From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening...
Deuteronomy 1:38
Encourage him.
God employs His people to encourage one another. He did not say to an angel,
"Gabriel, my servant Joshua is about to lead my people into Canaan-go,
encourage him." God never works needless miracles; if His purposes can be
accomplished by ordinary means, He will not use miraculous agency. Gabriel
would not have been half so well fitted for the work as Moses. A brother's
sympathy is more precious than an angel's embassy. The angel, swift of wing,
had better known the Master's bidding than the people's temper. An angel had
never experienced the hardness of the road, nor seen the fiery serpents, nor
had he led the stiff-necked multitude in the wilderness as Moses had done. We
should be glad that God usually works for man by man. It forms a bond of
brotherhood, and being mutually dependent on one another, we are fused more
completely into one family. Brethren, take the text as God's message to you.
Labour to help others, and especially strive to encourage them. Talk cheerily
to the young and anxious enquirer, lovingly try to remove stumblingblocks out
of his way. When you find a spark of grace in the heart, kneel down and blow it
into a flame. Leave the young believer to discover the roughness of the road by
degrees, but tell him of the strength which dwells in God, of the sureness of
the promise, and of the charms of communion with Christ. Aim to comfort the
sorrowful, and to animate the desponding. Speak a word in season to him that is
weary, and encourage those who are fearful to go on their way with gladness.
God encourages you by His promises; Christ encourages you as He points to the
heaven He has won for you, and the spirit encourages you as He works in you to
will and to do of His own will and pleasure. Imitate divine wisdom, and
encourage others, according to the word of this evening.
Hebrews 10:24-25
(24) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to
good works: (25) Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see
the day approaching.
The New Testament stresses that Christians need the fellowship of
others of like mind. An identifying mark of the true church is that the members
have love for one another (John 13:35). Indeed, one of the criteria by which
Christ will judge us is how we treat our brethren in the church (Matthew
25:31-46). How can we love and serve one another if we do not fellowship with
and get to know each other?
God has given us ample instruction regarding how we should relate
to other Christians. It is His purpose to teach us how to get along with each
other so we can teach others about these things in the Millennium. We are to be
unselfish and concerned for the needs of others (Philippians 2:4). God wants us
to learn patience and forgiveness (Colossians 3:13), striving to be "kindly
affectionate," humble, and self-effacing in our dealings with one another
(Romans 12:10). We should be giving and hospitable to our brethren (verse 13).
The New Testament is replete with various admonitions on how we
should interact with our brothers and sisters in the church. Obviously, God
views our interaction with other Christians as vital to our training to become
members of the God Family and qualifying for a position in His Kingdom. He
wants us to develop interpersonal skills that equip us to deal with occasional
differences of opinion and offenses.
Our fellowship should be a source of encouragement to one
another. We should use this time to show love to our brethren and to motivate
them to perform acts of kindness and service for others. All of these
exhortations show a clear need for us to be part of an organization of God's
people. God's Sabbath service is like a weekly training school for Christians.
The spiritual food that God's true ministers prepare for us is vitally
important for our spiritual growth and development. In discussing the
relationship of the ministry to the church member, Paul explains that the
ministry is given
for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith
and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:12-13)
The interaction that we have with one another when we fellowship
at church services helps us to develop the fruit of God's Spirit-love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Paul shows that the church is truly Christ's
body, and like the human body, each part depends upon the other parts.
Earl L. Henn (1934-1997)
From For the Perfecting of the Saints
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daily devotional
Evening...
Job 7:12
Am I a sea, or a whale, that Thou settest a watch over me?
This was a strange question for Job to ask of the Lord. He felt himself to be
too insignificant to be so strictly watched and chastened, and he hoped that he
was not so unruly as to need to be so restrained. The enquiry was natural from
one surrounded with such insupportable miseries, but after all, it is capable
of a very humbling answer. It is true man is not the sea, but he is even more
troublesome and unruly. The sea obediently respects its boundary, and though it
be but a belt of sand, it does not overleap the limit. Mighty as it is, it
hears the divine hitherto, and when most raging with tempest it respects the
word; but self-willed man defies heaven and oppresses earth, neither is there
any end to this rebellious rage. The sea, obedient to the moon, ebbs and flows
with ceaseless regularity, and thus renders an active as well as a passive
obedience; but man, restless beyond his sphere, sleeps within the lines of
duty, indolent where he should be active. He will neither come nor go at the
divine command, but sullenly prefers to do what he should not, and to leave
undone that which is required of him. Every drop in the ocean, every beaded
bubble, and every yeasty foam-flake, every shell and pebble, feel the power of
law, and yield or move at once. O that our nature were but one thousandth part
as much conformed to the will of God! We call the sea fickle and false, but how
constant it is! Since our fathers' days, and the old time before them, the sea
is where it was, beating on the same cliffs to the same tune; we know where to
find it, it forsakes not its bed, and changes not in its ceaseless boom; but
where is man-vain, fickle man? Can the wise man guess by what folly he will
next be seduced from his obedience? We need more watching than the billowy sea,
and are far more rebellious. Lord, rule us for Thine own glory. Amen.
Hebrews 8:8
(8) For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the
house of Judah:
Note the plural pronoun "them." To this time, there was only one
covenant, so if he were referring to the covenant, he would have had to say,
"for finding fault with it." But God did not find fault with the Old Covenant.
Everything that God does is of the highest order, and the covenant He gave to
Israel was more than adequate for His intention at the time. It was not the
covenant that failed. It was them-the people-who failed. They did not live up
to what the covenant stipulated.
Everything God does is pure, right, and true. People who say the law is
done away and the Old Covenant was a failure imply that there was something
wrong with what God gave the people to do. God does not do things like that! We
cannot afford to allow that kind of thinking to get into our minds because it
puts us on the trail to error and will not help us in our relationship with
God. It will greatly affect the way we approach the Bible-the Word of God.
The Old Covenant is part of the Word of God, and Proverbs 30:5 says,
"Every word of God is pure." Therefore, the problem was not with the covenant
but was in the people. Specifically, the problem was in their hearts; they were
uncircumcised, to use the Bible's term. Their hearts were filled with self-will
and therefore rejected what God had to say.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From The Covenants, Grace and Law (Part 8)
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