From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening ...
Isaiah 54:1 Sing, O barren.
Though we have brought forth some fruit unto Christ, and have a joyful hope
that we are "plants of His own right hand planting," yet there are times when
we feel very barren. Prayer is lifeless, love is cold, faith is weak, each
grace in the garden of our heart languishes and droops. We are like flowers in
the hot sun, requiring the refreshing shower. In such a condition what are we
to do? The text is addressed to us in just such a state. "Sing, O barren, break
forth and cry aloud." But what can I sing about? I cannot talk about the
present, and even the past looks full of barrenness. Ah! I can sing of Jesus
Christ. I can talk of visits which the Redeemer has aforetimes paid to me; or
if not of these, I can magnify the great love wherewith He loved His people
when He came from the heights of heaven for their redemption. I will go to the
cross again. Come, my soul, heavy laden thou wast once, and thou didst lose thy
burden there. Go to Calvary again. Perhaps that very cross which gave thee life
may give thee fruitfulness. What is my barrenness? It is the platform for His
fruit-creating power. What is my desolation? It is the black setting for the
sapphire of His everlasting love. I will go in poverty, I will go in
helplessness, I will go in all my shame and backsliding, I will tell Him that I
am still His child, and in confidence in His faithful heart, even I, the barren
one, will sing and cry aloud. Sing, believer, for it will cheer thine own
heart, and the hearts of other desolate ones. Sing on, for now that thou art
really ashamed of being barren, thou wilt be fruitful soon; now that God makes
thee loath to be without fruit He will soon cover thee with clusters. The
experience of our barrenness is painful, but the Lord's visitations are
delightful. A sense of our own poverty drives us to Christ, and that is where
we need to be, for in Him is our fruit found.
Morning ...
Psalm 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God.
When Dr. Carey was suffering from a dangerous illness, the enquiry was made,
"If this sickness should prove fatal, what passage would you select as the text
for your funeral sermon?" He replied, "Oh, I feel that such a poor sinful
creature is unworthy to have anything said about him; but if a funeral sermon
must be preached, let it be from the words, 'Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to Thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of Thy tender
mercies blot out my transgressions.'" In the same spirit of humility he
directed in his will that the following inscription and nothing more should be
cut on his gravestone:-
WILLIAM CAREY, BORN AUGUST 17th, 1761:
DIED - -
"A wretched, poor, and helpless worm On Thy kind arms I fall."
Only on the footing of free grace can the most experienced and most honoured
of the saints approach their God. The best of men are conscious above all
others that they are men at the best. Empty boats float high, but heavily laden
vessels are low in the water; mere professors can boast, but true children of
God cry for mercy upon their unprofitableness. We have need that the Lord
should have mercy upon our good works, our prayers, our preachings, our
alms-givings, and our holiest things. The blood was not only sprinkled upon the
doorposts of Israel's dwelling houses, but upon the sanctuary, the mercy-seat,
and the altar, because as sin intrudes into our holiest things, the blood of
Jesus is needed to purify them from defilement. If mercy be needed to be
exercised towards our duties, what shall be said of our sins? How sweet the
remembrance that inexhaustible mercy is waiting to be gracious to us, to
restore our backslidings, and make our broken bones rejoice!
1 Peter 2:17
(17) Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
Peter, in three words, teaches a very difficult concept. He commands us
to "Honor the king." The historical background of his words should give us a
better perspective and teach us a powerful lesson.
Peter, having already written that we should honor all people, knew some
brethren would resist honoring Nero, the heathen Roman emperor. Nero was a
perverted madman, eventually hated by the Romans themselves. He had mercilessly
tortured and killed hundreds of Christians in various cruel and demeaning ways.
It is very difficult to expect Nero to be honored by someone whose mother had
been crucified and used as a human candle for one of Nero's garden parties!
The pattern that we have seen all along surfaces again here. Nero was
king. A king is to be honored, for he represents the office given him by God
(Romans 13:1). Whether the king is honorable or not, he is king, and God says
we should honor him as such. If we are resisting the power they have, we are
resisting God's ordinance (verse 2). Paul even calls the civil authorities
"ministers" or servants of God (verse 4).
In our time, we have seen a dishonored presidency. We do not need
details, as we have heard them over and over. If Peter were writing today, he
would say, "Honor the president." As badly as America's recent president has
conducted his personal life, it still pales besides Nero's life, many of whose
actions are unprintable. Regardless, Christians are still to honor him.
That is a tough order! Many of the early Christians no doubt despised
Nero's reckless, godless behavior. Some had personal reasons to hate him. The
commands from our King, however, remain the same: Forgive those who trespass
against you (Matthew 6:14). "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do
good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and
persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). Honor the king.
When we obey God's command to honor all people, we are following our
heavenly King and honoring Him. Then what happens? Jesus answers in John 12:26:
"If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will
be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor."
So first we humble ourselves, then give honor and respect even to those
who might appear to be unworthy of honor and respect. The result? God the
Highest, the Supreme Being in the entire universe, will personally bestow honor
and glory on those who have obeyed this and other commands. This is God's way:
The more we give, the more we receive. The more honor we give, the more honor
we will also receive.
Tough as it may be, we should make it our aim to honor everyone—all the
time.
Staff
From A Matter of Honor
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daily devotional
Evening ...
Acts 8:37 If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
These words may answer your scruples, devout reader, concerning the
ordinances. Perhaps you say, "I should be afraid to be baptized; it is such a
solemn thing to avow myself to be dead with Christ, and buried with Him. should
not feel at liberty to come to the Master's table; I should be afraid of eating
and drinking damnation unto myself, not discerning the Lord's body." Ah! poor
trembler, Jesus has given you liberty, be not afraid. If a stranger came to
your house, he would stand at the door, or wait in the hall; he would not dream
of intruding unbidden into your parlour-he is not at home: but your child makes
himself very free about the house; and so is it with the child of God. A
stranger may not intrude where a child may venture. When the Holy Ghost has
given you to feel the spirit of adoption, you may come to Christian ordinances
without fear. The same rule holds good of the Christian's inward privileges.
You think, poor seeker, that you are not allowed to rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory; if you are permitted to get inside Christ's
door, or sit at the bottom of His table, you will be well content. Ah! but you
shall not have less privileges than the very greatest. God makes no difference
in His love to His children. A child is a child to Him; He will not make him a
hired servant; but he shall feast upon the fatted calf, and shall have the
music and the dancing as much as if he had never gone astray. When Jesus comes
into the heart, He issues a general licence to be glad in the Lord. No chains
are worn in the court of King Jesus. Our admission into full privileges may be
gradual, but it is sure. Perhaps our reader is saying, "I wish I could enjoy
the promises, and walk at liberty in my Lord's commands." "If thou believest
with all thine heart, thou mayest." Loose the chains of thy neck, O captive
daughter, for Jesus makes thee free.
Morning ...
Psalms 111:9 He hath commanded His covenant for ever.
The Lord's people delight in the covenant itself. It is an unfailing source
of consolation to them so often as the Holy Spirit leads them into its
banqueting house and waves its banner of love. They delight to contemplate the
antiquity of that covenant, remembering that before the day-star knew its
place, or planets ran their round, the interests of the saints were made secure
in Christ Jesus. It is peculiarly pleasing to them to remember the sureness of
the covenant, while meditating upon "the sure mercies of David." They delight
to celebrate it as "signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered
well." It often makes their hearts dilate with joy to think of its
immutability, as a covenant which neither time nor eternity, life nor death,
shall ever be able to violate-a covenant as old as eternity and as everlasting
as the Rock of ages. They rejoice also to feast upon the fulness of this
covenant, for they see in it all things provided for them. God is their
portion, Christ their companion, the Spirit their Comforter, earth their lodge,
and heaven their home. They see in it an inheritance reserved and entailed to
every soul possessing an interest in its ancient and eternal deed of gift.
Their eyes sparkled when they saw it as a treasure-trove in the Bible; but oh!
how their souls were gladdened when they saw in the last will and testament of
their divine kinsman, that it was bequeathed to them! More especially it is the
pleasure of God's people to contemplate the graciousness of this covenant. They
see that the law was made void because it was a covenant of works and depended
upon merit, but this they perceive to be enduring because grace is the basis,
grace the condition, grace the strain, grace the bulwark, grace the foundation,
grace the topstone. The covenant is a treasury of wealth, a granary of food, a
fountain of life, a store-house of salvation, a charter of peace, and a haven
of joy.
Hebrews 3:12-14
(12) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief, in departing from the living God. (13) But exhort one another daily,
while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin. (14) For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the
beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
"The deceitfulness of sin"! In this context, to be deceitful is to be
seductively and enticingly misleading. Sin promises what it cannot deliver. It
promises pleasure, contentment, fulfillment—life—but its delivery on these
things is fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying. Its deceitfulness is the very
reason why it has addictive qualities. It lures us on to try to capture what it
can never deliver.
The pleasure is never quite enough to produce the contentment and
fulfillment one desires. Thus, people are forced into greater and deeper
perversions until it results in death. All along the way, from its inception to
death, sin quietly produces hardness of heart. Like a callus that forms over a
break in a bone or stiffens a person's joints, sin paralyzes right action.
"Hardness" is translated from skleruno, from which name for the disease
multiple sclerosis is derived. In a moral context, it means "impenetrable,"
"insensitive," "blind," "unteachable." A hardened attitude is not a sudden
aberration, but the product of a habitual state of mind that reveals itself in
inflexibility of thinking and insensitivity of conscience. Eventually, it makes
repentance impossible. The will to do right is completely gone.
The will is the power or faculty by which the mind makes choices and acts
to carry them out. An old adage says: "Sow an act and reap a habit; sow a habit
and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny." At first, against
his will, a person engages in some forbidden pleasure out of weakness,
curiosity, or sheer carnality. If the practice continues, he sins because he
cannot help doing so; he is becoming addicted to it. Once a sin becomes a
habit, he considers it to be almost a necessity. When it becomes a necessity,
the destiny is produced.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From What Sin Is & What Sin Does
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