FAITH IN PERFECTION

“The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever: forsake not the works of Your own hands.” Psalm 138:8. 

I HAVE selected this text, or, rather, it has been given to me to furnish a motto for the whole year to all the believing families of God now present. It was brought under my notice from a very dear friend, a venerable minister of the Church of England, and an earnest lover of the truth of God as it is in Jesus. He always sends me, at the beginning of the year, or a day or two previously, a little envelope sealed up that I am not to open till New Year’s day, containing a printed text of Scripture which he desires to be pre- served during the remainder of the year—to act as a staff whereon we may rest through the pilgrimage of the next 12 months. When I opened my envelope, I found this text and it charmed me. It contains in itself the very essence of the grace of God. It reads like music to the soul and is like a bottle of water in the desert to the thirsty lips. Let me read it again and remember it and dwell upon it and digest it during all the year. “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. Your mercies, O Lord, endure forever— forsake not the works of Your own hands.”