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Inspiration
Read short inspirational articles by Olive Tree staff members.
Fun at the Spokane Lilac Bloomsday Run
May 27th
Recently Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, ran the Country Music Half-Marathon in Nashville, TN, and encouraged other Thomas Nelson employees to join him.
Inspired by Michael’s half-marathon race, I and a few local friends decided to sign up for the Lilac Bloomsday Run, a 7.46 mile (12 K) road race that attracts approximately 50,000 runners and walkers each year. An added bonus is that Bloomsday is right in Olive Tree’s hometown of Spokane, Washington, so I didn’t have to travel to get there. On Sunday, May 4th, the day of the race, it was sunny and cool. We couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather for running, walking, and just being outside.
The picture below shows me crossing the finish line—with hundreds of my fellow Bloomsday racers. Right after this, we received the much-coveted Bloomsday T-shirt, awarded to every person who finishes the race, and worn proudly by many people around town the Monday after.
Michael finished his 17-mile half-marathon in about 2 hours. I finished Bloomsday’s 7.46 mile course in just over 2 hours. Looks like I have some training to do before next year’s race if I want to keep up!
Even so, running the race was a wonderful experience to get me out of my trench. I enjoyed the sunshine, soaked in the beauty of God’s creation (especially where the race course crosses the Spokane River), and enjoyed the excitement of participating in Spokane’s largest civic event.
Drew, talking a day off from Olive Tree, ran with 50,000 other runners (and walkers) in the Lilac Bloomsday Run, an annual Spokane event.
IN HIS OWN WORDS – Classic eBooks on Prayer by E. M. Bounds
Dec 14th
In this article, we want to let author E. M. Bounds tell you in his own words about the importance of prayer to God, to the Church, to the world, and to you. Thus, we will quote a little from five new classic eBooks by this author available from Olive Tree. First, however, let’s talk a little about the author and his work.
Few have written about prayer with the experience, authority, conviction, and eloquence of this simple man of God from nineteentn-century America. Toughened by the loss of his father at a young age, by lonely years spent in the mining camps of California’s gold rush, by incarceration in Union prison camps during the American Civil War, and by his gritty experiences as a Confederate chaplain on the front lines of that war – praying on his knees within sight of the troops under his charge, E. M. Bounds embodied a blend of firmness and gentleness rarely seen in a man, inwrought by the Christ he loved as he was passing “through it all.” One might say that Bounds’ famous books on prayer read like Emerson’s essays, in the sense that almost every sentence could be framed and hung on the wall, so clear and incisive and perfectly fitting are the words. Unlike Emerson, however, this man would never choose to write an essay on self-reliance; rather, he had learned the secret of whole-heartedly casting EVERYTHING on the Savior through persevering prayer and constant communion with the One for whom nothing is impossible. And he had experienced first-hand the power of prayer and supplication to change the world.
Currently, Olive Tree offers five classic eBooks on prayer by E. M. Bounds, with three more to come. Hyperlinked Scripture references, verse indexes, book marks, and other features of the electronic versions, make reading these eBooks with Olive Tree’s BibleReader software a great experience. Let’s take a brief look at each book.
In The Essentials of Prayer, the author explores prayer as it relates to the whole person, to humility, to devotion, to praise, to thanksgiving, and to other essential elements of prayer. Says Bounds, “Prayer has to do with the entire man. It takes the whole man to pray, and prayer affects the entire man in its gracious results. The largest results in praying come to him who gives himself, all of himself, all that belongs to himself, to God.”
In The Necessity of Prayer, Bounds elaborates on the relationships between prayer and faith, trust, desire, fervency, importunity, character, conduct, obedience, vigilance, and the word of God. Writing about prayer and faith, the author says, “Prayer projects faith on God and God on the world. Only God can move mountains, but prayer and faith move God.” As with all of the author’s books, this one leaves readers greatly impressed with the necessity of prayer in giving God a way to accomplishes His gracious will.
As the title suggests, The Possibilities of Prayer considers prayer in relation to the promises of God and to the phenomenal answers God grants to believing prayer. “How vast are the possibilities of prayer! What great things are accomplished by this divinely appointed means of grace! It lays its hand on Almighty God and moves Him to do what He would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered. It brings things to pass which would never otherwise occur. The story of prayer is the story of great achievements.”
Power through Prayer exposes the folly of God’s people if they try to use any means other than prayer to achieve the fruit God requires. While the church and its leaders look for better methods to bring about the increase of Christ on the earth, God is intending to do a work in the vessels themselves, fitting them for something greater than they can imagine. Bounds asserts, “Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. The glory and efficiency of the gospel is staked on the men who proclaim it.”
Finally, in The Weapon of Prayer, E. M. Bounds sounds again the call to all Christians to exercise their God-given birthright for the sake of God and His kingdom, the success of which He has placed under the law of prayer. “He rules the world just as He rules the Church by prayer. This lesson needs to be emphasized, iterated and reiterated in the ears of men of modern times and brought to bear with cumulative force on the consciences of this generation whose eyes have no vision for the eternal things, whose ears are deaf toward God. Nothing is more important to God than prayer in dealing with mankind. But it is likewise all-important to man to pray. Failure to pray is failure along the whole line of life. Man must pray to God if love for God is to exist.”
As you can see, E. M. Bounds speaks very well for himself and hardly needs anyone to advocate for his books. Readers can open to any page and taste the same indomitable spirit. May God find many who will let the Lord speak to them through the writings of this forthright and devoted man of God!
An Author Everyone Should Know
Oct 15th
Few Christian writers, from the present or the past, have affected my life and the lives of other Christians I know as much as Andrew Murray (1828-1917). His books are the kind you come back to again and again, savoring every line, reading slowly and prayerfully, drawing near to the Christ he knew and loved and expressed so well. It’s hard to read very far without stopping to pray, for the Spirit of prayer seems to be the very atmosphere of Andrew Murray’s books; moreover, the author speaks so directly to you, the reader, that it’s sometimes hard to believe you don’t know him; of course, in the Spirit, as a fellow member of Christ’s body, you do.
Andrew Murray grew up in South Africa nearly two centuries ago, both his father and grandfather being Scottish missionaries to that vast, untamed land. After attending school in Aberdeen, Scotland, and receiving theological training in the Netherlands, Andrew returned to South Africa as an ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. This author almost never refers to himself in his books, so it’s surprising to read a biography of Murray and to find out about the trials he endured and the burdens he bore. Once, as a young pastor, serving remote farmers in the wide-open landscape, he was surrounded by wolves. After his horse threw him and ran away, Murray walked by faith the rest of the way to his parishioners’ farmhouse, many miles it was, wolves snapping at him all the while but never touching him. Though a man of much practical experience, it seems that Murray focuses every book on one thing only: the indwelling Christ.
Olive Tree Bible Software is privileged to be able to publish in electronic format several of this beloved writer’s books (which number some 240), a few of which I’ll describe briefly. In The New Life: Words of God for Young Disciples of Christ Murray addresses new believers concerning the wonderful life they have received, his clear intention being to establish firmly their faith in Christ and to encourage them on the path of life and fruitfulness in Him. In With Christ in the School of Prayer, the author presents thirty-one lessons on prayer, one for every day of the month, echoing the disciples’ plea, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Reading this book, one is infused with faith that God wants to answer our prayers even more than we want them answered; in fact, He put the desire within us to begin with. In The Deeper Christian Life, Murray relates that the first and chief need of our Christian life is fellowship with God. Indeed, this theme, and the blessedness of abiding moment by moment in Christ, in absolute surrender, trusting Him to accomplish all that He has promised to do in us and through us, is the essential message of Andrew Murray’s fervent ministry to the body of Christ.
“I have learnt,” he says, “to place myself before God every day, as a vessel to be filled with His Holy Sprit. He has filled me with the blessed assurance that He, as the everlasting God, has guaranteed His work in me. If there is one lesson that I am learning day by day, it is this; that it is God who worketh all in all. Oh, that I could help any brother or sister to realize this!”
Believing God’s Love
Aug 15th
“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” –Jude 20-21
How vulnerable we may find ourselves in the matter of trusting God’s love toward us! Some small thing happens that threatens our security, and a host of anxious, gloomy, fearful, and even blaming thoughts rush in like air into a vacuum. If we are this way in small things, how much greater is the tendency to lose our grip on God when big things happen (although, praise the Lord, He never loses His grip on us)!
To keep ourselves in the love of God, to simply believe what God has said concerning His intention toward us, sounds easy enough, but we may discover that it is the fight of our life, what Paul calls “the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). As Jude indicates in the verse above, we keep ourselves in God’s love by praying in the Holy Spirit and building ourselves (and one another) up in our faith, something which he calls “most holy.” How do we “build ourselves up in such a faith”? Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Concerning our Lord’s absolute faithfulness, the Bible has much to say: “I will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5)” and “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). As we stay calm in adversity and saturate ourselves with facts like these, then “faith comes,” and when faith comes, all is well, whether or not our circumstances change.
Sometimes dark thoughts and morose feelings want to occupy our mind and fill our emotions. “You’ll never make it. You’ve failed too many times. There’s no hope for you.” Then come the temptations to try to solve a problem on our own. “You’d better do something about this right away. Change yourself, or else!” But while reading, as currently I am, a devotional by C. H. Spurgeon and a little book by Martin Luther, I keep hearing about the fundamental need of faith in God’s unconditional love, no matter what happens in us, to us, or around us.
When our insides are raw and our mind is reeling, the confidence in God exuded by those who have gone before us is of great value, and very needful, like ointment to an open wound. Consider Amy Carmichael’s entry for August 12 in her devotional The Edges of His Ways. Like so many who learned the secret of trusting God for everything, she derives comfort from the most unlikely places and sees God’s grace everywhere. (Surely, this is what God desires for each of us.) Her text is Romans 10:21 in the Rotherham translation, which says, “All day long have I stretched forth My hands unto a people unyielding and contradicting.” Reading this, one may think, “How can I find any solace in a verse like this?”
Notice, however, that Amy’s focus is not on the unyielding ones, but on the God who stretches forth His hands. She writes, “Today this verse which has often helped me came in my reading. When I have been near the end of my patience with some unyielding child, or some ‘contradicting’ disposition, these words have come to me. He who gave us our work to do knows all about it, and has been through the sense of baffled love. He is with us now, and all the day long His hands are stretched forth. His love never faileth. Lord, evermore give us this love.”
How comforting such words are, written by someone who kept herself in the love of God! Thank You, Lord, for all day long stretching forth Your hands to unyielding and contradicting people. By Your grace may we always, in every situation, believe in and yield to this unconditional love.
Time with Jesus
Jun 22nd
Yesterday morning I went to the back porch early and read Spurgeon’s June 21 AM entry in the Morning and Evening devotional. Here’s what it said:
Thou are fairer than the children of men. Psalm 45:2
“The entire person of Jesus is but as one gem, and His life is all along but one impression of the seal. He is altogether complete; not only in His several parts but as a gracious all-glorious whole. His character is not a mass of fair colors mixed confusedly, nor a heap of precious stones laid carelessly one upon another; He is a picture of beauty and a breastplate of glory. In Him, all the “things of good repute” are in their proper places, and assist in adorning each other. Not one feature in His glorious person attracts attention at the expense of others; but He is perfectly and altogether lovely.
“Oh, Jesus! Thy power, Thy grace, Thy justice, Thy tenderness, Thy truth, Thy majesty, and Thine immutability make up such a man, or rather such a God-man, as neither heaven nor earth hath seen elsewhere. Thy infancy, Thy eternity, Thy sufferings, Thy triumphs, Thy death, and Thine immortality, are all woven in one gorgeous tapestry, without seam or rent. Thou are music without discord; Thou art many, and yet not divided; Thou art all things, and yet not diverse. As all the colours blend into one resplendent rainbow, so all the glories of heaven and earth meet in Thee, and unite so wondrously, that there is none like Thee in all things; nay, if all the virtues of the most excellent were bound in one bundle, they could not rival Thee, Thou mirror of all perfection. Thou hast been anointed with the holy oil of myrrh and cassia, which Thy God hath reserved for Thee alone; and as for Thy fragrance, it is as the holy perfume, the like of which none other can ever mingle…each spice is fragrant, but the compound is divine.”
May the Lord give us grace to take control of our busy lives and to spend uninterrupted time with His incomparable Christ, who is the meaning of everything.
Words of Comfort, Strength, and Inspiration by Amy Carmichael
Mar 26th
For months I have enjoyed Amy Carmichael’s daily devotional Edges of His Ways on my PDA. The selections are penetrating and comforting expressions of the author’s genuine experiences of the Lord. Olive Tree has now added three more books by this endearing writer — If, Mimosa, and Gold Cord.
As a young woman called by the Lord, Amy Carmichael journeyed from Ireland to India around 1900. Born out of her many years of abiding in Christ in faithful service to the people of south India, a community of believers called Dohnavur Fellowship thrives to this day. Amy’s many books reflect her rich faith and love for the Lord and His Body, wrought through the fires of suffering.
If is a series of pithy conditional sentences that cut to the heart of what it means to be a Christian. This little book is all about the real essence of Calvary love, reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 13. As readers, we would do well to take each small portion and ponder it, confessing our lack of this genuine love and asking the Lord to be our All, as only He can be.
Mimosa is a the remarkable true story of a young Hindu girl who visited Dohnavur with her father and older sister, and, despite only a few minutes time in fellowship with Amy and others, received a personal revelation that God is love. For years little Mimosa had no further contact with Amy and Dohnavur, and she didn’t even know that the God she served and loved had a name, Jesus. Carried by God’s love through experiences of persecution, ostracism, toil, and personal loss, Mimosa grew closer and closer to her Lord; then, finally, as a grown woman, mature and wise, she returned to Dohnavur and told her story, to the astonishment of Amy and the rest. This book is so touching, and the story so beautifully told, that I have had trouble keeping a copy because I always want to give it away for someone else to enjoy.
Gold Cord is the story of Dohnavur Fellowship. A gold cord, in contrast to wood, hay, and stubble, is Amy’s symbol for the bond of love that unites this group of believers and, according to the author’s hope, extends to her readers.
I trust you will enjoy all of these wonderful writings by Amy Carmichael.
Bible Biographies by F. B. Meyer
Mar 21st
Did you ever wish someone could take you back to Bible times to view in detail the lives of outstanding figures in the Scriptures, like Moses, David, and Paul? F. B. Meyer has done that, and Olive Tree is happy to announce the publication for your PDA or smartphone of three new eBook Bible biographies by this outstanding writer and dear man of God. These include Moses, David, and Paul, and there are more on the way.
Having thoroughly enjoyed all of these books, I can’t say enough about how much I benefited from reading them. Every point the author makes is rooted in the Bible, and yet I found myself saying frequently, “I never thought of that before!” Surprisingly vivid descriptive details are interwoven with the narrative. Relevant historical elements are pointed out to enhance understanding.
Most importantly, though true biographies, these books are devotional in character. They draw a reader’s heart to Christ, and they help explain our experience of the Lord as it is portrayed in the lives of Moses, David, Paul and the other characters that surround them. It is not too much to say that these books are life-changing, for one comes away with a sweeter, deeper appreciation of the love and sovereignty of God viewed again and again in the lives of these saints.
Torrey’s Topical Textbook Available for Your PDA or Smartphone
Mar 7th
Topical study, though only one of many fruitful Bible study methods, is among the best ways to enrich our understanding and enjoyment of the Scriptures. To read as much as you can of what God has to say on a biblical subject is well worth the investment in time and effort.
One of the most helpful tools in this regard is Torrey’s New Topical Textbook, which brings together in simple outline form the major Bible passages on hundreds of important topics. Using this tool on your handheld device enables you to have a second window open for viewing the verses as you explore a topic. I am very glad to have this rich source of topically organized Bible references on my PDA, and I have begun to enjoy the blessing of spending an evening exploring a subject like Sanctification, Sin, the Blood of Christ, Grace, Redemption – there are hundreds to choose from.
To read Torrey’s inspiring introduction to this work is to be infused with desire to dig into God’s word. “The topical method of Bible study,” he says, “is simplest, most fascinating, and yields the largest results . . . It was Mr. Moody’s favorite method. It fills one’s mind very full on any subject studied. Mr Moody once gave several days to the study of ‘Grace.’ When he had finished he was so full of the subject that he rushed out on the street and going up to the first man he met he said: ‘Do you know anything about Grace?’ ‘Grace who,’ the man asked. ‘The Grace of God that bringeth salvation.’ And then Mr. Moody poured out upon that man the rich treasures he had dug out of the Word of God.”
Torrey goes on to say, “That is the way to master any subject and get full of it. Go through the Bible and see what it has to say on this subject.” This is made easy by having Torrey’s topical study tool on your PDA or Smartphone. That which at one time would have taken days or even months to accomplish can be done in a few hours of concentrated reading and study. What a blessing it is to have Torrey’s New Topical Textbook to aid us in understanding the truth and coming to know the Person and Work of Christ revealed in the Bible!
Trusting
Jan 19th
In the last few days, everything I’ve read seems to be saying, “Trust the Lord”: like the book I’m reading about a missionary imprisoned during World War II who depended on Him in the most appalling circumstances; or Psalm 130, with the psalmist’s opening cry, “Out of the depths,” and its final affirmation, “With the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption, and He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities” (NKJV); finally, there are the hymns the Lord has brought to mind at times when I needed encouragement. I doubt not that this happens to you too.
One of those timely hymns this week was “Jesus Never Fails,” words and music by Arthur A. Luther, 1891-1960. I love this simple expression of faith in the Lord. The hymn is included in Kenneth W. Osbeck’s book Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, published by Kregel Publishers and newly released as an eBook for PDA’s and cell phones by Olive Tree Bible Software. Osbeck quotes Mr. Luther’s story of his burning childhood desire to be a missionary, how that desire was not to be realized, but how the Lord instead, in a time of particular trial, gave him a song that has gone all over the world and has been translated into numerous languages, trumpeting its three-word message to the earth: “heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus never fails.”
(Read more about Kenneth Osbeck’s book Amazing Grace in Olive Tree’s article series Explore the Bible on your PDA.)
Winter in Spokane
Jan 15th
Winter in Spokane, Washington: a time to stay indoors, or if one must go out, to bundle up against the near zero cold. Olive Tree’s busy staff keeps warm with hot tea in cozy offices. The pines and spruces, with snow-laden branches, endure the gelid air, erect and still, their roots secretly reaching beneath the frozen crust. What is it about this season that mirrors the soul’s experience in times of trial? Looking up through the clear, cold night air, one sees the angular shape of Orion, emblem of winter in the northern hemisphere. God spoke to Job ages ago about this winter constellation and his springtime sister: “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” Job 38:31.
C. H. Spurgeon, in a daily devotional, uses this verse to shed light on the sovereignty of God over the winters and springs of our lives. What a comfort to know that God is in charge, ordering our seasons in His wisdom. Just as we cannot change the cycle of the stars, neither can we alter what the Lord has ordered for our souls to pass through. But how wonderful to realize that it is God, and to shift our focus from ourselves to trusting in Him alone!
“If the Lord in sovereignty, or in justice, bind up a man so that he is in soul bondage, who can give him liberty? He alone can remove the winter of spiritual death from an individual or a people. He looses the bands of Orion, and none but He. What a blessing it is that He can do it. O that He would perform the wonder tonight. Lord, end my winter, and let my spring begin. I cannot with all my longings raise by soul out of her death and dullness, but all things are possible with Thee. I need celestial influences, the clear shinings of Thy love, the beams of Thy grace, the light of Thy countenance, these are the Pleiades to me. I suffer much from sin and temptation; these are my wintry signs, my terrible Orion. Lord, work wonders in me, and for me. Amen” (quoted from Morning and Evening, March 21 PM, by C. H. Spurgeon).