“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!

—N. Daniel

“Behold I am the Lord ... is there anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27)
“Ah Lord God! there is nothing too wonderful for thee.” (Jeremiah 32:17)

The following story was written by Rosalind Goforth as one of the striking instances of how God, in His own wonderful way, can work out the seemingly impossible. She was a missionary in China who travelled with her family to different places helping to spread God’s Word.

“Returning home to our station from an unusually strenuous autumn's touring, I planned as usual to give the month of December to the children's sewing, so as to leave January largely free for a Bible women’s training class. But my health broke down, and I could make scarcely any headway with the thirty-five or forty garments which had to be made or fixed over, before the children returned to their school in Chefoo. By December 18 we decided to cancel the class on account of my ill-health; and to all the women, except one whom I entirely forgot, I sent word not to come.

“As the days passed, the burden of the almost untouched sewing became very great. At last I cried to the Lord to undertake for me. And how wonderfully He did! On December 28, when I was conducting the Chinese women's prayer meeting, I noticed in the audience Mrs. Lu, the very woman to whom I had forgotten to send word. She had come a long distance, with her little child, over rough mountain roads, so I felt very sorry for my thoughtlessness. Mrs. Lu accompanied me home, and I gave her money for a barrow on which to return the next day. I then sat down to the sewing machine. The woman stood beside me for a little, and then said:

“‘You are looking very tired, Mrs. Goforth; let me run the machine for you.”

“‘You!” I exclaimed, astonished. “Why, you don't know how.”

“‘Yes, I do,” she replied.

“She was so insistent that at last, in fear and trembling, I ventured to let her try— for I had only one needle. It took but a few moments to convince me she was a real expert at the machine. When I urged her to stay and help me, she replied that since the class was given up she would return home on the morrow.

“That night I was puzzled. Why should the Lord lead this woman to me— the only one, so far as we knew, who could do the machine work— and then permit her to leave? I could only lay the whole matter before the Lord, and trust Him to undertake. And again He answered. That night a fierce storm came on, lasting several days and making the roads quite impassable for a whole month, during which time I did not once need to sit down at the machine.”

***

“Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 50:15).

Mrs. Goforth had to learn to the trust the Lord. The following story relates to a time on furlough.

“[S]o weak was my faith that for months I never left home for a few days without dreading lest something should happen to the children during my absence. … But as the days and weeks and months passed, and all went well, I learned to trust.

“Be still; be strong today.”
But, Lord, tomorrow?
What of tomorrow, Lord?
Shall there be rest from toil,
Be truce from sorrow?
“Did I not die for thee?
Do not I live for thee?
Leave Me tomorrow.”

***

Mrs. Goforth had learned that the safest place was in the path of duty. Had she lived a life of ease or self-indulgence, she could not have been justified in expecting God to undertake for her in many matters—but she had stepped out into a life which meant trusting for everything, and He proved abundantly faithful.

—Rosalind Goforth

“Reality Check”

‘’The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel’’—Jesus (Mark 1:15)

“God … now commandeth all men every to repent: because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).

“The Man that died for me”

In the Californian mining country stood a one-room mud cabin where a rough, hardened man lay dying. When Mrs. Barney went over the hills and visited him for the first time, her attempt to speak of Jesus and His death was met with oaths. “That’s all a lie,” the miner said, “Nobody ever died for others.” Her following visits were treated with less gratitude than a dog would have shown.

One night, convicted that she had not really cared for the dying miner, Mrs. Barney prayed, “Oh, Christ, give me a little glimpse of the worth of a human soul.” She stayed on her knees for hours as Calvary—where Christ died—became a reality to her. “The Lord is going to save him,” she told her husband.

The next morning, Mrs. Barney was accompanied by a neighbour with her little girl, Mamie. When the dying man heard the little girl’s beautiful laugh, he earnestly desired to see her. “I had a little girl once, and she died. Her name was Mamie. She cared for me. Nobody else did. Guess I’d been different if she’d lived. I’ve hated everybody since she died.” This affection strongly contrasted with the bitterness he felt towards his wife and mother.

“The dear Lord didn’t want her to be like them. He loved her better than you did. So He took her away,” said Mrs. Barney. “Don’t you want to see her again?” she asked. She told him of Jesus’ death on the cross, and soon Mamie prayed for the dying miner: “Dear Jesus, this man is sick. He has lost his ‘ittle girl, and he feels bad about it. I’s so sorry for him, and he’s so sorry too. Won’t You help him, and show him where to find his ‘ittle girl? Do please. Amen.”

The old man kept saying, “Tell Him more ‘bout it, tell Him everything,” and poured out such a torrent of confession! On the third day, he turned from everything to “the man who died for me”.

Some time after, a meeting was held in the cabin with boys from the mills and mines. “Boys,” declared the dying miner, “You know how the water runs down the sluice boxes and carries off the dirt and leaves the gold behind. Well the Blood of that Man [Jesus],” he continued, “went right over me just like that; it carried off ‘bout everything. But it left enough for me to see Mamie, and to see the Man that died for me. Oh, boys, can’t you love Him?”

When Mrs. Barney was leaving the miner some days later, she saw that the end had come. “What shall I say tonight, Jack?” “Just good night,” he said. “What will you say to me when we meet again?” “I’ll say ‘good morning', up there.” That night the miner died—but his last words were: “Tell her I’m going to see the Man that died for me.”

—Selected

“A London doctor saved after fifty years of prayer”

When I was in London there was a leading doctor in that city, upwards of seventy years of age, [who] wrote me a note to come and see him privately about his soul. He was living at a country seat a little way out of London, and he came into town only two or three times a week. He was wealthy and was nearly retired. I received the note right in the midst of the London work, and told him I could not see him. I received a note a day or two after from a member of his family, urging me to come. The letter said his wife had been praying for him for fifty years, and all the children had become Christians by her prayers. She had prayed for him all those years, but no impression had been made upon him. Upon his desk they had found the letter from me, and they came up to London to see what it meant, and I said I would see him.

When we met I asked him if he wanted to become a Christian, and he seemed every way willing, but when it came to confession to his family, he halted. "I tell you," said he, "I cannot do that; my life has been such that I would not like to confess before my family." "Now there is the point; if you are not willing to confess Christ, He will not confess you; you cannot be His disciple." We talked for some time, and he accepted.

I found while I had been in one room his daughter and some friends, anxious for the salvation of that aged father, were in the other room praying to God, and when he started out willing to go home and confess Christ, I opened the door of the other room, not knowing the daughter was there, and the first words she said were: "Is my father saved?" "Yes, I think he is," I answered, and ran down to the front door and called him back. "Your daughter is here," I said; "this is the time to commence your confession." The father, with tears trickling down his cheeks, embraced his child, "My dear daughter, I have accepted Christ," and a great flood of light broke upon him at that confession.

—Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1899)