DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXVI, Issue 26, 29 December 1945, Page 7

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

A NEW YEAR MESSAGE. Let us view the new year as a new world opportunity that opens before us for serving God with all our heart and soul and mind and' strength, and in so doing we will best serve our day and generation and our fellow man. It is failure to render just this service, our half-hearted allegiance, that leaves') us all dissatisfied as the year ends. We fail to realise that it is those who trust Him wholly who find Him wholly true. FRAGRANCE. In a certain valley in Rumania there is a most beautiful garden containing nothing but roses. When the season is at its height, the perfume is such that if you visit the garden, and come back to the city, people know at once where you have been. You carry the fragrance with you. Is it not, then, as true, if we frequent the presence of God, delighting in the glory, and excellencies of Christ, we may come back to the city and shed the fragrance of His presence around. — \V. Findlay. A SMILE MAY WIN. Kind words have a wonderful influence. A gracious demeanour and a loving manner must tell on many who would otherwise remain alienated. It implies light. During darkness all is cold and cheerless, black and- terrible, to nervous souls and timid children. | But when light irradiates the scene the world awakens, the music of the groves pours forth, the flowers look up. So, if we scatter the Gospel light in our character, we shall create music and pleasure around us. —E. H. Walker. REAL JOY. There is a joy we all may know, The joy of helping others; ' We lose our burdens as we seek To lighten one another’s. This was the joy the Saviour had, How sweet the Old, Old Story! I He gave Himself that He might I bring The many sons to Glory. —Geo. Goodman. MY TRAVELLING COMPANION. It is the path for those who are alive from the dead, and immediately we step into it we find that we have a Travelling Companion. He hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Heb. 13, 5). “Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they ■ comfort me” (Ps. 23). Cultivate the thought of the Lord as your Travelling Companion in the path of faith and obedience to God’s will, and the sufficiency of His grace for you in it will not be a doctrine only but a blessed experience.