James H. McConkey (1858 -1937)

Surrendered Writer

James McConkey in his Pittsburgh publishing office

Biography

L. H. McCraw, James H. McConkey

I own this biography and it adds a lot of helpful information on McConkey's blessed life! unfortunately it is not readily available.

Quick Facts

Birth

James McConkey was born in Wrightsville, PA on February 15, 1858.

Parents/Family

McConkey's father, James, was a mercantile merchent, was part-owner of a forge and was later president of a bank. His mother, Susan, had 13 children, the seventh being James Henry. Four of his siblings died in infancy.

Education

He attended Lafayette College, graduating in 1876. From there he went to Princeton (University), where he graduated in 1880 as president of his class, with a degree in law.

Life-Changing Events

His father died during his final year at Princeton. As a result he returned home to take responsibility for his family, including his invalid mother, seven sisters, and a brother.

Work

He passed the bar exam, and was admitted to the bar in York, Pennsylvania. But caring for his family prevented his going into law. Being located on the Susquehanna River, McConkey joined another man in an ice business. He eventually left that business as described in the "Business Man's Testimony" above.

Health

He was often ill.

Conversion

He professed faith in Christ at the age of twenty. He had, however, been attending church all of his life, though his faith was fairly nominal prior to his confession of Christ. From 1880 to 1895 he spent much time reading his Bible. He apparently came to a deeper faith after he had been an officer in the church for years. Following a sermon on consecration (surrender) and a prayer, he was strongly moved. The sentence, "Lord, thou knowest we can trust the man who died for us," continued to speak to his heart. That evening, in his bedroom, he definitely yielded every purpose and plan of his life to God. The next weekend, in church, he publicized his surrender. The author of his biography speculates that he may have made his decision public to help enforce it in the future, since neighbors would be closely watching him. In surrendering, he was not trying to gain merit with God, he was merely handing over to God that which had already been purchased by the death of Christ.

Development of His Character

The death of his father brought the responsibility to care for his family and surrendering his dreams of a career in law. It was at that time that he also put his trust in Jesus and overcame the demon of worry (See "Overcoming Worriment"). Because his mother was an invalid—she was paralyzed—he found himself tasked with gently caring for her for many years, including sleeping in the room next to his mother's so that he could attend to her during the night. Later, being tested by a much anticipated ice harvest being washed away, and dealing perhaps a fatal blow to his ice business, he fully surrendered his life to God (See the "Business Owner's Testimony" and the "Dedicated Life.") He suffered much illness—one time to the point that all of his friends assumed he would die (Find the detail in the Sure Shepherd).

Life Verse

Probably Romans 12:1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

His Ministry

His first ministry-oriented role was teaching a small group of men at the YMCA in Columbia, PA. This work continued from 1891 to 1937. In 1897 he authored the Three-Fold Secret of the Holy Spirit, which originally appeared as a series of articles in a Christian periodical. It was about that time that he was deeply impressed with the text: Freely ye have received; freely give," which resulted in his giving his books away for free in collaboration with a young Christian businessman. So James wrote, the other man distributed them. Slowly donations began coming to cover the costs of printing. Whenever they needed to print another edition of a book, he found there was sufficient funds to print the next edition. By the time his biography was published, 430,000 copies had been printed. Read what he wrote about his printing efforts.

Remuneration for His Services

McConkey not only provided his books free of charge to those who requested them and he paid his staff, but he personally refused any compensation for his work, as attested in the following:

"'I wish all our young theological students could read it to get the beneﬁt of it early in their ministry. I am sending you $1.00 to help in its distribution.’ Such letters were Mr. McConkey’s pay-envelopes, the only ones he ever received from the Silver Publishing Society. He contended that salaries equivalent to the wages paid elsewhere for similar work should be paid those in his ofﬁce, but he would never accept one cent of salary for himself. His own living was provided by the Lord in other ways. There are some things, as we all realize, that are too precious to be appraised— a patriot could not be paid for giving his life to his country, a good mother could not set a price on her service to her child; no amount of money could com- pensate a man for giving his all! Of course no real mother would ever want pay for bringing up her child, and a man who loved enough to give his all would not desire remuneration. Just so with James McConkey. The messages themselves had cost his all. They would never have been fraught with power such as they were, if the author had not ﬁrst presented his body a living sacriﬁce; so, dispensing with a salary was a small matter compared with his early struggle to surrender the will."—McCraw, James H. McConkey, p. 80,81.

Marriage

James McConkey remained single, often living in the large family home in Wrightsville, PA that had been purchased by his sister Margaret and her husband. Later he moved to Pittsburgh where his books were printed and distributed.

Quick Facts-Related Testimonies of McConkey

A Business Owner's Testimony

“You gave everything to God. You say you are going to trust God with your business. Is this the way He rewards you? Your business will be swept away, and tomorrow you will come into a place of desperate financial distress.” And I found my heart growing bitter at the prospect of God taking away my business when I only wanted it for legitimate purposes. Then another voice whispered: “My child, did you mean it when you said you would trust me? Can you trust me in the dark as well as in the light? Would I do anything, or suffer anything to come into your life which would not work out for your good?” Then came the other voice: “But it is hard. Why shouldn’t God spare Your ice? Why should He take your business when it is clean and honest and you want to use it in the right way?” It was a very plausible sort of voice, and for the moment I did not detect the serpent hiss in the word “why.”. (Read testimony of how God intervened in his life while he was a business person.)

Overcoming Worriment

“I went upstairs. I threw myself upon my knees in my bedchamber. I cried out in my agony of soul— ‘Oh, Christ! He says I must overcome worriment. And Thou alone knowest how I have tried to do so. I have fought. I have struggled. I have wept bitter tears. And I have failed. 0 Lord Jesus, unless Thou dost undertake for me now it is all over with me!’ Then and there I threw myself in utter self-helplessness upon Christ. Somehow, where before I had been struggling I now found myself trusting as I had never quite done before. (Read the rest of this testimony taken from (Beauty for Ashes.")

Freely Ye Have Received

On this page you will learn how God led him to distribute his books for free.

Sermons of James McConkey

On Prayer

“God, the eternal God of the universe, stands, as it were, like an almighty servant and says, “If you, my child, will only pray I will work; if you will only be busy with asking I will see to the doing. Not only does He bestow at our crying, but He acts. Not only does our praying evoke His bounty, it sets in motion His omnipotence. Wherefore, as we enter into the secret chamber of prayer, nothing will so stir us to mighty intercession, nothing will so soon make us master-pleaders with God for a lost world, as to whisper to our own soul, again and again this wonderful truth, “while I am praying God is really doing that which I am asking.” (Read more of this chapter on prevailing in prayer)

"Prayer comes to its own; enters into its lawful heritage of mighty power only with men who have reached the end of themselves and are clinging to God. Power in prayer did not come to Jacob while he strove in his own strength, but when he clung in his own helplessness. “What poor humans are we, that God must needs let us be driven into the stress of necessity and helplessness because in no other way can he constrain us to betake ourselves to prayer to Him! Yet it is even so. Do we pray when the wind is a-beam, the skies fair, and our ship running free before the breeze? Nay, but when the mast is overboard, the rudder gone, and the ship in the trough—then we pray. Do we pray when our loved ones are in prosperity, health, and strength? Nay, but when the sober-faced physician shakes his head, and says he has done all he can, and death’s shadow settles down over the chamber of a precious one—then we pray. Strength is self-reliant and thinks it needs no God. But weakness is driven to God-reliance and there learns the secrets of the prayer life. Helplessness begets dependence—dependence leads to prayer; and prayer brings power. Out of our own insufficiency into God’s sufficiency, by the pathway of prayer, is the secret of power. Wherefore self-strength may be worse than weakness. For the weak man learns to cling and pray. But the strong one stays self-centered and misses God.”

"God is so near, and the arrows of prayer so swift in their course, and our Father so waitingly intent for every cry of prayer that starts on its upward way, that it does not take long to go in. In an instant of doubt: at the ﬁrst pang of distress: with the ﬁrst mis-step of a mistaken course: in the ﬁrst second of a ﬁerce temptation, we may go in. Amid the rush of trafﬁc, the fever of a hurried day, the pressure of a strained and suffering one you may go in, if for but a second or two of precious approach. You may lift your heart in it all and whisper-”God help me; deliver me: give me strength: guide me: suffer not my foot to slip.” And He will hear you. And you will learn the sweet lesson of how quickly and how easily we may go in, in this so sorely needful life of prayer."

The Miracle of Bread

This is a sweet story about how God helped a mother of seven at a time of great need!

James McConkey on Knowing God's Will (Divine Guidance)

Prayer and God's Will

"Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." Each friend stood ready to do that which pleased the other friend, even if it went to the laying down of his life for that friend. Well, can this be true of God, that He does our will? Listen:—"If ye abide in Me. and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Behold the marvel and the blessing of the prayer life! God's wonderful fact that, for the man or the woman who is abiding in Him, He stands ready to do their will, through prayer. Why should it not be so? When we ask God to do anything according to His will, why should He not do it? God is just as pleased to do that part of His will for which you ask, as any part of His will in the universe. It is for the honor, and glory, and interest of God to do your will, when you are asking according to His will. Out there on those great wheat farms in the western prairies is not the owner ready to do the superintendent's will as well as the superintendent to do the owner's will? If the harvesting machine gets out of order, and the superintendent asks for its repair, it is to the interest of the owner to repair it. If the grain is mildewed and spoiling, and the superintendent asks for hands to harvest it, it is to the interest of the owner to answer his request. So when we live in His will, and are striving to do His will, it is to the interest of God's own kingdom that that will be done, and it pleases God to do it. God is just waiting for us to choose His will. And when we choose to do His will, and ask for anything according to it, He will do it. I tell you, the greatest thought about prayer is not that we are praying to God to do something for us, but that we are praying to God to carry out His will in this world of His. And when we pray that, God stands ready to carry it out. "Ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done." When we say, "Lord, I will to separate myself from sin; I will to come out from the emptiness and foolishness of the world; I will to walk closer with Thee; I will to know more of Thy power through communion with Thee, through Thy Word, through separation and service;" when we choose these things which are within the will of God, He is ready to do our will, because He is simply doing His own will in us."

Prayer and the Will of God

"Haste is the parent of nine-tenths of our mistakes concerning the will of God. The man who hurries has many missteps to wearily retrace, whereas the man who waits has but few. Waiting on God is a kind of spiritual filter. The sediment of darkness and error precipitates for the man who waits, and the clear and luminous truth remains. Do not allow yourself to be driven to inconsiderate decisions under any pretext of haste. When you are in doubt you have a sure call to wait." (This chapter from McConkey's book on prayer is very instructive on how to know God's will.)

he God-Planned Life

"Reader, do you say that your plans have been crushed? Thank God and take heart. Have you not long since learned that the best place for many of your plans is the trash pile? And that often you must fling them there before your blinded eyes can see God’s own better plan for your life? And how is it with your life? Has sin blighted it? Have mistakes of early years seemingly wrecked it? Have joy and sweetness vanished from it? Does there seem nought left for you but to walk its weary treadmill until its days of darkness and drudgery shall end? Then know this: Jesus Christ is a matchless life mender. Try Him. He will take that seemingly shattered life and fashion a far more beautiful one from its fragments than you yourself could ever have wrought from the whole. In Him your weary soul shall find its longed-for rest. And the fragments that remain of God’s heritage of life to you shall mean, in gladsome days to come, more than all the vanished years that are crooning their sad lament in your innermost soul tonight." (Read all of this sermon)

James McConkey on Healing

James McConkey on Surrender

Not Only Take Your Hands Off, But Let Him Put His Hands On

“Not only are we to commit our lives to God, but we must also allow Him to have His way with them. The committal of all things must be accompanied by the submission in all things. When we yield our lives, we yield our plans concerning our lives, and accept God’s dealings with them. Not only “commit your way unto the Lord,” but “trust also in Him.” Not only take your hands off, but let Him put His hands on, however He may see fit. Many mistakes are made here. We commit the clay into the potter’s hands, but we do not remain under those hands. We commit the marble to the divine sculptor, but we do not relish His use of the chisel. We commit our ship to the broad ocean of His will and purpose, but we do not like the way He directs at the helm. Therefore when the potter begins shaping with painful pressure, the sculptor hammers and chisels, and the helmsman steers into the teeth of a dispiriting, heart-rending, tempest, we shrink from the pressured hammer blows and turn from the turbulent, unanticipated, swells.”

“But we must not do this. For God alone knows what is best for the life that has been placed in His hands. He alone sees the preparation needed for an eternal existence hereafter. We only know a little about its present; He knows its end “from the beginning.” He alone knows how to shape it for His perfect purpose. Only He knows what will best achieve its eternal weight of glory in the ages to come. But to do this, He needs a submitted will. He cannot work the desires of His Father-heart for us if we shrink, waver, and rebel under the new and unexpected treatment. The “commit” that puts all into His hands, needs the “trust also” that keeps all things under His hands. Therefore we must not only fully commit everything to God’s keeping, but trustfully submit to God’s shaping chastening. Let us not only give ourselves into His hands, but also stay under His hands as He deals to us that which is best from His standpoint, however grievous it may seem from ours. As we deliberately and irrevocably commit everything to His keeping, let us say to Him: “Lord, I don’t know what is best for this life, but You do. While I pursued my own will concerning it, I only found failure, mistake, fruitlessness, and disappointment. Now, yielding it to You, I also submit to Your will concerning it. As You see fit, send prosperity or adversity, rest or toil, service or suffering, abasement or exaltation, crucifixion or glorification, the midnight darkness of need or the noonday blaze of fullness in You. Continue the work of your hands, do not spare your chastening efforts, and keep the furnace fires burning, until Your perfect work is accomplished with me. By Your grace I will walk with You regardless of the path you have chosen for me. I will trust You when I cannot see You. I will submit to You when I cannot understand You. I choose to yield myself wholly, absolutely, and irrevocably, in humble, trustful submission, to You and Your blessed will.”

“In the fashioning and keeping of our lives there are no hands as safe as God’s. He has planned those lives in Christ Jesus from the beginning of time. He knows their strengths and their weaknesses; He knows how to mold them to achieve their destined end; He knows the place which He has prepared for them; He knows the preparation needed; He knows their limitations and their possibilities. He knows how they can be made to so glorify Him and advance His kingdom that their influence shall last through all eternity.” James McConkey, adapted from “Committal,”

All the Fullness You Make Room For

“The question is have you YIELDED? Bought with a price, and not your own, have you taken your hands off your own life and consecrated it wholly, unﬂinchingly, eternally to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be His loving bond-slave forever? It is not now a question of His fullness; that is limitless. It is a question of your receptiveness, your surrender. Is He worthy of trust, of absolute trust? Then how child-like will you trust Him? How absolutely will you yield to Him? With what self-abandonment will you throw yourself upon Him? How far up toward the height of His perfect surrender will you climb? He will meet you where you meet Him. The only limit to His fullness is that which you impose in the limitation of your surrender. The more absolutely, sweepingly, irrevocably you yield yourself, time, talents, possessions, plans, hopes, aspirations, purposes, yea all to Jesus Christ, vouching yourself His loving bond-slave to do and suffer His will, the more you shall know the blessed fullness of His Spirit. You may have all the fullness you will make room for. James McConkey 3-Fold Secret of the Holy Spirit”

The Committal

"God would not only have us yield all that we are to His service, but all that we have to His keeping. He would have His yielded children to be at perfect rest and peace concerning all the varied interests of their lives. He would have them "anxious in nothing;" "casting all their care upon Him;" "kept in perfect peace" because they trust in Him. Essential to this is the great lesson of committal. For perfect peace has its human condition in a perfect committal. This would He have us fulfill that He may show His perfect power over to keep." (Marvelous on how to commit one's life to God)

The Yielded Life

"There is for us here a life of infinite privilege. It is a life of separation and servantship; of peace and power; of conscious communion with, and approval of our God; of unbounded joy and successful service; of triumph over besetting sin; a life rich, blessed, precious, and mighty in Christ Jesus; a life any less than which is too poor for the Spirit born offspring of the God of all grace, glory and power;--the life surrendered to God. Such a yielded life is as normal, natural, and expected by Him, as the unyielded life is an anomaly, astonishment, and grief to His heart." (Another convicting sermon of James McConkey)

The Believer's Gift to God.

"What costly mistakes we make here. This life, which we shall live but once; this life, with which every unsuccessful experiment means eternal loss; this life, the most solemn and precious trust that can be put into human keeping--we dare to lay our hands upon, and abase it from God's eternal destiny to our own selfish ends. The unskilled child essays to run the delicate and costly mechanism of a great locomotive, of whose power and possibilities the child knows absolutely naught. There is but one result. The great machine "runs wild," and wreck and ruin follow its unguided flight. Even so are we who lay our hands upon these lives of ours, regardless of our Lord's claim upon them. Sad wreck do we make of them. Disappointments, baffled plans, darkness, clouding of God's presence, suffering, break-downs,--bodily, mental and spiritual,--and utter failure are the woeful results. And then after years of disappointment and failure, we hand over to God the marred remnant for Him to use. And yet even then how good our Lord is! How great His grace; how tender His love! Without a word of chiding or a whisper of reproach, He deigns to take what is left. He puts the past under the blood. He glorifies Himself unspeakably with the yielded remnant, using it as best He can. Withal, while this is His second best for us; while, possibly, these years of disappointment and affliction were His only mean of bringing us to Himself, let us ever remember that His best is always that, like the Macedonians we 'first give our own selves to the Lord," and then to the life work which has been ordained for us "by the will of God.'" (Read all of The Believer's Gift to God)

The Dedicated Life

"Jesus Christ, our loving Lord, stands here tonight. He stretches forth His hands, pierced with cruel nails for you and me. He points to the wound in His side, made by the blood-thirsty spear. He shows you the scars on His forehead, made by the crown of thorns. He says, 'My child, behold My mercies to you. I saved you from the guilt of sin; I brought you from death unto life; I gave you the Spirit of God. Someday I will glorify your body and will make you to sit down with Me on My throne. My child, by My mercies, I beseech you.' You say, 'Lord what do you want from me?' He answers, 'I want you. I want you for My kingdom and My service. I beseech you, by My mercies to you, give your life to Me.'" (Read the rest of James McConkey's important sermon on dedicating one's life to God).

James McConkey on Victory

Helplessness Brings Victory

"Work it out in love. Work it out in daily, faithful ministry. Work it out as God works in you. But more than that, You may miss it. You may fall short of God’s perfect plan for your life. Therefore work it out ‘with fear and trembling’! .... Trembling—lest the god of this world blind you to the vision of service which God is ever holding before you. Trembling—lest the low standard of life in fellow Christians about you lead you to drop yours to a like groveling level. .... Trembling—lest some little circle in the dark ends of the earth should fail of the giving, the praying, or the going which God has long since planned for you. Trembling—lest the voices of worldly pleasure and ambition dull and deafen your ears to the one voice which is ever whispering, ‘Follow thou me; follow thou me.’"

"A Drowning boy was struggling in the water. On shore stood his mother in an agony of fright and grief. By her side stood a strong man seemingly indifferent to the boy's fate. Again and again did the suffering mother appeal to him to save her boy. But he made no move. By and by, the desperate struggles of the boy began to abate. He was losing strength. Presently he arose to the surface, weak and helpless. At once the strong man leaped into the stream and brought the boy in safety to the shore. "Why did you not save my boy sooner?" cried the now grateful mother. "Madam, I could not save your boy so long as he struggled. He would have dragged us both to certain death. But when he grew weak, and ceased to struggle, then it was easy to save him." To struggle to save ourselves is simply to hinder Christ from saving us. To come to the place of faith, we must pass from the place of effort to the place of accepted helplessness. Our very efforts to save ourselves turn us aside from that attitude of helpless dependence upon Christ which is the one attitude we need to take in order that He may save us. It is only when we "cease from our own works" and depend thus helplessly upon Him that we realize how perfectly able He is to save without any aid from us."

Jacob's Struggles

"How gladly would Jacob have broken away from that mighty grasp. How quickly would he have fled away into the darkness and the night if he could have. But the unseen wrestler would not let him go until He had conquered him — because He loved him. A kind-hearted surgeon is pressing the keen knife into the cancer, which is eating out our life. He holds our struggling hand with steady grasp. He will not let us go, however much we are suffering. We look up into his face and cry out, “I suffer; let me go.” But he says, "I will not let you go until I have my way of blessing with you. I will not let you go—because I love you.” "Read the rest of this wonderfully instructive chapter from Life Talks.)

A Boy Saved

In this short piece, McConkey relates how a boy was only resuced from drowning AFTER he became tired and stopped struggling. McConkey points out that the need to stop struggling and start trusting is equally necessary when it comes to salvation. (Read all of this short article.)

James McConkey on Revival and the Holy Spirit

Absolute Surrender is the Secret of the Spirit's Fullness

“What then is the secret of (the Holy Spirit’s) fullness, of His abundant life of Peace, Power, and Love? We answer: The absolute unqualified surrender of our life to God, to do His will instead of our own. Thus, when we surrender our sins and believe, we receive the Holy Spirit; when we surrender our lives and believe, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. The receiving of the Spirit is God’s answer to repentance and faith; the fullness of the Spirit is God’s answer to surrender and faith. At conversion the Spirit enters; at surrender the Spirit, already entered, takes full possession. The supreme, human condition of the fullness of the Spirit is a life wholly surrendered to God to do His will.” The Three-Fold Secret of the Holy Spirit, p. 43

"Every Christian, that is, every one who repents and believes, confesses and is baptized, has received Christ into his life, and therefore has received the Holy Spirit ; but there is a fulness of the Spirit which is more than this. " When we surrender our sins and believe, we receive the Holy Spirit ; when we surrender our lives and believe, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. The receiving of the Spirit is God's answer to repentance and faith ; the fulness of the Spirit is God's answer to surrender and faith."

"James McConkey said at one time that he believed that a few men had a monopoly on the Holy Spirit. ‘But now,’ he said, ‘I know that the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on a few men.’” Quoted in Promises of God by H. M. S. Richards

James McConkey on Faith and Trusting God

Real Victory is Trusting God

The real battle is the "First . . . unto God" struggle. Real victory is trusting His will without worrying about what His will may be or where His will may lead. The battle is over yielding ourselves to God, rather than a struggle over going to a foreign mission field against an unyielding will. When the struggle to give ourselves wholly to God is settled, the the other battles have been won. Then the Holy Spirit can fill the wholly yielded life with such happy obedience that following God's special direction will be our joy and delight. God does not call us to surrender to a field or a calling; rather to yield ourselves in blank to Him. The real issue is not, will I go to Africa, but do I trust God enough to place my life in His hands, regardless of the particular place or form of service to which He may direct.

“When you commit your case into the hands of a physician you wisely allow him to have his way. Be equally wise with God. Be patient while He works in you. You cannot deny self and leap with one bound into a full person in Christ Jesus. Self cannot be dethroned in one blow, for not only are you to deny self, but your are to perfect and further that denial by living it daily. (Luke 9:23.) Initially you will not see the full meaning of surrender; you could not bear it. At first you will not have a complete revelation of the self-life; it would break your heart to see yourself all at once and you would be filled with despair.”

"Much of our prayer life consists in beseeching God to surround us with a new set of circumstances. Instead of that we should pray for grace to stay under the present circumstances while He works out in us His purpose of Christ-likeness. God does not need a new set of circumstances to make you Christ-like. All He needs is for you to "stay under" the old set with which He has environed your life. I question if there is any Christian reading these lines who needs a change of circumstances as much as he needs that Christ-like change in himself which God is seeking to work out as he stays under his present conditions."

"Cease treating the daily round of your life as a common thing. It is holy ground. Every day is aflame with the presence of God, even though your blinded eyes fail to recognize it. Every golden hour is a tiny square in the mosaic of God's beautiful pattern for your life. Every opportunity is a holy chance to win a soul from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Every distress and necessity is but a new lesson in the matchless school of patience, teaching you how to "stay under" the hand of the skilled Potter who is fashioning you as a vessel of honor and glory for all eternity. Every pang of suffering is a golden milestone which marks your progress from the doing of the desires of the flesh, into the broad and boundless place of the will of God, whose length, breadth, height, and depth it will take all time to reveal, and all eternity to fulfill to its uttermost."

"Faith is dependence upon God. And this God-dependence only begins when self-dependence ends. And self-dependence only comes to its end with some of us when sorrow, suffering, affliction, broken plans and hopes bring us to that place of self-helplessness where we throw ourselves upon God in seeming utter helplessness and defeat. And only then do we wake to find that we have learned the lesson of faith: to find our tiny craft of life rushing onward to a blessed victory of life and power and service undreamt of in the days of our fleshly strength and self-reliance. Oh, the victory of what the world would call a broken life! Broken in self-strength to find the strength of God: broken in fortune to find the riches of God: broken in earthly pleasure-quests to find the joy of God."

James McConkey on Trials and Suffering

The Ministry of Suffering

"Do not grow bitter against God, my friend, because of your sorrow. Do not set your forehead as brass against His loving dealing with you. Do not push away the most mysterious tool in the Divine Graver’s hand, yet the one by which He chisels out the ﬁnest tracery of the Christ-image in your shrinking soul. For it is a solemn fact which some of us know all too well that sorrow leaves us either closer to God or farther away. It is a double- edged tool. It either scars or beautiﬁes. By our resistance we may make it a head-wind bafﬂing and driving our tiny craft back from its destined haven of rest. But by our submission God will make it to be a favoring one to waft us onward into the safety and tranquil rest of His perfect will." (Read all of McConkey's sermon on suffering)

Holy Ground

"Cease treating the daily round of your life as a common thing. It is holy ground. Every day is aﬂame with the presence of God, even though your blinded eyes fail to recognize it. Every golden hour is a tiny square in the mosaic of God’s beautiful pattern for your life. Every opportunity is a holy chance to win a soul from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Every distress and necessity is but a new lesson in the matchless school of patience, teaching you how to “stay under” the hand of the skilled Potter who is fashioning you as a vessel of honor and glory for all eternity. Every pang of suffering is a golden milestone which marks your progress from the doing of the desires of the ﬂesh, into the broad and boundless place of the will of God, whose length, breadth, height, and depth it will take all time to reveal, and all eternity to fulﬁll to its uttermost." (Read all of Holy Ground)

Beauty for Ashes

"Thanks be to God this gospel of ours does not end at the graves’ mouth. It reaches forward through the sullen gates of death, lays hold of the crumbling, corruptible bodies of our dead in Christ, and gives them back to us in the resurrection moment, the deathless glory of Him who shall give his beauty for ashes in a sense and with the riches which our wild dreams of reunion could never have conceived, but of which the eternal Word of God makes us unerringly and undefeatedly sure." (Read all of this short essay on trusting God in spite of the ravages of death.)

The Sure Shepherd

If sheep could talk, and a wise and a foolish sheep were holding converse, I fancy the foolish sheep would speak after this fashion: “I know where the crystal brook babbles from the grotto, and I shall never want for drink. I know where the great oak spreads its leafy branches, and I shall not want for shade. I know the green pastures of tender grass, and I shall never want for food. I know where the door of the fold stands wide open, and I shall never want for refuge. I know these things and I shall never want.” And then I hear the wise sheep answering thus: “Oh! Foolish sheep! Suppose the pastures of green and tender grass should dry up, what would you do for food? Suppose the woodman comes and cuts down the spreading oak tree, where would be your shade? Suppose the sun of summer dries up the babbling brook, how would you quench your thirst? Suppose the gaunt great wolf leaps into the fold, where would you go for protection? “Oh, foolish sheep! I have a better reason than yours for not wanting. I have the best shepherd in the world, therefore I shall not want. If the brook dries up, He will find another for me. If the tree is cut down by the woodman’s ax, He will lead me to the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. If the pastures dry up in the summer’s sun, He knows how to find others. And when the wolf comes, He will lay down His life, if need be, for His sheep. Oh, foolish sheep! I shall never want; not because I trust in things that may change, or men that prove false, but in the Shepherd who changeth not nor doth He ever fail.” (Read the rest o the Sure Shepherd)

Books by James H. McConkey

The Surrendered Life

"Make no reservation with God. Let the act of surrender sweep IN every interest, plan, power, and possession of your being. Let one foot of the compass be pivoted at the very center the heart and will and let the other describe a circle to its most distant horizon, omitting nothing from its encircling bounds. As there is no detail of our lives beneath the notice of a loving God, there should be none too trivial to yield to Him. Of course all God asks is sincere-heartedness, not omniscience. He does not expect us to see at a flash all the details which are comprehended in the act of consecration. The God of love whose worship included a sacrifice for sins of ignorance bears very gently with such ignorance in His children. All he asks is that we yield honestly all we do see, and yield trustfully all we do not see but which He may in days to come show us to be comprehended in our act. Let us be sincerely minded to be wholly His, "and if in anything ye are otherwise minded even this will God reveal unto you." So if our hearts are honest in purpose and act, let us not come into the bondage of fearing that we have rot compassed everything in our act of surrender and that therefore God accepts it not. This is grave error. Our God is not unreasonable and arbitrary, but tender, loving, compassionate. The consecration of our life, with an honest heart, tip to our best light and understanding of consecration, is perfectly satisfactory and acceptable to Him." (Read the rest of what I believe is the best book on written on this practical subject.)

The Three-Fold Secret of the Holy Spirit

"The ﬁrst thing we need clearly to see is that EVERY CHILD OF GOD HAS RECEIVED THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. It is of the greatest importance, in the search for the secret of the abundant life, that this glorious fact should be clearly seen and accepted by the believer. For if he has not received the Holy Ghost, then his attitude should be that of waiting, petitioning, and seeking for the gift which is not yet his. But if he has received the Holy Ghost, then he must take an entirely different attitude, namely, not of waiting and praying for the Holy Ghost to be received but of yielding and surrendering to Him who has already been received." (Read all of this book which was considered by many to be the best book ever written on receiving the Holy Spirit)

Testimonial on Three-Fold Secret Book

"There in that street car, deliberately, calmly and earnestly, closing the book and shutting my eyes, I lifted my soul in prayer to God and surrendered my life and will to do his will to the end of my life. That was all. No miracle happened. No fire fell from heaven. The next day I was outwardly the same as usual, excepting that this new resolution which I had formed was beginning to mold and guide my life. Shortly afterwards the first great test came in a temptation that crossed my path. I decided as God would have it, and soon afterward I received my first conscious baptism of the power of the Holy Spirit. This resulted in an ecstasy of the soul, a new Joy and a wonderful peace. I had never known it before and did not imagine it was possible this side of heaven."

This testimonial comes from an individual who experienced transformation as a result of reading this book and fulling surrendering his life for all time to God. You will be greatly blessed i reading this testimonial! (Read the testimonial.)

Prevailing Intercessory Prayer

Prevailing & Intercessory Prayer That Works!