GOD AT EVENTIDE

by Two Listeners

Edited by A. J. Russell

August

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

August 1 - Joy of Harvest

He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting, that both he that reapeth and he that soweth may rejoice together.

Do you not see that if you are careless about the reaping you have prevented the harvest-joy of the sower?

If by your life and character you do not reap to the full that which they have sown, you are robbing them of the well-earned fruit of their labors.

Further learn this lesson. There are many of My workers and servants in different spheres of the activity to whom you owe the seed of word or example or loving help that has influenced you.

It is a sacred trust. Use it fully.

August 2 - Still Love and Laugh

This has ever been My command to you. Love and Laugh. There is a quality about true Love to which laughter is attune.

The Love that does not pulse with joy (of which laughter is the outward sign) is but solicitude. The Joy of Heaven is consciousness of God's Love.

It was that Love that brought Me to your world.

Consciousness of that Love called forth your joy. Study My Words in the Upper Room -- "Loved of My Father"; "I will love him"; "That your Joy might be full."

August 3 - Love Lightens the Load

In due season you shall reap if you faint not.

The way may seem long and dreary.

Sometimes My Heart of Love aches that I have to ask you to tread so long and so weary a way. Yet to each of My followers the road chosen is surely the one best suited for his feet.

But feet grow weary. Have you let Love smooth the toilsome way? We walk together.

August 4 - Vision of Love

Love is a flower.

Love is the seed from which that flower germinates.

Love is the soil in which it is nourished and grows.

Love is the sun that draws it to fulfillment.

Love is the fragrance that flower gives out.

Love is the vision that sees its beauty, and God is Love, all-knowing, all-understanding, from whom all Good proceeds.

August 5 - Love in the Unlovely

Love to all must mark all you do if you own Me Lord, and if you would be a true follower of Me.

"His banner over me was Love." Those words express not only the loving Protection round you, but the banner under which you march as soldiers of Me, your Captain.

It serves to remind you of that for which you stand before the world. It is in Love's Name you march. In Love's Name you conquer. It is Love you are to take into the unlovely places of the world. It is the only equipment you need.

August 6 - Deaf Ears

Man cries for help. Man feels his need of Me. All unmindful that countless times I draw near unheard, pass on unnoticed, speak to deaf ears, touch brows fretted and wrinkled by earth's cares.

"The Christ is dead," man says.

Alive and longing, full of a living tenderness I passed his way today. He heeded not.

Man hears the storms, the wind, the earthquake, and his ears still pulsing with the echoes he hears no Still Small Voice. Oh, do not miss Me, My children.

August 7 - Balm for All Ills

Love and care and pray. Never feel helpless to aid those you love. I am their help. As you obey Me and follow My teaching in your daily life, you will bring that help into operation.

So, if you desire to be used to save another, turn to your own life. As far as you can, make it all that it should be.

Let your influence for Me extend ever further and further. Let Love be your balm for all ills, the Power in which you will break down all barriers.

It stands, too, for the Name of the God you love and serve. So with His banner floating o'er you, go on in glad confidence to victory. Your task to help, to strengthen, raise, heal. Only as you love will you do this.

August 8 - No Hurt

He that overcometh shall not be hurt by the second death.

The first death is the death to self, the result of overcoming, of self-conquest. This is gradual death.

When it is complete, the second death shall cause no hurt. For it is only the conquering Spirit sloughing away its human habitation for a better Life.

The courage My Martyrs showed was not only fearlessness engendered in time of persecution through faith in Me, and in My power to support and sustain. It was consequent on the overcoming of self already achieved. Self, having truly died, this second death had no hurt for them.

Theirs was then the Risen Life with Me.

August 9 - Undivided

Live in My Peace.

There must be no divided life in this.

Peace in your heart. That heart-rest that comes from constant communion with Me, and from an undisturbed trust in Me.

Then Peace round you, where others are conscious of Me, and of that Peace as My Gift, and the rest and strength and charm into which they are drawn.

August 10 - Glad Surprise

Live so near to Me that you may never miss the opportunity of being used by Me. It is the prepared instrument, lying nearest to the Master Craftsman's Hand, that is seized to do the work.

So be very near Me, and you cannot fail to be much used. Remember that Love is the Great Interpreter, so that those who love you and are near to you are the ones you can help the most.

Do not pass them by for others, though your influence and helpfulness will gradually spread, in an ever-widening circle. You will live in a spirit of glad surprise.

August 11 - Absolute Honesty

Learn to act slowly with sanctified caution.

Precipitancy has no part in My Kingdom.

Be more deliberate in everything, with the deliberation that should characterize every soul, for it is one of the credentials of that Kingdom.

Lack of poise and dignity means lack of Spiritual Power, and this it must be your aim to possess.

Be truthful in all things, honest with an honesty that can be challenged by the world, and by the standards of My Kingdom, too.

August 12 - Holy Revelry

Live with Me. Work with Me. Ever delight to do My Holy Will. Let this be the satisfaction of your lives. Revel in it.

Let the wonder of My care for you be so comforting that you may see no dullness in drudgery, in delay . . .

The Glory of My leading, the wonder of its intimacy reveals such tender knowledge of you, past and future.

Let this reveal Me to you, and so daily increase your knowledge of Me.

August 13 - The Road You Took

Look back at the way I have led you.

Say to yourself, "Is not my Lord as strong today as in the days that lie behind me? Did He not save me when human aid was powerless? Did He not keep His Promise, and protect and care for me? Can I, remembering that, doubt His Power now?"

So you will gain confidence and a firmer trust. As your faith is thus strengthened, My Power can operate more freely and fully on your behalf.

You are only beginning to realize My Wonders. You will see them unfold more and more as you go on. Bring Me into all you do, into every plan, every action.

August 14 - Riches of His Grace

It is for My followers to make My Word, the very Word of God, attractive.

My Word passed to dwell in you richly. There must be no stinting, no poverty, but an abundance of rich supply.

Note the dwell. Nothing fitful, as I have told you. Make its home there. Fittingly belong there. No question of meager or exhausted supply.

The Word of God grows in meaning, in intensity, for you, as you bring it into operation.

Remember, too, the Word of God is that Word made flesh, Who dwells with you, your Lord Jesus Christ.

August 15 - My Image Restored

Look unto Me until your gaze becomes so intense that you absorb the Beauty of Holiness.

Then truly is the petty, unworthy self ousted from your nature. Look to Me. Speak to Me. Think of Me.

So you become transformed by the renewing of your mind. Other thoughts, other desires, other ways follow, for you become transformed into My Likeness.

Thus you vindicate the ways of God with man -- man made in His image, that Image marred, but I still had trust in man; trust that man, seeing the God-Image in Me, the man Christ Jesus, would aspire to rise again -- into My Likeness.

August 16 - Expectancy

In all your work, your meetings with others, have ever the consciousness of My brooding Love surrounding you. Continue ye in My Love.

Meet Me at eventide with loving expectancy.

August 17 - Premature Blessing

Give me strength to wait Thy time, accept Thy discipline.

Only your failure to do this can delay the answers to your many prayers.

The blessing you crave needs a trained, disciplined life, or it would work your ruin and bring upon you a world's criticism that could but harm the very cause, My cause, which you so ardently seek to serve.

August 18 - Broken Bonds

Loose the fetters that bind me to earth and material things.

They shall be loosed. Even now your prayer is being answered. But you can only be completely released as you live with Me more and more.

Thought-freedom from self-claims comes by a process of substitution. For every claim of self, substitute My claim. For every thought of fear or resentment substitute a thought of security in Me and of Joy in My Service. For every thought of limitation, or helplessness, substitute one of the Power of a Spirit-aided life.

Do this persistently. At first with deliberate effort, until it becomes an almost unconscious habit. The fetters will snap and gradually you will realize the wonder of your freedom.

August 19 - Bounteous Giving

Lord I ask for Thine unlimited supply.

I give with no niggard hand. See the Beauty in Nature, the profusion, the generosity. When I give you a work to do, a need of another's to meet, My supply knows no bounds.

You, too, must learn this Divine generosity, not only towards the lonely, the needy, whom you contact, but towards Me, your Lord.

Measure the wealth of Mary's gift by the offerings given to Me nowadays by those who profess their Love for Me. Ungenerous giving dwarfs the soul.

August 20 - Glorious Opportunity

Man's life is no tragedy or comedy staged by a God of Whims.

It is man's glorious opportunity of regaining what humanity lost -- assisted by the One Who found the path-direct, and Who is ready at every point, and all along the way to supply man with the Life Eternal.

That Life Eternal which alone enables him to breathe, even here now, the very air of Heaven, and to be inspired with the Spirit-life in which I lived on earth; God made man.

August 21 - Where to Find Me -- Always

Man so often seeks and marvels that he does not find. Why? Because only along the path of simple obedience am I to be found.

I said, "I came not to do Mine own Will but the Will of Him who sent Me." I tread, as I always trod, the path of simple obedience. Along it shall I be found.

Man must be simply obedient to My commands before his feet can come My way. Then, seeking, he truly finds Me. I said you must become as little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

August 22 - True Power

Many are speaking on about Me, and they marvel that their words have no force. They are not My Words, they are words about Me. Oh, and how different.

The world is surfeited with words about Me.

The world needs to see Me, not to hear of My Power, but to see it in action. Not to hear of My Peace, but to see that it keeps My followers calm, unruffled, and untroubled, no matter what the outward circumstances.

Not to hear of my Joy, but to see it, as from hidden depths of security, where true Power and Peace abide, it ripples to the surface of the life, and is revealed to those round about.

August 23 - Hunger for Righteousness

Many are wondering why their desire for righteousness is not satisfied according to My Promise. But that Promise was on condition that there should be hunger and thirst. If the Truths I have given have not been absorbed, there can be no real hunger for more.

So, when you miss the Joy-Light on your path, when the vision seems lost, and the Voice silent, then ask yourself, have you failed to live out the lessons that you were taught?

Live out My teaching in your lives, and then, hunger for more, come to Me, Bread of Life, Food of your souls.

August 24 - Might and Majesty

You see Me sometimes as the Man of Sorrows.

Behold Me, too, in the Majesty of My Godhead.

Not always can Man disregard My Wishes and break My Commands.

I view the desecration of My Image, I see the ruin of the kingdom of earth which was to have been the Kingdom of the Lord. I see passions let loose and innocence spoiled, and man clamoring for the mastery.

Then the Man of Sorrows walks a King with flashing eyes, as He sees the downtrodden, the oppressed, the persecuted and the persecutor, the tyrant and the weak.

How long shall I have the patience? HOW LONG?

August 25 - House of the Spirit

"Lest perhaps you should let them slip" -- "Hold fast that thou hast." Each Truth learned has to be cemented to your being by obedience.

Your soul-character is like a building. It IS a building (the Temple) in which the God-Spirit can make a Home.

Bricks lying on the ground separate are useless; placed together, united, they form a building. So obedience is the mortar by which Truths are retained and become a part of the being. Truths which would otherwise be lost.

So every Truth I give you must be lived out.

August 26 - "I Die Daily"

I enjoined that if any man would follow Me he should deny himself and take up his cross.

The denial thus impressed upon My disciples as necessary was not a mere matter of discipline, of giving up, of going without.

It was a total repudiation of any claim the self might make, ignoring it, refusing to acknowledge it.

Not once was this to be done, but daily; there was to be a daily recrucifixion of any part of the self-life not already completely dead.

August 27 - One Spirit-led Family

Have no fear. Wonders unfold.

In this Life or in the Larger Life, the lesson is the same -- the absorption of My Spirit -- living, thinking, and acting in My Spirit until others are forced to see and recognize its Power and claims.

Does this mean loneliness for My Follower? Nay, rather, though you, the human-self-you has no recognition, the real you, transformed by My Spirit, shares in all that fullness of operation and resultant Joy.

You are no isolated being but one of a mighty Spirit-led family, partaker of all the family's well-being, cooperative in every act of each member, sharer of the blessing of each.

A foretaste this of Heaven's oneness and fulfillment.

August 28 - Thread of Gold

Let My Spirit of Calm enter your being, and direct you, filling you with Peace and Power. Find in each day that thread of gold that runs through all, and that links up all the simple tasks and words and interests and feelings into one whole.

Consciously hand the day back to Me at its close, leaving with Me all that is incomplete. It is Heaven's work to complete man's imperfect or unfinished task, when it has been of Heaven's ordering.

See the Joy of Life, and you by that very act increase it. Joy grows by man's consciousness of Joy.

August 29 - Divine Extravagance

Let Christ be in you in all wealth of Wisdom.

It is the niggard attitude of My followers that casts a slur upon My religion.

Dwell upon the Divine extravagance of terms used by those who know something of the wonder of My Kingdom -- "The riches," "The wealth," "The fullness." There is no stint with God.

The only limit is set by the inability of My followers to take. Wealth of wisdom and unlimited Power to help others may be yours.

August 30 - Stand Invincible

Life, earth-life, is a battle. A battle in which man will always be the loser unless he summons Eternal Life-Forces to his aid. Do this and all that has the power to thwart you slinks back defeated.

Say, in the little as well as the big things of life, "Nothing can harm, nothing can make me afraid. In Him I conquer." Stand invincible, face the foes of life.

August 31 - Heaven's Music

Lift up your heart.

Lift it up -- its love and its longings, leaving fears and faults behind.

Let your heart draw its strength and vitalizing Joy and Confidence from Me, your Lord.

Let no vibration stir your being that is not in harmony with the Eternal Music of My Kingdom.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25

Webservant for TwoListeners.org

a non-profit project for the edification of Christians worldwide

We offer thanksgiving in our prayers for Esther, for her ministry
in producing this work and to Jack, for his ministry in proofreading,
for the benefit of all who come to this website.

Hit Counter