From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening ...
Psalm 28:9
Lift them up for ever.
God's people need lifting up. They are very heavy by nature. They have no
wings, or, if they have, they are like the dove of old which lay among the
pots; and they need divine grace to make them mount on wings covered with
silver, and with feathers of yellow gold. By nature sparks fly upward, but the
sinful souls of men fall downward. O Lord, "lift them up for ever!" David
himself said, "Unto Thee, O God, do I lift up my soul," and he here feels the
necessity that other men's souls should be lifted up as well as his own. When
you ask this blessing for yourself, forget not to seek it for others also.
There are three ways in which God's people require to be lifted up. They
require to be elevated in character. Lift them up, O Lord; do not suffer Thy
people to be like the world's people! The world lieth in the wicked one; lift
them out of it! The world's people are looking after silver and gold, seeking
their own pleasures, and the gratification of the! ir lusts; but, Lord, lift
Thy people up above all this; keep them from being "muck-rakers," as John
Bunyan calls the man who was always scraping after gold! Set thou their hearts
upon their risen Lord and the heavenly heritage! Moreover, believers need to be
prospered in conflict. In the battle, if they seem to fall, O Lord, be pleased
to give them the victory. If the foot of the foe be upon their necks for a
moment, help them to grasp the sword of the Spirit, and eventually to win the
battle. Lord, lift up Thy children's spirits in the day of conflict; let them
not sit in the dust, mourning for ever. Suffer not the adversary to vex them
sore, and make them fret; but if they have been, like Hannah, persecuted, let
them sing of the mercy of a delivering God. We may also ask our Lord to lift
them up at the last! Lift them up by taking them home, lift their bodies from
the tomb, and raise their souls to Thine eternal kingdom in glory.
Morning ...
1 Peter 1:19
The precious blood of Christ.
Standing at the foot of the cross, we see hands, and feet, and side, all
distilling crimson streams of precious blood. It is "precious" because of its
redeeming and atoning efficacy. By it the sins of Christ's people are atoned
for; they are redeemed from under the law; they are reconciled to God, made one
with Him. Christ's blood is also "precious" in its cleansing power; it
"cleanseth from all sin." "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow." Through Jesus' blood there is not a spot left upon any
believer, no wrinkle nor any such thing remains. O precious blood, which makes
us clean, removing the stains of abundant iniquity, and permitting us to stand
accepted in the Beloved, notwithstanding the many ways in which we have
rebelled against our God. The blood of Christ is likewise "precious" in its
preserving power. We are safe from the destroying angel under the sprinkled
blood. Remember it is God's seeing the blood which is ! the true reason for our
being spared. Here is comfort for us when the eye of faith is dim, for God's
eye is still the same. The blood of Christ is "precious" also in its
sanctifying influence. The same blood which justifies by taking away sin, does
in its after-action, quicken the new nature and lead it onward to subdue sin
and to follow out the commands of God. There is no motive for holiness so great
as that which streams from the veins of Jesus. And "precious," unspeakably
precious, is this blood, because it has an overcoming power. It is written,
"They overcame through the blood of the Lamb." How could they do otherwise? He
who fights with the precious blood of Jesus, fights with a weapon which cannot
know defeat. The blood of Jesus! sin dies at its presence, death ceases to be
death: heaven's gates are opened. The blood of Jesus! we shall march on,
conquering and to conquer, so long as we can trust its power!
Matthew 8:14
(14) And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother
laid, and sick of a fever.
Mark 1:30
(30) But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him
of her.
Luke 4:38
(38) And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house.
And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him
for her.
The mention of "Peter's wife's mother" proves that Peter was married. His
wife was likely still living, as Paul later asks in I Corinthians 9:5, "Do we
have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles,
the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?" This indicates that several of the
apostles were married during their ministries.
Erroneously, Roman Catholics claim Peter to be the rock on which the
church was built, the vicar of Christ, and the first Pope. How can they
maintain, then, that it is wrong for "priests" to marry? If this were a sin,
why did Christ not immediately reject Peter as an apostle, since he had a wife?
It seems incredible that the Catholic Church would teach that Peter was its
"first Pope," a model to all his successors, yet forbid its priests to marry
despite his being a married man!
Priestly celibacy is specifically contrary to New Testament teaching (I
Timothy 4:1, 3). Paul instructs, "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband
of one wife, . . . one who rules his own house well, having his children in
submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own
house, how will he take care of the church of God?)" (I Timothy 3:2, 4-5).
Scripture makes no objection to God's ministers having a wife. As ! Hebrews
13:4 declares, "Marriage is honorable among all."
Martin G. Collins
From The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Peter's Mother-in-Law
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daily devotional
Evening ...
Isaiah 3:10
Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him.
It is well with the righteous ALWAYS. If it had said, "Say ye to the
righteous, that it is well with him in his prosperity," we must have been
thankful for so great a boon, for prosperity is an hour of peril, and it is a
gift from heaven to be secured from its snares: or if it had been written, "It
is well with him when under persecution," we must have been thankful for so
sustaining an assurance, for persecution is hard to bear; but when no time is
mentioned, all time is included. God's "shalls" must be understood always in
their largest sense. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year,
from the first gathering of evening shadows until the day-star shines, in all
conditions and under all circumstances, it shall be well with the righteous. It
is so well with him that we could not imagine it to be better, for he is well
fed, he feeds upon the flesh and blood of Jesus; he is well clothed, he wears
the imputed righteousness of Christ; he is well housed, he dwells in God; he is
well married, his soul is knit in bonds of marriage union to Christ; he is well
provided for, for the Lord is his Shepherd; he is well endowed, for heaven is
his inheritance. It is well with the righteous-well upon divine authority; the
mouth of God speaks the comforting assurance. O beloved, if God declares that
all is well, ten thousand devils may declare it to be ill, but we laugh them
all to scorn. Blessed be God for a faith which enables us to believe God when
the creatures contradict Him. It is, says the Word, at all times well with
thee, thou righteous one; then, beloved, if thou canst not see it, let God's
word stand thee in stead of sight; yea, believe it on divine authority more
confidently than if thine eyes and thy feelings told it to thee. Whom God
blesses is blest indeed, and what His lip declares is truth most sure and
steadfast.
Morning ...
Psalm 22:1
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
We here behold the Saviour in the depth of His sorrows. No other place so
well shows the griefs of Christ as Calvary, and no other moment at Calvary is
so full of agony as that in which His cry rends the air-"My God, my God, why
hast Thou forsaken me?" At this moment physical weakness was united with acute
mental torture from the shame and ignominy through which He had to pass; and to
make His grief culminate with emphasis, He suffered spiritual agony surpassing
all expression, resulting from the departure of His Father's presence. This was
the black midnight of His horror; then it was that He descended the abyss of
suffering. No man can enter into the full meaning of these words. Some of us
think at times that we could cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
There are seasons when the brightness of our Father's smile is eclipsed by
clouds and darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsake us.
It is only a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ's case it was a real
forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father's love; but the real
turning away of God's face from His Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony
which it caused Him? In our case, our cry is often dictated by unbelief: in His
case, it was the utterance of a dreadful fact, for God had really turned away
from Him for a season. O thou poor, distressed soul, who once lived in the
sunshine of God's face, but art now in darkness, remember that He has not
really forsaken thee. God in the clouds is as much our God as when He shines
forth in all the lustre of His grace; but since even the thought that He has
forsaken us gives us agony, what must the woe of the Saviour have been when He
exclaimed, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Ephesians 2:8
(8) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Where do we get the faith that is required for salvation?
Ephesians 2:8 answers: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." We cannot work it up—that would
be our effort (Isaiah 64:6).
Consider when God first started working with us. One year we were
clueless, the next year things were making sense. We read the Bible and
understood it, but more importantly, we believed it.
Where did that belief come from? It was, as Ephesians 2:8 says, a
gift from God. The real miracle is not that we understood, but rather that we
now believed those words we understood. And this happened only because God made
it possible.
What was the evidence that we believed those words? We began
living by them. Our new works and actions were the evidence of our faith:
keeping the Sabbath, tithing, eating habits, etc.
Just like Abraham, our actions showed our desire to begin a right
relationship with God motivated by His gift of faith. "Don't you remember that
our ancestor Abraham was declared right with God because of what he did when he
offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see, he was trusting God so much that
he was willing to do whatever God told him to do. His faith was made complete
by what he did—by his actions" (James 2:21-22, New Living Translation).
To complete our faith, are we willing to believe and do whatever
God tells us? Consider those first experiences as we began to believe. We faced
family pressure, work pressure, peer pressure, etc., to obey what we now
believed. What evidence did we have to back up our actions? All we had was
God's words. Armed with only those words, we willingly faced any opposition to
act on what God commands. Just like Abraham, it was our faith in those words
that encouraged us to obey and begin our journey, not knowing where we were
going (Hebrews 11:8).
At our baptism, could we have predicted all the twists and turns
our lives have taken since? Just like Israel's journey after baptism in the Red
Sea, God has taken us in a zigzag route across this wilderness we call life.
What was our evidence of things not seen? Only the words of God. That was the
only evidence we had then, and it is the only sure evidence we have now.
As we deal with our trials, do we remember that first love? Do we
remember the challenges we were willing to confront with only the words of God
as our evidence? It is no different today. Will we believe God or what we can
see? God needs to find out just as He did with Abraham—to "know" we will obey,
no matter what, until the end (Matthew 10:22).
To test our faith, God's pattern is to bring us to a point—a
brick wall or a Red Sea—that seemingly allows no escape. That is where He can
find out what is truly in our hearts—hearts of belief or evil unbelief (Hebrews
3:12). Will we believe Him or our eyes?
Pat Higgins
From Faith—What Is It?
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