Then what’s next to do? “Everyone who asks receives …” (Luke 11:10). Ask if you have not received. There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty? “I..

“The secret of the LORD” “The secret of the LORD is with those who hear Him …” (Psalm 25:14). What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are ..

The ministry of the inner life “You are … a royal priesthood …” (1 Peter 2:9) By what right have we become “a royal priesthood”? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ou..

The habit of recognizing God’s provision “… you may be partakers of the divine nature …” (2 Peter 1:4). We are made “partakers of the divine nature,” receiving and sharing God’s own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God’s provision for us. We say, however, “..

Why we lack understanding “He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead” (Mark 9:9). As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you-until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth. When you grow and develop th..

The way to permanent faith “Indeed the hour is coming … that you will be scattered …” (John 16:32). Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this message. Their faith was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we have the perfect rela..

“If you had known!” “If you had known … in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42). Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there-the pride of Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus compared it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appea..

The glory that is unsurpassed “… the Lord Jesus … has sent me that you may receive your sight …” (Acts 9:17). When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ-“For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (..

“You also be ready …” (Luke 12:40). A Christian worker’s greatest need is a readiness to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience has been. This battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in our service to Jesus Christ that we are not ready to face Jesus Himself at every turn. The greatest need is not f..

Is your ability to see God blinded? “Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things…” (Isaiah 40:26). The people of God in Isaiah’s time had blinded their minds’ ability to see God by looking on the face of idols. But Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their power to think and to visualize correctly. If we are children of God, we have a t..