“I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:14-19).

Jesus brings us riches in glory. When you come to Christ, you find yourself standing before an empty grave. In [Medina] you will find the grave of Muhammad. The great men of history are all in their graves. But Jesus’ grave does not hold Jesus. Jesus’ grave is empty. The glory of His life is the empty grave. His life was such that the grave could not hold Him.

We first go to that grave because we believe He died for us. Except for that death, you and I have no hope. He was holy but we are unholy. He took our place and died for us. With this faith, when we stand before the grave, a great grace comes and fills us. We are saved freely by grace.

Once we feared God and believed we would be blessed if we would obey His commands. Once we trembled. But now we wonder at His love and grace. Out of this grace comes a power that fills our hearts. “To be strengthened in the inner man by His Spirit.” You cannot understand how you are living a holy life. A power is moving you to live so. You should have died, but Jesus went into the grave in your stead. He released for you the riches in glory.

Ephesians 4:8 reads: “Wherefore He saith, When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.” He took captivity captive. What a wonderful statement. We were captives of Satan, but Jesus defeated Satan and released us.

When He took captivity captive, He gave gifts—such gifts as made people wonder and know for sure they were given by God, not by man. The priests could not speak anything when they saw the lame man leaping after he was healed in the name of Jesus by the disciples.

Let us go to the grave and believe. The riches in glory are released—a new nature. Jesus was in the centre of God’s will. Blessed is the man who will put himself in restraint to stay in God’s will always. He will enter into the abundance of the complete freedom of God. Are you murmuring to be in God’s will? Are you sorry that the will of God lays so many restrictions upon you? Are not these restrictions to draw out of you the great gifts within you put there by God?

Who is this person who is above all principality and power now? It was He who denied Himself to the uttermost to be in God’s will. If you also do that, you also will be lifted like that. If you happen to face a need, suddenly you will see this need met. A spirit of patience will come upon you. A spirit of meekness and love will enter you. These are riches in glory. What greater riches can there be?

Those who come to the grave and believe and praise God will see the riches of God opened to them—yea, all the fullness of God. Many people do not receive these riches because they do not believe. When you are filled with the unlimited love of God, the whole earth is yours. All men will come to you. When they see the selflessness of Christ and the self-denial of Christ in you and the willingness in you to die for truth and righteousness, the world will come to you. The world wants to see a woman filled with riches of glory and a man who has measured the depth of God’s love.

There is a great freedom in God’s will. Many missionaries have seen incredible miracles when they faced severe times of trial. The One who rose from the dead will never leave you. You cannot even imagine or think of what God has for you. It will be according to that power. That power is working in you. God’s plan will be revealed to you. According to your need, gifts will be given to you, and these gifts will help you to fulfil His will.

As you look and look into that grave believing Christ died for you, more and more riches will come out of it to YOU!

—Joshua Daniel

“In the beginning God...” (Genesis 1:1).

The Bible begins with this statement—“In the beginning God...” In the beginning of this year, is it God that is sought and worshipped by us? Has He come into your life?

God called Abraham at the age of seventy-five. By then he had learned idolatry. His father was an idolatrous man and Abraham believed idolatry to be real worship of God. Then God met him and Abraham’s life began. But seventy-five years were wasted! They were buried. Many of us before our deaths are burying our years. Before we are carried to the grave we have already carried ourselves to the grave. Perhaps some good angels weep at our burial: “Oh, what great talents were in this man! They are all lost. They are going with him to the grave. Who can resurrect those gifts?”

Today, no one is able to work out some of the great theories of mathematics that were discovered by Ramanujan, the brilliant mathematician. He conceived a theorem of which the Binomial theorem, Maclauren theorem, and Demaires are a part. He wanted to propound that theorem. Meanwhile he became ill. He had T.B., and medicine could not help him. When he died, the greatest mathematicians of the world felt very sad. He was such an intelligent man. Well, if the greatest mathematicians of this world feel sorry for the death of Ramanujan, how much God weeps over your death. God never came into your life, but God came into the life of Abraham. He was only Abram then. But he, at the age of one hundred, became Abraham. And he also became a father. 

“In the beginning God...” Has God come into your life? Has He shown to you for what purpose you are created? Some young people rush into love affairs. All their talents are buried. They are coquettes and dandies in this world. And these foolish people waste their time looking at one another. Such are they who never met God. But there are women who, when they marry, want to draw out from their husbands the great gifts God has hid in them. A wise woman who builds her home with faith draws out spiritual potentialities hid in her husband and children.

Before I was married, my brothers-in-law went and told my future wife, it seems, about my piety at college. Of course she never thought she would marry me at that time. But she married me, and she had some fear whether I would be with her or run away to a forest to pray. But she used to say, “What is this, my brothers told me so much about you, but I am not seeing it now?”

I thought I had to make certain compromises in my spiritual habits. But she said, “I want to see that pious man that I was told about.” It did me much good, otherwise I would have lost ground in my spiritual life. Blessed are the women who want to draw out the graces which God has hidden in their husbands.

There are also men who want to draw out from their wives what God has hid in them. Some men have made a great discovery. “My wife is a very good cook,” they say. So on New Year’s Day, good food is demanded.

But other men say, “My wife is burying a great preacher in a cook. It is a great pity that all her time is taken in the kitchen.” Yes, brethren, you must help your wives that the talents in them may come out. One woman can convert the whole church. Whoever thought that Sarah would become such a great mother? What an honour she got! She is mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Hebrew—the Roll Call of Faith—and in the fourth chapter of Romans. The Bible cannot omit Sarah. And St. Paul says, “You are the daughters of Sarah.” Why? Is Sarah the Principal of your university? Or is she a professor there? No, she was a praying woman. She was a real companion to the “father of the faithful”. It was not an easy thing to be the wife of Abraham.

“In the beginning God...” May God come fully into your family life at the very beginning of this new year. Have you and your wife given yourselves with your children into the hands and care of this great God? Or do you have just worldly ambitions for your children? There was a woman called Madame Guyon in Europe. Her mother never saw her talents, but the father saw them. She was persecuted very much by her husband and mother-in-law. But towards the end of the life of her husband, he said, “Oh my wife is a gifted woman and an angel. I am unworthy of her.” Then the mother-in-law also, after the death of her son, began to value her daughter-in-law. Then the Christians in France began to value her; when they began to talk to her, they went home changed! Her thoughts were so high that she thrilled the saints of God.

People are coming to your house. Have you got thoughts to lift them into heaven? Are they thrilled by your thoughts? What is the conversation that comes out of your mouth? Oh young person, do you have the treasures of heaven in your heart? What are your treasures? Every thought of God is a treasure—unalloyed thoughts of God!

Perhaps your wife may write books and the whole world may be benefitted! After her death some people may write her life and tens of thousands of women will be blessed by the reading of that book.

This nation needs saintly women. If our churches are full of these consecrated women, our children will be different. What a wonderful woman was Susannah Wesley, a mother of nineteen children. How she counselled and guided John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Had she time for all these children? Yes, godly women are like magicians. How they work, and how well they manage things. How they advise their husbands. How they teach their children. There is a magic touch with them.

“In the beginning God...” King Solomon had God in the beginning. He prayed for wisdom, and God gave him riches also. But in his middle age, God was pushed into the background. Women captured his heart. He built temples for idols. God would have been grieved over these things.

Some of us may follow God for some time. I am terribly afraid of myself. Until now I have been faithful to God. Will I be till the very end of my life? It is very hard. The devil wants to capture men like King Solomon. What wonderful tradition he had to follow! What promises of God! What prayers and what warnings of his father! But there was none amongst his many wives to guide him; none of his sons could guide him. There was no prophet to correct him. What a loss for the whole nation.

Is God with you always? You have finished college and you have been employed and you have got a big position. Is God with you? When you are raised to the highest position, is Jesus the preeminent person in your life? What did God say to Abraham? “Abraham, you are asking me for a son; but I am your reward. I am in the beginning, I am the middle, and I will be in the end. I am Alpha and Omega. All your life will be an all-round success. The devil will not steal any part of your life. Abraham, I am your reward.”

For how many of us is God the exceeding great reward? I don’t want anything else in the world. If Christ is with me that is enough. Then God will bless His work and cause hundreds to hear the Word of God. If there is any selfishness in me, if I do anything according to my own will, let God wipe out any blessing that may come from my life.

“Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). Rejoice with trembling? Why should you tremble? How can you rejoice when you are trembling? Are these incompatible thoughts? Your God is great. He has given you great promises. We should say, “These are great promises, can I retain them? Have I got the right kind of discipline to carry them out? Is my wife equal to this? Are my children a support for me?”

“In the beginning God,” in the middle God, and at the end God. When I read the lives of great missionaries, I thank God. When I heard of Sundar Singh (a great missionary to Tibet), I thanked God for raising such a man of God. Whenever I see a righteous man or woman, I thank God. I rejoice for them. What a blessing it is! “Rejoice with trembling.”

Asa, the king who walked with God, at the end of his life missed God’s will. What a loss! In the beginning God, in the middle God, and at the end God. God inside and outside. He is the Alpha and Omega. May this new year be like that to you. “Rejoice with trembling.” God bless you all.

 —N. Daniel

“One evening,” said a pious widow lady, “we were eating our supper—we had nothing but bread, and of that not sufficient to satisfy our hunger. ‘Mother,’ said little John, when he was finishing his last morsel, ‘what shall we do tomorrow morning? There is no bread in the house; we shall have no breakfast.’ I answered him, ‘Do not fear, John: God has not forsaken us; let us pray to Him, and be assured He will remember us.’ I made him kneel down by my side, and prayed to God that He would, in His goodness, have pity upon us, and give us bread for the morrow. I then put my child to bed, telling him to go to sleep quietly, and to depend upon his God, who never forgot those who put their trust in Him. I myself went to bed, firmly believing that God had heard my prayer, and, commending myself to the protection of our Lord Jesus Christ, I slept comfortably till four in the morning, when John woke me; ‘Mother,’ said he, ‘is the bread come?’ Poor little fellow! He had but a scanty supper, and was very hungry. ‘No,’ I answered, ‘it is not yet come, but be quiet and go to sleep again; it will come.’ We both went to sleep; I was awakened a little before six in the morning, by someone rapping at my window. ‘Dame Bartlet,’ said a woman, ‘you must get up immediately; Mrs. Martin’s dairymaid is taken very ill, and you must come and milk her cows.’ Here then was bread for us.

“I went to Mrs. Martin’s, and milked her cows, and afterward sat down in the kitchen to breakfast; but I thought of my child and would not eat. Mrs. Martin observing me, said, ‘You do not eat your breakfast, Dame Bartlet.’ I thanked her and told her I had left a little boy at home in bed, very hungry; if she would permit me, I should prefer carrying my breakfast home to him. ‘Eat your breakfast now,’ was the kind reply, ‘and you may carry some home to your little boy besides.’ Mrs. Martin then gave me a basket of provisions, sufficient for myself and child for several days. As I returned home, I could not but thank my God, and feel grateful to Him, and my kind benefactress. I rejoiced my little boy’s heart by the sight of his breakfast. He got up directly, eager to partake of Mrs. Martin’s kindness; after a good breakfast, I made him kneel down again by my side, whilst I returned thanks to our gracious God, who had heard our prayers the evening before, and who had given us a kind benefactress. When we rose, I took him in my lap, and said to him, ‘Now, John, I hope what has happened to us will be remembered through your whole life. Last evening we had eaten all our bread; we had none left for this morning; but we prayed to God that, through His mercy, and for the sake of Jesus Christ, He would give us our daily bread. God has heard us, and has given us bread; may this teach you through life to put your trust in your Heavenly Father. I most earnest pray God that you may never forget it.’” “And, madam,” continued the good woman, “I have never wanted bread since. I am blessed in my son, who is now a man. He is dutiful and good to me, and has never forgotten the exhortation I then gave him to trust in God.”

And who will dare say that this poor, humble woman, and the interests of her little household, were objects too insignificant for the care and attention of Almighty God? Is there a child of His, or any circumstance which bears in the smallest degree upon the well-being of His children, too insignificant for His attention? “Cast thy care upon the Lord, for He careth for thee.” Do such promises as this belong to the kings and princes and great ones only of the earth? Nay, verily, God has pledged the honor of His name, and the sanctity of His charter, to comfort, sustain, and save everyone, high or low, rich or poor, that trusteth in Him.

—Selected