“To him that overcometh, I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
”
Gone will be all anxiety as to what a man’s neighbors may think about him. It is enough that God thinks about him. To be something to God, is that not praise enough? To be a thing God cares for and would have complete, is that not life itself?
Neither will he thus be isolated from his fellows. Each will feel the sacredness and awe of his neighbor’s dark and silent speech with his God. Each will regard the other as a prophet, and look to him for what the Lord hath spoken, some gospel of truth which, when spoken, his neighbors shall receive and understand. In God each will draw nigh to each. Yes, there will be danger, as everywhere; but he giveth more grace. And if the man who has striven up the heights should yet fall from them into the deeps, is there not that fire of God, the consuming fire, which burneth and destroyeth not?
To one who has not already had some speech with God, or at least felt some aspiration towards the fount of his being, all this will appear foolishness. So be it. But Lord, help them and us, and make our being grow into thy likeness. If through ages of strife and ages of growth, yet let us at last see thy face and receive the white stone from thy hand. That we may grow, give us day by day our daily bread. Fill us with the words that proceed out of thy mouth. Help us to lay up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.
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Commentary
by James House
Our Father in Heaven has cared about our eternal existence since the moment he first thought of us.
“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee.
”
He has a plan for you and me, individually tailored to bring us into increasing states of perfection. Enabling us to not only love our neighbors and our God more fully, but to also know and love ourselves in the way that He does - knowing and becoming His vision of us. For His vision of us is more marvelous than we can imagine: we are made in His image.
It is our part to let His plan work upon us, step by step, day by day. He has all the help that we will need ready for the giving. It is no accident that the world works in such a way that we each reach points that cause our souls to yearn for and call out for His guidance and aid. For the majority of us, it is well that we are betimes rather strongly compelled. Once we have a notion of Him, it becomes our duty to seek his will for us daily.
"Give us this day our daily bread". To Israel, to whom God's ways were foreign, God taught daily reliance upon him, daily faith and trust in him, through the need of and use of manna: actual daily bread, without which they would starve.
On our road to learning God's idea of us, we have need for daily reliance upon him, because we have the potential to fall short in so many ways each day. Failures in honesty, failures in kindness and service, failures in duties, and countless other failures beset us at every hour. Indee,d we need His help far more frequently than we are in the least consciousness of.
We can feast upon God's word daily, through scripture and prayer. As we do so, we invite the Bread of Life to fill us with strength, purpose, and direction.
Let us all remember to ask for our daily bread, and use the vitality which we receive from it in the doing of God's will. By so doing His will, his vision of us will become clear to our hearts, and our souls will find his Peace.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Let us all remember to ask for our daily bread, and use the vitality which we receive from it in the doing of God's will. By so doing His will, his vision of us will become clear to our hearts, and our souls will find his Peace.
Let us all remember to ask for our daily bread, and use the vitality which we receive from it in the doing of God's will. By so doing His will, his vision of us will become clear to our hearts, and our souls will find his Peace.