Our Twenty-fourth 4th Day

Dear Brother and Sisters,

Something very peculiar is happening. In my letter "Our Seventeenth 4th Day", I talked about God's testing us versus Satan's tempting us. The next day, the topic of the daily message from Truth for Life (www.truthforlife.org) was about God's testing us. Yesterday, I wrote about venturing into the wilderness and having quiet time with God. Today the daily message from Truth for Life is about solitude and meditating on His Word to gain spiritual strength; being nourished by pondering the things of God. Here's the daily message (http://www.truthforlife.org/daily.php?date=10-12):

October 12, 2005
I WILL MEDITATE ON YOUR PRECEPTS.
PSALM 119:15
There are times when solitude is better than company, and silence is wiser than speech. We would be better Christians if we were alone more often, waiting on God and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for service in His kingdom. We ought to ponder the things of God, because that is how we get the real nutriment out of them. Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: In order to have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser's feet must come down joyfully on the bunches or else the juice will not flow; and the grapes must be properly tread or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth if we desire the wine of consolation from them. Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process that really supplies the muscle and the nerve and the sinew and the bone is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with the inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening for a while to this and then to that and then to the other part of divine truth. Hearing, reading, marking, and learning all require inward digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies mainly in meditating upon it. Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make only slow advances in the Christian life? Because they neglect their closets and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they want the corn, but they will not go out into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs on the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. Deliver us, O Lord, from such folly, and may this be our resolve this morning: "I will meditate on your precepts."

"Devotional material is taken from "Morning and Evening," written by C.H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg. Copyright (c) 2003, Good News Publishers and used by Truth for Life with written permission. Scripture quotations are taken from Holy Bible: English Standard Version, copyright (c) 2001, Good News Publishers."

While my messages and the Truth for Life daily messages are not exactly the same, they are close enough to make me say "Hmmmm". It's a little uncanny that this would happen twice. Perhaps the Lord is telling us something, or perhaps we're just witnessing something outside a three sigma probability (like I know what that means; I don't even know if I said it right). Regardless, let me encourage you to look again and think about the messages being presented.

I encourage you all to sign up for the daily message from Truth for Life at http://members.truthforlife.org/tfldaily. (If that link doesn't work, go to www.truthforlife.org and click on the daily email signup button.)

May this message find you glad in the Lord.

De Colores,
Bill