The secret of joy is not to wait until you feel happy, but to rise, by an act of faith, out of the depression which is dragging you down and begin to praise God as an act of choice. This is the meaning of such passages as these: Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice (Philippians 4:4). I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice (Philippians 1:18). Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations (James 1:2). In all these cases there is an evident struggle with sadness and then the triumphs of faith and praise. This is what is meant-at least in part-by the sacrifice of praise. A sacrifice is that which costs us something. And when a man or woman has some cherished grudge or wrong and is harboring it, nursing it, dwelling on it, and quite determined to enjoy a miserable time in selfish grumbling, it costs us no little sacrifice to throw off the morbid spell, to rise out of the mood of self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination and say, I will rejoice in the Lord (Habakkuk 3:18); I will count it all joy (James 1:2).
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A.B. Simpson (1843 - 1919)
Simpson is the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance Movement that began in Canada with a desire to promote missions and global evangelism. He was used powerfully of the Lord to unify many brothers and sisters in a common purpose of fulfilling the great commission.A.W. Tozer joined with the Missionary Alliance denomination because of the teachings of A.B. Simpson and specific his writings on holiness: "A Larger Christian Life." He wrote many hymns and added a great emphasis on the person of Jesus Christ in church-life.
FOUNDER OF THE Christian and Missionary Alliance, Albert Benjamin Simpson was born in Canada of Scottish parents. He became a Presbyterian minister and pastored several churches in Ontario. Later, he accepted the call to serve as pastor of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. It was there that his life and ministry were completely changed in that, during a revival meeting, he experienced the fullness of the Spirit.He continued in the Presbyterian Church until 1881, when he founded an independent Gospel Tabernacle in New York. There he published the Alliance Weekly and wrote 70 books on Christian living. He organized two missionary societies which later merged to become the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Albert Benjamin Simpson was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), an evangelical protestant denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism.
In December 1873, at age 30, Simpson left Canada and assumed the pulpit of the largest Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. It was in Louisville that he first conceived of preaching the gospel to the common man by building a simple tabernacle structure for that purpose. Despite his success at the Chestnut Street Church, Simpson was frustrated by their reluctance to embrace this burden for wider evangelistic endeavor.
Simpson’s heart for evangelism was to become the driving force behind the creation of the C&MA. Initially, the Christian and Missionary Alliance was not founded as a denomination, but as an organized movement of world evangelism. Today, the C&MA denomination plays a leadership role in global evangelism.