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 busin ess, 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.
Morning...
2 Corinthians 12:9 For my strength is made perfect in weakness.
A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for
doing God's work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When
God's warrior marches forth to battle, strong in his own might, when he boasts,
"I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm and my conquering sword shall
get unto me the victory," defeat is not far distant. God will not go forth with
that man who marches in his own strength. He who reckoneth on victory thus has
reckoned wrongly, for "it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord of hosts." They who go forth to fight, boasting of their
prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their
armour stained with disgrace. Those who serve God must serve Him in His own
way, and in His strength, or He will never accept their service. That which man
doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the
earth He casteth away; He will only reap that c orn, the seed of which was sown
from heaven, watered by grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love. God will
empty out all that thou hast before He will put His own into thee; He will
first clean out thy granaries before He will fill them with the finest of the
wheat. The river of God is full of water; but not one drop of it flows from
earthly springs. God will have no strength used in His battles but the strength
which He Himself imparts. Are you mourning over your own weakness? Take
courage, for there must be a consciousness of weakness before the Lord will
give thee victory. Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled,
and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.
"When I am weak then am I strong,
Grace is my shield and Christ my song."
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
(19) What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (20) For
ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your
spirit, which are God's.
Upon acceptance of the blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
sin, we become His since He bought and paid for us by His death. As His
possession or servant (literally "slave"), He expressly forbids us to engage in
any sexual immorality. In addition, the spirit of God's law helps us to
understand fornication as unfaithfulness against one's future mate. Virginity
should be held in reserve for the one we eventually marry, so he or she will
not receive a mate defiled by intimacy with somebody else.
And, just as with adultery, though God forgives a fornicator of his
sin, the effects of fornication will take their toll. God's law produces a
penalty automatically. Sometimes it manifests itself in disease. Other times
may see a child born out of wedlock or a "shotgun" marriage of two incompatible
people. A few minutes of forbidden pleasure is not worth the price!
Paul writes to the Thessalonians:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should
abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his
own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the
Gentiles, who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud
his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we
also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but
in holiness. (I Thessalonians 4:3-7)
John W. Ritenbaugh
From The Seventh Commandment (1997)
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
daily devotional
Evening...
Psalm 100:4 Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.
Our Lord would have all His people rich in high and happy thoughts concerning
His blessed person. Jesus is not content that His brethren should think meanly
of Him; it is His pleasure that His espoused ones should be delighted with His
beauty. We are not to regard Him as a bare necessary, like to bread and water,
but as a luxurious delicacy, as a rare and ravishing delight. To this end He
has revealed Himself as the "pearl of great price" in its peerless beauty, as
the "bundle of myrrh" in its refreshing fragrance, as the "rose of Sharon" in
its lasting perfume, as the "lily" in its spotless purity. As a help to high
thoughts of Christ, remember the estimation that Christ is had in beyond the
skies, where things are measured by the right standard. Think how God esteems
the Only Begotten, His unspeakable gift to us. Consider what the angels think
of Him, as they count it their highest honour to veil their faces at His feet.
Consider what the blood-washed think of Him, as day without night they sing His
well deserved praises. High thoughts of Christ will enable us to act
consistently with our relations towards Him. The more loftily we see Christ
enthroned, and the more lowly we are when bowing before the foot of the throne,
the more truly shall we be prepared to act our part towards Him. Our Lord Jesus
desires us to think well of Him, that we may submit cheerfully to His
authority. High thoughts of Him increase our love. Love and esteem go together.
Therefore, believer, think much of your Master's excellencies. Study Him in His
primeval glory, before He took upon Himself your nature! Think of the mighty
love which drew Him from His throne to die upon the cross! Admire Him as He
conquers all the powers of hell! See Him risen, crowned, glorified! Bow before
Him as the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, for only thus will your
love to Him be what it should.
Morning...
Isaiah 44:3 I will pour water upon him that is thirsty.
When a believer has fallen into a low, sad state of feeling, he often tries
to lift himself out of it by chastening himself with dark and doleful fears.
Such is not the way to rise from the dust, but to continue in it. As well chain
the eagle's wing to make it mount, as doubt in order to increase our grace. It
is not the law, but the gospel which saves the seeking soul at first; and it is
not a legal bondage, but gospel liberty which can restore the fainting believer
afterwards. Slavish fear brings not back the backslider to God, but the sweet
wooings of love allure him to Jesus' bosom. Are you this morning thirsting for
the living God, and unhappy because you cannot find him to the delight of your
heart? Have you lost the joy of religion, and is this your prayer, "Restore
unto me the joy of Thy salvation"? Are you conscious also that you are barren,
like the dry ground; that you are not bringing forth the fruit unto God which
He has a right to expect of you; that you are not so useful in the Church, or
in the world, as your heart desires to be? Then here is exactly the promise
which you need, "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty." You shall receive
the grace you so much require, and you shall have it to the utmost reach of
your needs. Water refreshes the thirsty: you shall be refreshed; your desires
shall be gratified. Water quickens sleeping vegetable life: your life shall be
quickened by fresh grace. Water swells the buds and makes the fruits ripen; you
shall have fructifying grace: you shall be made fruitful in the ways of God.
Whatever good quality there is in divine grace, you shall enjoy it to the full.
All the riches of divine grace you shall receive in plenty; you shall be as it
were drenched with it: and as sometimes the meadows become flooded by the
bursting rivers, and the fields are turned into pools, so shall you be-the
thirsty land shall be springs of water.
1 Timothy 6:3-8
(3) If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome
words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is
according to godliness; (4) He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about
questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil
surmisings, (5) Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of
the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. (6)
But godliness with contentment is great gain. (7) For we brought nothing into
this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. (8) And having food and
raiment let us be therewith content.
The way this argument progresses is intriguing. He starts by
mentioning those who were apostatizing, preaching a false gospel, and rejecting
what Christ had given the church in the gospel, yet he ends up speaking about
contentment.
His thought is this: Those who argue against the doctrines of God
and against the church are essentially discontent. They are at the initial
stages of presumptuousness, or they may have already become fully presumptuous.
They try to use their "godliness" to get some sort of advantage or gain for
themselves. The motives on the surface may seem to be that they are trying to
be godly, but underneath, the real motive is to get something for themselves.
We should not think of this "gain" as only money or goods. It could
be respect, or favor with somebody. It could be notoriety or having people
think that one is smart. It could be having authority of some kind—ordination
or having a group of followers. It could be many things. What it comes down to
is presumptuousness, because the person who does these things is reaching
beyond his place.
God put the person in the body at a specific point, to do a certain
a job, and when he starts doing the types of things that Paul mentions—arguing
against the doctrine, for instance—he is taking a job that he has not been
given. Paul says the real gain comes when we behave in a godly manner and
reckon that what we have is sufficient for us.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
From Countering Presumptuousness
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