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Daily devotions for 07-08-2004:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: Faith in a Promise
Evening Title: College of Grace
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Morning: Faith in a Promise
"Tell me I pray thee wherein thy great strength lieth."
--Judges 16:6
Where lies the secret strength of faith? It lies
in the food it feeds on; for faith studies what
the promise is--an emanation of divine grace, an
overflowing of the great heart of God; and faith
says, "My God could not have given this promise,
except from love and grace; therefore it is quite
certain His Word will be fulfilled."
Then faith thinketh, "Who gave this promise?" It
considereth not so much its greatness, as, "Who
is the author of it?" She remembers that it is
God who cannot lie--God omnipotent, God
immutable; and therefore concludeth that the
promise must be fulfilled; and forward she
advances in this firm conviction. She
remembereth, why the promise was given,--namely,
for God's glory, and she feels perfectly sure
that God's glory is safe, that He will never
stain His own escutcheon, nor mar the lustre of
His own crown; and therefore the promise must and will stand.
Then faith also considereth the amazing work of
Christ as being a clear proof of the Father's
intention to fulfil His word. "He that spared not
His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us
all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"
Moreover faith looks back upon the past, for her
battles have strengthened her, and her victories
have given her courage. She remembers that God
never has failed her; nay, that He never did once
fail any of His children. She recollecteth times
of great peril, when deliverance came; hours of
awful need, when as her day her strength was
found, and she cries, "No, I never will be led to
think that He can change and leave His servant now.
Hitherto the Lord hath helped me, and He will
help me still." Thus faith views each promise in
its connection with the promise-giver, and,
because she does so, can with assurance say,
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life!"
Evening: College of Grace
"Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me: for Thou art
the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day." --Psalm 25:5
When the believer has begun with trembling feet
to walk in the way of the Lord, he asks to be
still led onward like a little child upheld by
its parent's helping hand, and he craves to be
further instructed in the alphabet of truth.
Experimental teaching is the burden of this
prayer. David knew much, but he felt his
ignorance, and desired to be still in the Lord's
school: four times over in two verses he applies
for a scholarship in the college of grace. It
were well for many professors if instead of
following their own devices, and cutting out new
paths of thought for themselves, they would
enquire for the good old ways of God's own truth,
and beseech the Holy Ghost to give them
sanctified understandings and teachable spirits.
"For thou art the God of my salvation." The
Three-One Jehovah is the Author and Perfecter of
salvation to His people. Reader, is He the God of
your salvation? Do you find in the Father's
election, in the Son's atonement, and in the
Spirit's quickening, all the grounds of your
eternal hopes? If so, you may use this as an
argument for obtaining further blessings; if the
Lord has ordained to save you, surely He will not
refuse to instruct you in His ways.
It is a happy thing when we can address the Lord
with the confidence which David here manifests,
it gives us great power in prayer, and comfort in
trial. "On Thee do I wait all the day." Patience
is the fair handmaid and daughter of faith; we
cheerfully wait when we are certain that we shall
not wait in vain. It is our duty and our
privilege to wait upon the Lord in service, in
worship, in expectancy, in trust all the days of
our life. Our faith will be tried faith, and if
it be of the true kind, it will bear continued
trial without yielding. We shall not grow weary
of waiting upon God if we remember how long and
how graciously He once waited for us.
Daily devotions for 07-09-2004:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: His Benefits
Evening Title: Separated By Principle
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Morning: His Benefits
"Forget not all His benefits." --Psalm 103:2
It is a delightful and profitable occupation to
mark the hand of God in the lives of ancient
saints, and to observe His goodness in delivering
them, His mercy in pardoning them, and His
faithfulness in keeping His covenant with them.
But would it not be even more interesting and
profitable for us to remark the hand of God in
our own lives? Ought we not to look upon our own
history as being at least as full of God, as full
of His goodness and of His truth, as much a proof
of His faithfulness and veracity, as the lives of
any of the saints who have gone before?
We do our Lord an injustice when we suppose that
He wrought all His mighty acts, and showed
Himself strong for those in the early time, but
doth not perform wonders or lay bare His arm for
the saints who are now upon the earth. Let us
review our own lives. Surely in these we may
discover some happy incidents, refreshing to
ourselves and glorifying to our God. Have you had
no deliverances? Have you passed through no
rivers, supported by the divine presence? Have
you walked through no fires unharmed? Have you
had no manifestations? Have you had no choice favours?
The God who gave Solomon the desire of his heart,
hath He never listened to you and answered your
requests? That God of lavish bounty of whom David
sang, "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good
things," hath He never satiated you with fatness?
Have you never been made to lie down in green
pastures? Have you never been led by the still
waters? Surely the goodness of God has been the
same to us as to the saints of old.
Let us, then, weave His mercies into a song. Let
us take the pure gold of thankfulness, and the
jewels of praise and make them into another crown
for the head of Jesus. Let our souls give forth
music as sweet and as exhilarating as came from
David's harp, while we praise the Lord whose
mercy endureth for ever.
Evening: Separated By Principle
"And God divided the light from the darkness." --Genesis 1:4
A believer has two principles at work within him.
In his natural estate he was subject to one
principle only, which was darkness; now light has
entered, and the two principles disagree. Mark
the apostle Paul's words in the seventh chapter
of Romans: "I find then a law, that, when I would
do good, evil is present with me. For I delight
in the law of God after the inward man: but I see
another law in my members, warring against the
law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin, which is in my members."
How is this state of things occasioned? "The Lord
divided the light from the darkness." Darkness,
by itself, is quiet and undisturbed, but when the
Lord sends in light, there is a conflict, for the
one is in opposition to the other: a conflict
which will never cease till the believer is
altogether light in the Lord.
If there be a division within the individual
Christian, there is certain to be a division
without. So soon as the Lord gives to any man
light, he proceeds to separate himself from the
darkness around; he secedes from a merely worldly
religion of outward ceremonial, for nothing short
of the gospel of Christ will now satisfy him, and
he withdraws himself from worldly society and
frivolous amusements, and seeks the company of
the saints, for "We know we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren."
The light gathers to itself, and the darkness to
itself. What God has divided, let us never try to
unite, but as Christ went without the camp,
bearing His reproach, so let us come out from the
ungodly, and be a peculiar people. He was holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; and,
as He was, so we are to be nonconformists to the
world, dissenting from all sin, and distinguished
from the rest of mankind by our likeness to our Master.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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