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Daily devotions for 10-02-2004:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: Looking Ahead
Evening Title: Beloved
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Morning: Looking Ahead
"The hope which is laid up for you in heaven." --Colossians 1:5
Our hope in Christ for the future is the mainspring and the mainstay of our joy here.
It
will animate our hearts to think often of heaven, for all that we can desire is
promised there.
Here we are weary and toilworn, but yonder is the land of rest where the sweat of
labour shall no more bedew the worker's brow, and fatigue shall be for ever banished.
To those who are weary and spent, the word "rest" is full of heaven. We are always in
the field of battle; we are so tempted within, and so molested by foes without, that
we have little or no peace; but in heaven we shall enjoy the victory, when the banner
shall be waved
aloft in triumph, and the sword shall be sheathed, and we shall hear our Captain say,
"Well done, good and faithful servant." We have suffered bereavement after
bereavement, but we are going to the land of the immortal where graves are unknown
things. Here sin is a constant grief to us, but there we shall be perfectly holy, for
there shall by no means enter into that kingdom anything which defileth. Hemlock
springs not up in the furrows of celestial fields.
Oh! is it not joy, that you are not to be in banishment for ever, that you are not to
dwell
eternally in this wilderness, but shall soon inherit Canaan? Nevertheless let it never
be said of us, that we are dreaming about the future and forgetting the present, let
the future sanctify the present to highest uses. Through the Spirit of God the hope of
heaven is the most potent force for the product of virtue; it is a fountain of joyous
effort, it is the corner stone of cheerful holiness. The man who has this hope in him
goes about his work with vigour, for the joy of the Lord is his strength. He fights
against temptation with ardour, for the hope of the next world repels the fiery darts
of the adversary. He can labour without present reward, for he looks for a reward in
the world to come.
Evening: Beloved
"A man greatly beloved." --Daniel 10:11
Child of God, do you hesitate to appropriate this title? Ah! has your unbelief made
you forget that you are greatly beloved too? Must you not have been greatly beloved,
to have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot? When God smote His only begotten Son for you, what was this but
being greatly beloved? You lived in sin, and rioted in it, must you not have been
greatly beloved for God to have borne so patiently with you? You were called by grace
and led to a
Saviour, and made a child of God and an heir of heaven. All this proves, does it not,
a very great and superabounding love? Since that time, whether your path has been
rough with troubles, or smooth with mercies, it has been full of proofs that you are a
man greatly beloved. If the Lord has chastened you, yet not in anger; if He has made
you poor, yet in grace you have been rich. The more unworthy you feel yourself to be,
the more evidence have you that nothing but unspeakable love could have led the Lord
Jesus to save such a soul as yours. The more demerit you feel, the clearer is the
display of the abounding love of God in having chosen you, and called you, and made
you an heir of bliss.
Now, if there be such love between God and us let us live in the influence and
sweetness of it, and use the privilege of our position. Do not let us approach our
Lord as though we were strangers, or as though He were unwilling to hear us--for we
are greatly beloved by our loving Father. "He that spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all
things?" Come boldly, O believer, for despite the whisperings of Satan and the
doubtings of thine own heart, thou art greatly beloved. Meditate on the exceeding
greatness and faithfulness of divine love this evening, and so
go to thy bed in peace.
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Daily devotions for 10-01-2004:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: First Fruits
Evening Title: Grace is Given
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Morning: First Fruits
"Pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."
--Song of Solomon 7:13
The spouse desires to give to Jesus all that she produces. Our heart has "all manner
of pleasant fruits," both "old and new," and they are laid up for our Beloved. At this
rich autumnal season of fruit, let us survey our stores. We have new fruits. We desire
to feel new life, new joy, new gratitude; we wish to make new resolves and carry them
out by new labours; our heart blossoms with new prayers, and our soul is pledging
herself to
new efforts. But we have some old fruits too.
There is our first love: a choice fruit that! and Jesus delights in it. There is our
first faith:
that simple faith by which, having nothing, we became possessors of all things. There
is our joy when first we knew the Lord: let us revive it. We have our old remembrances
of the promises. How faithful has God been! In sickness, how softly did He make our
bed! In deep waters, how placidly did He buoy us up! In the flaming furnace, how
graciously did He deliver us. Old fruits, indeed! We have many of them, for His
mercies have been more than the hairs of our head.
Old sins we must regret, but then we have had repentances which He has given us, by
which we have wept our way to the cross, and learned the merit of His blood. We have
fruits, this morning, both new and old; but here is the point--they are all laid up
for Jesus. Truly, those are the best and most acceptable services in which
Jesus is
the solitary aim of the soul, and His glory, without any admixture whatever, the end
of all
our efforts. Let our many fruits be laid up only for our Beloved; let us display them
when He is with us, and not hold them up before the gaze of men. Jesus, we will turn
the key in our garden door, and none shall enter to rob Thee of one good fruit from
the soil which Thou hast watered with Thy bloody sweat. Our all shall be Thine, Thine
only, O Jesus, our Beloved!
Evening: Grace is Given
"He will give grace and glory." --Psalm 84:11
Bounteous is Jehovah in His nature; to give is His delight. His gifts are beyond
measure precious, and are as freely given as the light of the sun. He gives grace to
His elect because He wills it, to His redeemed because of His covenant, to the called
because of His promise, to believers because they seek it, to sinners because they
need it. He gives grace abundantly, seasonably, constantly, readily, sovereignly;
doubly enhancing the value of the boon by the manner of its bestowal. Grace in all its
forms He freely renders to His people: comforting, preserving, sanctifying, directing,
instructing,
assisting grace, He generously pours into their souls without ceasing, and He always
will do so, whatever may occur. Sickness may befall, but the Lord will give grace;
poverty may happen to us, but grace will surely be afforded; death must cone but grace
will light a candle at the darkest hour. Reader, how blessed it is as years roll
round, and the leaves begin again to fall, to enjoy such an unfading promise as this,
"The Lord will give grace."
The little conjunction "and" in this verse is a diamond rivet binding the present with
the
future: grace and glory always go together. God has married them, and none can divorce
them. The Lord will never deny a soul glory to whom He has freely given to live upon
His grace; indeed, glory is nothing more than grace in its Sabbath dress, grace in
full bloom, grace like autumn fruit, mellow and perfected. How soon we may have glory
none can tell! It may be before this month of October has run out we shall see the
Holy City; but be the interval longer or shorter, we shall be glorified ere long.
Glory, the glory of
heaven, the glory of eternity, the glory of Jesus, the glory of the Father, the Lord
will
surely give to His chosen. Oh, rare promise of a faithful God!
Two golden links of one celestial chain:
Who owneth grace shall surely glory gain.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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