explain the failure of so many, and the reason why they
walk naked, or with rent garments, and others see their shame. Let us look
after the _nots_.

JANUARY 11.

"Hold fast till I come" (Rev. ii. 25).

The other day we asked a Hebrew friend how it was that his countrymen were
so successful in acquiring wealth. "Ah," said he, "we do not make more
money than other people, but we keep more." Beloved, let us look out this
day for spiritual pickpockets and spiritual leakage. Let us "lose nothing
of what we have wrought, but receive a full reward"; and, as each day
comes and goes, let us put away in the savings bank of eternity its
treasures of grace and victory, and so be conscious from day to day that
something real and everlasting is being added to our eternal fortune.

It may be but a little, but if we only economize all that God gives us,
and pass it on to His keeping, when the close shall come we shall be
amazed to see how much the accumulated treasures of a well spent life have
laid up on high, and how much more He has added to them by His glorious
investment of the life committed to His keeping.

Oh, how the days are telling! Oh, how precious these golden hours will
seem sometime! God help us to make the most of them now.

JANUARY 12.

"Ask and it shall be given you" (Matt. vii. 7).

We must receive, as well as ask. We must take the place of believing, and
recognize ourselves as in it. A friend was saying, "I want to get into the
will of God," and this was the answer: "Will you step into the will of
God? And now, are you in the will of God?" The question aroused a thought
that had not come before.

The gentleman saw that he had been straining after, but not receiving the
blessing he sought.

Jesus has said, "Ask and ye shall receive." The very strain keeps back the
blessing. The intense tension of all your spiritual nature so binds you
that you are not open to the blessing which God is waiting to give you.
"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

He tells me there is cleansing
From every secret sin,
And a great and full salvation
To keep the heart within.
And I take Him in His fulness,
With all His glorious grace,
For He says it is mine by taking,
And I take just what He says.

JANUARY 13.

"Thou shalt be to him instead of God" (Ex. iv. 16).

Such was God's promise to Moses, and such the high character that Moses
was to assume toward Aaron, h