Margaret Milligan - Portadown, Ireland Special Meetings - 2011

Psalm 33:11, "The counsel of the Lord.... all generations."  I am sure we all have prayed that God would speak to our hearts.  We may be surprised at the things that He would speak.  I was thinking of John on the isle of Patmos.  He was far from God's people in body, but in spirit he had made a big effort to be near to God.  He was given the responsibility to give a message to God's people.  In Daniel when the three were in the furnace, the Son of God walked amongst them.  I wonder if John wondered if the people would understand what God was speaking.  We may be surprised at what God will speak.  He wants to waken us.  He wants to search us, to help us, to speak peace to us.  He that will hear let him hear.  To have an ear that is not tuned to what is of a man but to hear what God would say.  I wonder if some of those Churches were surprised at what they heard or were they wakened.  They were happy with wrong doctrine but God was not.  To Him it was unacceptable.

John 2:9, "And abideth not hath not God."  God wants us to be conscious of His nearness.  That is our Salvation.  Another Church was dead to God and their garments were defiled.  Jeremiah wrote (10:23-24), "0 Lord I know that the way steps.  0 Lord correct me."  As we come here today, we yearn for righteousness. We were in a home talking about the Gospel and the man of the home got up to do something and he said, "The evening and the morning were the first day."  It made me think of the Creation and how God said, "Let there be light and there was light."  The beginning of re-creation in our hearts was when God sent Jesus and we recognized the true Light that God sent into the world and we accepted it.  In the beginning, there was darkness but when the glorious Gospel shone into our hearts we got life and hope.  He separated us from the darkness of our own ways, from our own thoughts and from our own struggles.

Peter wrote how much he appreciated the resurrection morning.  Peter 1:1-3, "Blessed be the God and Father.....resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."  We are so thankful this is a living way.  Jesus had to die for your sins and mine. We are so glad that He arose again and got victory over death and the grave.  He gave His all to God and trusted in Him.  What do we trust in today?

I enjoyed what we heard about Daniel.  I was thinking about God's work in our hearts.  It brings a joy deep down in our hearts and brings us into a wonderful fellowship, the fellowship of the Father and the Son.  Daniel and his friends were in a predicament and one would feel that they could do nothing about it.  Daniel wasn't afraid to tell what was in his heart.  He had a true reverence and fear of God.  We want God to search us and to help us.

I thought of the vision that Jacob got of God.  He was shown the help of Heaven. He seemed to have a yearning to be in the testimony that Abraham and his father Isaac experienced.  God gave him a very clear understanding of His desire for Jacob and what Jacob could be.  He had many temptations and trials but he proved the promises of God to be very real.  When Laban changed towards Him, God told him to return to Bethel.  His wives had seen what was in his life and they agreed to go.  May God help us to be quiet in His presence, to keep our confidence in Him firm unto the end.  When we don't know what to do, we can remember all the help that comes from above.