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daily devotional
Evening...
Proverbs 30:26 The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in
the rocks.
Conscious of their own natural defenselessness, the conies resort to burrows
in the rocks, and are secure from their enemies. My heart, be willing to gather
a lesson from these feeble folk. Thou art as weak and as exposed to peril as
the timid cony, be as wise to seek a shelter. My best security is within the
munitions of an immutable Jehovah, where His unalterable promises stand like
giant walls of rock. It will be well with thee, my heart, if thou canst always
hide thyself in the bulwarks of His glorious attributes, all of which are
guarantees of safety for those who put their trust in Him. Blessed be the name
of the Lord, I have so done, and have found myself like David in Adullam, safe
from the cruelty of my enemy; I have not now to find out the blessedness of the
man who puts his trust in the Lord, for long ago, when Satan and my sins
pursued me, I fled to the cleft of the rock Christ Jesus, and in His riven side
I found a delightful resting-place. My heart, run to Him anew to-night,
whatever thy present grief may be; Jesus feels for thee; Jesus consoles thee;
Jesus will help thee. No monarch in his impregnable fortress is more secure
than the cony in his rocky burrow. The master of ten thousand chariots is not
one whit better protected than the little dweller in the mountain's cleft. In
Jesus the weak are strong, and the defenceless safe; they could not be more
strong if they were giants, or more safe if they were in heaven. Faith gives to
men on earth the protection of the God of heaven. More they cannot need, and
need not wish. The conies cannot build a castle, but they avail themselves of
what is there already: I cannot make myself a refuge, but Jesus has provided
it, His Father has given it, His Spirit has revealed it, and lo, again to-night
I enter it, and am safe from every foe.
Morning...
Ephesians 4:30 Grieve not the Holy Spirit.
All that the believer has must come from Christ, but it comes solely through
the channel of the Spirit of grace. Moreover, as all blessings thus flow to you
through the Holy Spirit, so also no good thing can come out of you in holy
thought, devout worship, or gracious act, apart from the sanctifying operation
of the same Spirit. Even if the good seed be sown in you, yet it lies dormant
except He worketh in you to will and to do of His own good pleasure. Do you
desire to speak for Jesus-how can you unless the Holy Ghost touch your tongue?
Do you desire to pray? Alas! what dull work it is unless the Spirit maketh
intercession for you! Do you desire to subdue sin? Would you be holy? Would you
imitate your Master? Do you desire to rise to superlative heights of
spirituality? Are you wanting to be made like the angels of God, full of zeal
and ardour for the Master's cause? You cannot without the Spirit-"Without me ye
can do nothing." O branch of the vine, thou canst have no fruit without the
sap! O child of God, thou hast no life within thee apart from the life which
God gives thee through His Spirit! Then let us not grieve Him or provoke Him to
anger by our sin. Let us not quench Him in one of His faintest motions in our
soul; let us foster every suggestion, and be ready to obey every prompting. If
the Holy Spirit be indeed so mighty, let us attempt nothing without Him; let us
begin no project, and carry on no enterprise, and conclude no transaction,
without imploring His blessing. Let us do Him the due homage of feeling our
entire weakness apart from Him, and then depending alone upon Him, having this
for our prayer, "Open Thou my heart and my whole being to Thine incoming, and
uphold me with Thy free Spirit when I shall have received that Spirit in my
inward parts."
Zephaniah 2:1-3
(1) Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together,
O undesirable nation,
(2) Before the decree is issued,
Or the day passes like chaff,
Before the LORD's fierce anger comes upon you,
Before the day of the LORD's anger comes upon you!
(3) Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth,
Who have upheld His justice.
Seek righteousness, seek humility.
It may be that you will be hidden
In the day of the LORD's anger.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Looking at this in the light of the larger context, God prophesies
judgment—only not just on Assyria but on the whole world. With this thought in
mind, chapter two opens with an appeal to God's people to gather together. This
is not merely a plea to congregate, which may indeed be implied, but it is not
the main thrust of the advice given here. Rather, it is to gather one's
thoughts, to meditate, to pull things together in one's mind, to think about
their consequences on the nation, on the individual, on one's loved ones. God
wants us to consider these things as a first step toward repentance, so he
says, "Change direction, turn to righteousness and perhaps you will be hidden
during His anger."
"Perhaps" might throw a person into discouragement or doubt, but
God is not playing with our emotions. The measure of doubt expressed concerns
whether men will repent. We must never forget that God is a God of salvation.
He is a God of deliverance. It is His desire to deliver and to protect, and
certainlly He is never without means to save. Nothing is too hard for Him, if
we give Him a chance, which is why it says, "Seek the Lord now, before the
destruction comes." This is the warning: "Watch, but don't just stand there
passively! Gather your thoughts and think about the implications of this. Where
is it leading?" He is appealing to us to respond.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From A Place of Safety? (Part 3)
.
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daily devotional
Evening...
Isaiah 40:9 Get thee up into the high mountain.
Each believer should be thirsting for God, for the living God, and longing to
climb the hill of the Lord, and see Him face to face. We ought not to rest
content in the mists of the valley when the summit of Tabor awaits us. My soul
thirsteth to drink deep of the cup which is reserved for those who reach the
mountain's brow, and bathe their brows in heaven. How pure are the dews of the
hills, how fresh is the mountain air, how rich the fare of the dwellers aloft,
whose windows look into the New Jerusalem! Many saints are content to live like
men in coal mines, who see not the sun; they eat dust like the serpent when
they might taste the ambrosial meat of angels; they are content to wear the
miner's garb when they might put on king's robes; tears mar their faces when
they might anoint them with celestial oil. Satisfied I am that many a believer
pines in a dungeon when he might walk on the palace roof, and view the goodly
land and Lebanon. Rouse thee, O believer, from thy low condition! Cast away thy
sloth, thy lethargy, thy coldness, or whatever interferes with thy chaste and
pure love to Christ, thy soul's Husband. Make Him the source, the centre, and
the circumference of all thy soul's range of delight. What enchants thee into
such folly as to remain in a pit when thou mayst sit on a throne? Live not in
the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon thee. Rest
no longer satisfied with thy dwarfish attainments, but press forward to things
more sublime and heavenly. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life. Upward
to heaven! Nearer to God!
"When wilt Thou come unto me, Lord?
Oh come, my Lord most dear!
Come near, come nearer, nearer still,
I'm blest when Thou art near."
Morning...
Isaiah 33:21 The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and
streams.
Broad rivers and streams produce fertility, and abundance in the land. Places
near broad rivers are remarkable for the variety of their plants and their
plentiful harvests. God is all this to His Church. Having God she has
abundance. What can she ask for that He will not give her? What want can she
mention which He will not supply? "In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts
make unto all people a feast of fat things." Want ye the bread of life? It
drops like manna from the sky. Want ye refreshing streams? The rock follows
you, and that Rock is Christ. If you suffer any want it is your own fault; if
you are straitened you are not straitened in Him, but in your own bowels. Broad
rivers and streams also point to commerce. Our glorious Lord is to us a place
of heavenly merchandize. Through our Redeemer we have commerce with the past;
the wealth of Calvary, the treasures of the covenant, the riches of the ancient
days of election, the stores of eternity, all come to us down the broad stream
of our gracious Lord. We have commerce, too, with the future. What galleys,
laden to the water's edge, come to us from the millennium! What visions we have
of the days of heaven upon earth! Through our glorious Lord we have commerce
with angels; communion with the bright spirits washed in blood, who sing before
the throne; nay, better still, we have fellowship with the Infinite One. Broad
rivers and streams are specially intended to set forth the idea of security.
Rivers were of old a defence. Oh! beloved, what a defence is God to His Church!
The devil cannot cross this broad river of God. How he wishes he could turn the
current, but fear not, for God abideth immutably the same. Satan may worry, but
he cannot destroy us; no galley with oars shall invade our river, neither shall
gallant ship pass thereby.
Matthew 26:39-44
(39) He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed,
saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." (40) Then He came to the
disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What! Could you not
watch with Me one hour? (41) Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." (42) Again, a second
time, He went away and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass
away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done." (43) And He came and found
them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. (44) So He left them, went away
again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Perhaps it was not just the approaching physical torture that Jesus
dreaded as He made this plea to His Father. For every microsecond of eternity
(with the possible two exceptions of His time in Mary's womb and His human
babyhood), He had enjoyed a level of consciousness, involvement, control, and
communication with God the Father that no other human could even begin to
comprehend. It must have been almost intolerable for the Son of God, the great
YHWH of the Old Testament, to contemplate being totally unconscious and "out of
the picture," even for a mere 72 hours.
Jesus' agony no doubt included the foreknowledge of the spiritual
torture of billions of sins committed throughout human history being laid on
His innocent head. Jesus knew that His mind would soon become besmirched,
infected, and injected with every filthy sin that man had ever committed in the
past and would commit from that time on.
God tells us in I Corinthians 15:56, "The sting of death is sin."
Most of us have been stung by a spider, bee, wasp, or hornet. The pain of an
insect sting increases rapidly as its poison spreads through the blood vessels,
deep into the body part that has been stung, and it can sometimes be almost
unbearable. Nevertheless, it is impossible for us to imagine a fraction of the
spiritual agony that those billions of "stings of death" caused our Savior as
all the sins of the world were laid upon Him.
With all His might, He strove to dwell on better things
(Philippians 4:8). He struggled to look beyond those hours of torture, despite
His foreknowledge of their severity. Jesus knew what would happen after this
day of agony and shame that was just beginning. More than any other human being
who ever lived, He understood what lay beyond the split second of death and His
short stay in the tomb. Just hours before this prayer in Gethsemane, He had
spoken joyfully to His Father about their approaching reunion and regaining His
former glory (John 17:5, 11, 13).
How did King Nebuchadnezzar feel when God gave him back his status
as a real human being and a great king after living the existence of the
lowest, slinking animal in the wild (Daniel 4:29-36)? How much more did Jesus
look forward to waking after three days and three nights in the tomb as the
Eternal God!
Did Jesus look forward to His death? No. He looked beyond His hours
of suffering and beyond the instant of His death. He looked forward to life!
John Plunkett
From Death of a Lamb
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