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Daily devotions for 07-09-2005:
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.
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Daily devotions for 07-10-2005:
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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