Thoughts and Meditations

Personal comments made by David F. Reagan unless otherwise stated

September 29, 2006

How Silly to Think It’s Hidden – “A little girl took scissors and cut large chunks out of her long hair. Sometime later, she walked into the room where her mother was. The mother said in anquish, ‘O baby! you have cut your hair!’ 

“The child gaped in astonishment and said, ‘But how did you know, mummy? I hid it very carefully in the wastebasket.’ 

“Many are just as foolish about their sins as this little girl was about her hair. We all need to be reminded that ‘all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do’ (Hebrews 4:13)” –from  The Seven Laws of the Harvest (p. 68) by John W. Lawrence. 

Danger of False Humility – “There is much spurious humility among many saints of God, and this is one of its common forms. It is not pride gratefully to acknowledge what great things the Lord hath done for us,–it is pride that refuses to acknowledge them; it is not true humility to doubt, and underrate, until it becomes easy to deny altogether the work of the Holy Ghost within us,–it is true humility and lowliness to confess his work, bear testimony to his operation, and ascribe to him all the power, praise, and glory. See then, dear reader, that you cherish not this false humility, which is but another name for deep, unmortified pride of heart; remember that as Satan may transform himself into an angel of light, so may his agencies assume the disguise of the most holy and lovely graces; thus pride, one of his master agents of evil in the heart, may appear in the shape of the profoundest humility.” –from Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul (p. 134-135) by Octavius Winslow.

September 28, 2006

Fear of Being Thought Different – “How we abhor being counted eccentric! How unquestioningly obedient we are to fashion’s decrees, not because the styles are reasonable or right or decent, for they are often most unreasonable and indecent. We are so worldly-minded we would rather be indecent than different. Old King Lust calls thus: ‘Do this,’ and many do it as obediently as any centurion’s servant ever obeyed under the lash of his Roman master.” –from Born Crucified (p. 35) by L.E. Maxwell. 

Christians and the World – “In John 17 Jesus sets forth the Christian’s position as taken out of the world (v. 6), not of the world (v. 14), kept from the evil of the world (v. 15), left in the world (v. 11), sent into the world to preach to the world (vv. 18, 20), and as a result hated by the world (v. 14).” –from Born Crucified (p. 37) by L.E. Maxwell.

September 27, 2006

Hated by the World – “One of the most searching and condemning sentences which ever fell from the Saviour’s lips was that uttered to His own unbelieving brethren: ‘The world cannot hate you’ (John 7:7). If ever I become so one with the world, so tolerant of its spirit and atmosphere that I reprove it no more, incur not its hatred, rouse not its enmity to Christ–if the world can find in me no cause to hate me and cast me from its company, then I have betrayed Christ and crucified Him afresh in the house of His friends. On intimate terms with this world that nailed Him to the tree? Perish the thought! In full identification with Christ the world can regard me as only fit for crucifixion. And as a disciple of Christ I should no more covet the favor of this crucified world than I would court and covet the smile of a cursed and crucified and expiring felon.” –from Born Crucified (p. 38) by L.E. Maxwell. 

Cancel All Previous Engagements – “Emily Post was once asked for advice by a friend. She said, ‘I have been invited to the White House but I already have an engagement for that same time and am in somewhat of a quandary trying to decide which place to go.’ Emily Post replied, ‘An invitation to the White House automatically cancels all previous engagements.’ Jesus has invited every Believer to the ‘Throne Room’ of Heaven through prayer. This invitation should automatically cancel all previous commitments.” –from Prayer, The Holy Spirit and Christian Living (p. 6) by Wm. K. “Kenny” McComas.

September 26, 2006

Wind It in the Morning – “A man once owned an expensive Swiss watch. He discovered that it lost a few seconds every twenty-four hours. He took it to the watchmaker and explained the problem. The watchmaker said, ‘Do you wind the watch regularly?’ The man exclaimed, ‘Why, sir, I wind it the last thing every night, before I retire.’ The watchmaker said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with winding the watch at night but make sure you wind it in the morning. With a tight mainspring it will be able to stand the shocks, bumps, and jarring it’s exposed to during the day’s activities.’ Christians need to pray frequently. They need to have a tight mainspring wound by prayer that will protect them from the shocks, bumps and bruises of everyday life.” –from Prayer, The Holy Spirit and Christian Living (p. 14-15) by Wm. K. “Kenny” McComas. 

September 25, 2006

No Merit In Faith – “Dr. Griffith Thomas said: ‘There is no credit or merit in the act of believing, for trust in another is absolutely incompatible with self-righteousness and dependence on our own powers….Faith is an essential principle of human life, without which there can be no salvation….There is absolutely no virtue or merit in faith. Trust is man’s answer to God’s truth. Faith is the condition, not the ground of salvation.’ (Epistle to the Romans, Vol. 1, pp. 154,165)” –from Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom (p. 26) by Samuel Fisk. 

No D. D. for J. R. – J. R. Graves (1820-1893) was one of the most influential Baptist preachers and authors of the nineteenth century. For many years he was the editor of the Nashville, Tennessee, paper called The Baptist. “Dr. Graves was a thorough believer in the equality and spiritual democracy of all believers, and was opposed to a minister accepting any title of distinction that would put him above or apart from his brethren. For this reason he refused more than once to be made a D.D. [that is, Doctor of Divinity]” –from Sketches of Tennessee’s Pioneer Baptist Preachers (p. 196) by J.J. Burnett.

September 22, 2006

Life Obtained by the Blood – “Abraham had to offer Isaac on the altar. (See Genesis 22:1-18.) This was not an arbitrary command of God. It was the revelation of a divine truth, that only through death is a life truly consecrated to God possible. But it was impossible for Isaac to die and rise again from the dead, for on account of sin, death would hold him fast. But the Scriptures tell us that Isaac’s life was spared, and a ram was offered in his place (v. 13). Through the blood that then flowed on Mount Moriah, his life was spared. He and the people who sprang from him live before God ‘not without blood.’ By that blood, however, he was in a sense raised again from the dead. The great lesson of substitution is here clearly taught.” –from The Practice of God’s Presence (p. 14) by Andrew Murray. 

Spirit of God Works Through the Blood – “We read in Hebrews 9:14, ‘How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?’ The blood possesses its power to cleanse and to make us fit to serve the living God by the eternal Spirit who was in our Lord when He shed His blood. This does not mean merely that the Holy Spirit was in the Lord Jesus and bestowed on His person and His blood a divine worth. It is much more than that: it indicates that the shedding of His blood was brought about by the eternal Spirit, and that the Spirit lived and worked in that blood. As a result, when the blood was shed, it could not decay as a dead thing; but, as a living reality, it could be taken up to heaven, to exercise its divine power from there. –from Secrets of Authority (p. 12) by Andrew Murray.

September 21, 2006

Meaning and Significance of Eternal – “Eternal is one of the words of Scripture that everyone thinks he understands, but there are few who realize what a deep and glorious meaning it has. It is supposed that eternal is something that always continues, something that has no end. This explanation is merely a negative one and tells us only what eternal is not; it teaches us nothing about its nature and being. 

“Everything that exists in time has a beginning and is subject to the law of increase and decrease, of becoming and decaying. What is eternal has no beginning and knows no change or weakening because it has in itself a life that is independent of time. In what is eternal, there is no past that has already disappeared and is lost, and there is no future not yet possessed. It is always a glorious and endless present. 

“Now, when Scripture speaks of eternal life, eternal redemption, eternal joy, it means much more than to say merely that they will have no end. By the word eternal, we are taught that he who has a share in eternal blessedness possesses something in which the power of an endless life is at work. It is something in which there can be no change, nor can it suffer any diminution; therefore, we may always enjoy it in the fullness of its life-bestowing blessings. 

“The objective of Scripture in using that word is to teach us that if our faith lays hold of what is eternal, it will manifest itself in us as a power superior to all the fluctuations of our minds or feelings, with a youth that never grows old, and with a freshness that does not for a moment wither.” –from Secrets of Authority (p. 13) by Andrew Murray. 

Are You a Pismak? – “The Czechoslovaks printed the first Bible in the living tongue – the New Testament in 1475, the full Bible in 1480 – in Prague. So attached were they to the Scriptures that for a man who read and meditated on the Bible daily they coined a word, ‘Pismak’; a Czechoslovak idiom that cannot be translated into any other language.” (The Baptist Romance in the Heart of Europe, p. 23, by Joseph Novotny)” –from Czechoslovak Baptists (p. 25) by Vaclav Vojta, Th. D.

September 20, 2006

Leadership as Character in Action – “The real leader inspires trust and action among followers. His leadership is character in motion with trust as its fuel. Howard Hendricks said that ‘the greatest crisis in America is a crisis of leadership and the greatest crisis of leadership is a crisis of character.’ We ought not to be misled by those who dismiss character, selflessness, and servanthood as weak and limiting, and perhaps unrealistic. A moral, selfless leadership has become the supreme requirement of our day.” –from Trust (p. xv) by Les T. Csorba. 

Trust as the Source of Leadership Power – “The greatest source of power available to a leader is the trust that derives from faithfully serving followers” (James O’Toole, Professor of Leadership studies, University of Southern California) –from Trust (p. 15) by Les T. Csorba.

September 19, 2006

Reading the Word of God on Your Knees – “My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light and power from above. I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.” (George Whitfield’s Journals, p. 60) –from George Whitefield (p. 81) by Arnold Dallimore. 

Beware of These – “Paul [in Colossians 2] mentions four classes of people who try to intimidate us: philosophers, legalists, ascetics, and mystics. The philosophers [Colossians 2:8] tell us that we need more knowledge to be what God wants us to be. They make us feel like mental midgets in our walk with God. The legalists [Colossians 2:16-17] try to convict us for not adhering to their lists of do’s and don’ts. The ascetics [Colossians 2:23] tell us that we have not given up enough yet. Only then, they say, will we be what God wants. Last, the mystics [Colossians 2:18] tell us that our experience has not been deep enough to be truly spiritual. One of the greatest satanic lies today is that even though you are a Christian, you still do not have it all. The Lord alone causes growth in our lives. He is our ‘pituitary gland.’ ” –from The God You Can Know (p.18) by Dan DeHaan.

September 18, 2006

God Controls the Rain – “Dr. Charles E. Fuller, for many years radio preacher for the Old Fashioned Revival Hour in Los Angeles, was in Waterloo, Iowa for a radio daily. They were in a large metal building during World War II. The rain was coming down in veritable torrents, the wind was blowing, there was such a rumble, and so much interference with the broadcasting equipment, the engineer said the program could not go on the air. Dr. Fuller simply bowed his head and said, ‘Lord, the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour has gone on the air uninterrupted for many years. It’s your program. I ask you now to stop the rain so the broadcast can go on as scheduled.’ Within 90 seconds the rains ceased, the elements were calm, and it didn’t rain again until the program was completed.” –from Prayer, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living (p.17) by Wm. K. “Kenny” McComas. See Matthew 7:7.  

Power and Wisdom in the Two Testaments – “Under the Old Testament there was more of Divine power, and less of his wisdom apparent in his acts: as his laws, so his acts, were more fitted to their sense. Under the New Testament there is more of wisdom, and less of power; as his laws, so his acts, are more fitted to a spiritual mind; wisdom is less discernible than power. Our wisdom, therefore, in this case, as it doth other things, consists in silence and expectation of the end and event of a work. We owe that honor to God that we do to men wiser than ourselves, to imagine he hath reason to do what he doth, though our shallowness cannot comprehend it.” –from The Existence and Attributes of God: Volume 1 (p.605-606) by Stephen Charnock.

September 15, 2006

Doctrine of Terrorism – The Quran (Koran) gives this teaching on how to deal with infidels (those who reject the teachings of Islam): “Prepare against them whatever arms and cavalry you can muster, that you may strike terror in (the hearts of) the enemies of God and your own, and others besides them not known to you, but known to God.” –from Al-Quran (p.159) translated by Ahmed Ali (8:60).  

Training with an Hour Alone – In The God You Can Know (p.18), Dan DeHaan speaks of the importance of solitary time and its use in the training of children. “I require my children to spend an hour alone every day. I do not dictate what they do during that hour. I encourage their quietness for at least an hour because of what it does to their minds and spirits. The result of that quietness can be seen in the children’s love for one another and in their lack of murmuring. Don’t misunderstand. What I am talking about is the spirit of my children being quiet and sensitive to others. We still laugh loudly and play with gusto, but the inner man of each of them is at home with God. My children’s ages range from six to nineteen. If this can happen in them, it can happen to all of us. Is your life characterized by an inner spirit of quietness and strength? If not, check what or whom you are worshipping. Gaze on Him and be transformed.” See 2Corinthians 3:18.

September 13, 2006

Continuing our Education – Charles Spurgeon, in An All-Round Ministry (p.167), made these comments: “No man should ever dream that his education is complete. I know that my friend Mr. Rogers, though he has passed his eightieth year, is still a student, and perhaps has more of the true student spirit about him now than ever: will any of the younger sort sit down in self-content? We shall continue to learn even in Heaven, and shall still be looking deeper and deeper into the abyss of Divine love [Ephesians 2:7]: it were ill to talk of perfect knowledge here below. If a man says, ‘I am fully equipped for my work, and need learn no more; I have moved here after having been three years in the last place, and I have quite a stock of sermons, so that I am under no necessity to read any more;’ I would say to him, ‘My dear friend, may the Lord give you some brains, for you talk like one who is deficient in that department.’ A brain is a very hungry thing indeed, and he who possesses it must constantly feed it by reading and thinking, or it will shrivel up or fall asleep. It is the child of the horseleech, and it crieth evermore, ‘Give, give.’ [Proverbs 30:15] Do not starve it. If such mind-hunger never happens to you, I suspect that you have no mind of any consequence.”

 God With Us Now – “We habitually stand in our now and look back by faith to see the past filled with God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future; but our now is uninhabited except for ourselves. Thus we are guilty of a kind of pro tem atheism which leaves us alone in the universe while, for the time, God is not. We talk of Him much and loudly, but we secretly think of Him as being absent, and we think of ourselves as inhabiting a parenthetic interval between the God who was and the God who will be.” –from The Divine Conquest (p.23) by A. W. Tozer. See Psalm 46:1.

September 12, 2006

Do One Thing – K. P. Yohannan, in Revolution in World Missions (p.33) tells of the influence John Haggai had on him at an institute in Singapore in 1971. Yohannan testifies: “Haggai’s challenge seemed simple at first. He wanted me to go to my room and write down—in one sentence—the single most important thing I was going to do with the rest of my life. He stipulated that it could not be self-centered or worldly in nature. And one more thing—it had to bring glory to God.

“I went to my room to write that one sentence. But the paper remained blank for hours and days. Disturbed that I might not be reaching my full potential in Christ, I began at that conference to reevaluate every part of my lifestyle and ministry. I left the conference with the question still ringing in my ears, and for years I would continue to hear the words of John Haggai, ‘One thing…by God’s grace you have to do one thing.’ ” See Acts 9:6.

 Meaninglessness of Life without God – “If there is no God who created us for His eternal purposes, then human life is not only a meaningless accident but a cruel practical joke perpetrated by an impersonal cosmos that has somehow spawned beings who inexplicably long for meaning and purpose when there can be none. Life has no ultimate meaning unless it continues, not temporarily, but eternally, beyond both the grave and the passing existence of this physical universe. Consequently, life is only lived wisely to the extent that it is spent in preparation for the eternity which follows.” –from Whatever Happened to Heaven? (p.17) by David Hunt. See Job 3:11.

September 11, 2006

Spurgeon on Building Disciples – “To do the Lord’s work must be as necessary as food to us. His Father’s work is that in which we also are engaged, and we cannot do better than imitate our Lord. Tell me, then, how did Jesus set about it. Did He set about it by arranging to build a huge Tabernacle, or by organizing a monster Conference, or by publishing a great book, or by sounding a trumpet before Him in any other form? Did He aim at something great, and altogether out of the common line of service? Did He bid high for popularity, and wear Himself out by an exhausting sensationalism? No; He called disciples to Him one by one, and instructed each one with patient care.” Charles Spurgeon quote taken from Spurgeon on Leadership (p.27) by Larry J. Michael. See Luke 6:12-13.  

Design in the Days of Creation – The six days of creation (Genesis 1:1-31) “clearly divide into two triplets, the members of which correspond exactly to one another. The first triplet contains the works of division (of the light from the darkness, the upper waters from the lower, the dry land from the sea). The second triplet contains the works of quickening and adorning, (sun, moon, and stars; fishes and birds; land animals and man).  

“On the first day God created light; on the fourth day the light-bearing stars: on the second day the air and the sea; on the fifth the birds in the air and the fish in the sea: on the third day the land and the plants, that is the lowest grade of earthly life; on the sixth day the animals and man, that is, the highest grade of earthly life.  

“Thus the work of the six days bears unmistakably the stamp of the number three, which so often in the Divine revelation is the symbol of the Godhead. After it has, by three self-ascending creative impulses, attained a certain height and resting point, it pauses, and then, returning to the starting point, resumes, as it were beginning afresh, so as again by a threefold ascent to reach its summit. The creating of light is the first beginning: the creating of light-bearers the second beginning. Thus this double tri-unity becomes a deep symbolic prophecy in numbers concerning the origin, character, and goal of the earth-system in general. All is from Him, through Him, and unto Him. In all He will magnify Himself.” –from The Dawn of World Redemption (p.24-25) by Erich Sauer.

September 6, 2006

God’s Absolute and Ordinate Power – God’s power “is divided ordinarily into absolute and ordinate. Absolute, is that power whereby God is able to do that which he will not do, but is possible to be done; ordinate, is that power whereby God doth that which he hath decreed to do, that is, which he hath ordained to appointed to be exercised; which are not distinct powers, but one and the same power… Both those powers are expressed (Matthew 26:53-54), ‘My Father can send twelve legions of angels,’ there is his absolute power; ‘But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” there is his ordinate power. As his power is free from act of his will, it is called absolute; as it is joined with an act of his will, it is called ordinate. His absolute power is necessary, and belongs to his nature; his ordinate power is free, and belongs to his will.” –from Existence and Attributes of God: Volume 2 by Stephen Charnock (p.12-13).

 Science Cannot Help Here – The philosopher Karl Popper (in Dialectica 32:342) declared: “It is important to realize that science does not make assertions about ultimate questions—about the riddles of existence, or about man’s task in this world. This has often been well understood. But some great scientists, and many lesser ones, have misunderstood the situation. That fact that science cannot make any pronouncement about ethical principles has been misinterpreted as indicating that there are no such principles while in fact the search for truth presupposes ethics.” –from The Limits of Science by P. B. Medawar (p. 57).

September 5, 2006

Invited to the Throne of God – “Emily Post was once asked for advice by a friend. She said, ‘I have been invited to the White House but I already have an engagement for that same time and am in somewhat of a quandary trying to decide which place to go.’ Emily Post replied, ‘An invitation to the White House automatically cancels all previous engagements.’ Jesus has invited every Believer to the ‘Throne Room’ of Heaven through prayer. This invitation should automatically cancel all previous commitments.” –from Prayer, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living by William McComas (p. 6).

 Receiving the Promises of God – “God has sealed to the promises with His truth, His word, and His oath. Let us now mutually seal them with our faith. John 3:33: ‘He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.’ It is the highest disparagement to a person of known integrity not to receive his testimony; and yet man, by departing from his God, has forfeited his credibility… Now if we can receive the witness of man, who is branded upon record as being a liar, that he goes astray as soon as he is born, speaking lies (Psalm 58:3), what a reproach do we cast upon God, who is the truth, all whose promises are ‘yea and amen in Christ to the glory of God’ (2Corinthians 1:20). And thus the apostle argues in 1John 5:9, ‘If we receive the witness of men [as we must], the witness of God is greater.’… Let us come off roundly with God, put our seal to His promises, and make all the world know to its shame that we have a God whom we can securely trust.” –from Practical Godliness: The Ornament of All Religion by Vincent Alsop (p. 57-58).

September 1, 2006

It Would Not Burn – “The power of [Charles] Spurgeon’s sermons affected a Scottish woman. Under conviction of her sin, she tried to burn her Bible and a copy of one of Spurgeon’s sermons. Twice the sermon fell out of the fire, the second time half consumed. This so aroused her curiosity that she read the fragment and was converted on the spot.” –from Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers by Lewis Drummond (p. 326).