today.