From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening...
Psalm 36:9
In Thy light shall we see light.
No lips can tell the love of Christ to the heart till Jesus Himself shall
speak within. Descriptions all fall flat and tame unless the Holy Ghost fills
them with life and power; till our Immanuel reveals Himself within, the soul
sees Him not. If you would see the sun, would you gather together the common
means of illumination, and seek in that way to behold the orb of day? No, the
wise man knoweth that the sun must reveal itself, and only by its own blaze can
that mighty lamp be seen. It is so with Christ. "Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-jona:" said He to Peter, "for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto
thee." Purify flesh and blood by any educational process you may select,
elevate mental faculties to the highest degree of intellectual power, yet none
of these can reveal Christ. The Spirit of God must come with power, and
overshadow the man with His wings, and then in that mystic holy of holies the
Lord Jesus must display Himself to the sanctified eye, as He! doth not unto the
purblind sons of men. Christ must be His own mirror. The great mass of this
blear-eyed world can see nothing of the ineffable glories of Immanuel. He
stands before them without form or comeliness, a root out of a dry ground,
rejected by the vain and despised by the proud. Only where the Spirit has
touched the eye with eye-salve, quickened the heart with divine life, and
educated the soul to a heavenly taste, only there is He understood. "To you
that believe He is precious"; to you He is the chief corner-stone, the Rock of
your salvation, your all in all; but to others He is "a stone of stumbling and
a rock of offence." Happy are those to whom our Lord manifests Himself, for His
promise to such is that He will make His abode with them. O Jesus, our Lord,
our heart is open, come in, and go out no more for ever. Show Thyself to us
now! Favour us with a glimpse of Thine all-conquering charms.
1 John 2:15-17
(15) Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (16) For all
that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. (17) And the world
passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth
for ever.
John is not the only apostle who called upon the children of God
to keep themselves from being spiritually contaminated by the world. James
urges us "to keep oneself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27). The apostle
Paul makes a strong appeal in Romans 12:2, saying, "And do not be conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
This world is not God's world! Some have such a difficult time
grasping the practical ramifications of this concept, perhaps because we think
of God as Creator, Owner, and Ruler and marvel at the staggering beauty of what
He has made. In that sense it is His world.
Nonetheless, the systems that operate our cultures are not His.
The Greek word translated "world" in I John 2:16 is kosmos, which has a moral
connotation and means "the world apart from God." William Barclay in his
commentary on this verse writes, "To John the world was nothing other than
pagan society with its false values and its false gods" (p. 56).
The world's systems generate and sustain our government and
politics, entertainment, fashion, religion, business ethics, medicine and
health care, culinary tastes, social programs and institutions, education,
science and technology, economics, and use of power. The world's systems have
formed much of our belief systems and attitudes, and these in turn have shaped
our conduct.
These are the things we must overcome. And this world and its
systems are so appealing! But God says not to waste our love on them because
they have no future! In fact, this world is so bad that other prophecies show
the whole thing will be destroyed and replaced when God invokes the restitution
of all things (II Peter 3:10-11; Revelation 21:1).
The basic reason all must be destroyed is because at its very
foundation is a destroying and antagonistic spirit, Satan the Devil, the god of
this world. Henry David Thoreau grasped an important principle when he stated,
"Every institution is but the lengthened shadow of one man." As Jesus phrases
it, "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit" (Matthew 7:18). Satan is a
destroyer, and his way is at best a bad mixture of good and evil. James
confirms this when he asks this rhetorical question, "Does a spring send forth
fresh water and bitter from the same opening?" (James 3:11).
John W. Ritenbaugh
From This Is Not God's World
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
daily devotional
Evening...
2 Chronicles 30:27
Their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, even unto heaven.
Prayer is the never-failing resort of the Christian in any case, in every
plight. When you cannot use your sword you may take to the weapon of
all-prayer. Your powder may be damp, your bow-string may be relaxed, but the
weapon of all-prayer need never be out of order. Leviathan laughs at the
javelin, but he trembles at prayer. Sword and spear need furbishing, but prayer
never rusts, and when we think it most blunt it cuts the best. Prayer is an
open door which none can shut. Devils may surround you on all sides, but the
way upward is always open, and as long as that road is unobstructed, you will
not fall into the enemy's hand. We can never be taken by blockade, escalade,
mine, or storm, so long as heavenly succours can come down to us by Jacob's
ladder to relieve us in the time of our necessities. Prayer is never out of
season: in summer and in winter its merchandize is precious. Prayer gains
audience with heaven in the dead of night, in the midst! of business, in the
heat of noonday, in the shades of evening. In every condition, whether of
poverty, or sickness, or obscurity, or slander, or doubt, your covenant God
will welcome your prayer and answer it from His holy place. Nor is prayer ever
futile. True prayer is evermore true power. You may not always get what you
ask, but you shall always have your real wants supplied. When God does not
answer His children according to the letter, He does so according to the
spirit. If thou askest for coarse meal, wilt thou be angered because He gives
thee the finest flour? If thou seekest bodily health, shouldst thou complain if
instead thereof He makes thy sickness turn to the healing of spiritual
maladies? Is it not better to have the cross sanctified than removed? This
evening, my soul, forget not to offer thy petition and request, for the Lord is
ready to grant thee thy desires.
2 Corinthians 12:9
(9) And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength
is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
God's grace is sufficient for us. Grace in general terms is "favor." It
is what God favors us with, what He gives to us. It can include spiritual gifts
or physical things that He provides. By His grace, we have food to eat every
day, we have clothes to wear, and we have a roof over our heads or cars to
drive.
Paul considered his "thorn in the flesh" to be part of God's grace, a
hard thing to say. How could he say that an affliction that God allowed could
be part of His grace toward him? Because with an infirmity, whatever it
happened to be, God balanced out for Paul the revelations that he had received,
so that he would not become big-headed, sin presumptuously, and lose his
salvation.
It was good for Paul to be afflicted, because if he were not afflicted,
he just might have done something that he would have regretted, like
presumptuously taking upon himself too much, more than had given. So Paul says,
"I'm content being afflicted, because I know that God's grace is sufficient for
me. This affliction is good for me, helping me to make it into God's kingdom."
We have a hard time thinking this way. We consider this sort of
affliction to be evil, but Paul turns that on its head, saying, "No, it is
good, because with this affliction, I am weak, and because I am weak, then I
don't get the big head. Then Christ can work in and through me, and the work
gets done." So he was content.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
From Countering Presumptuousness
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