From: [email protected] daily devotional Evening...
Isaiah 58:11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually.
"The Lord shall guide thee." Not an angel, but JEHOVAH shall guide thee. He
said He would not go through the wilderness before His people, an angel should
go before them to lead them in the way; but Moses said, "If Thy presence go not
with me, carry us not up hence." Christian, God has not left you in your
earthly pilgrimage to an angel's guidance: He Himself leads the van. You may
not see the cloudy, fiery pillar, but Jehovah will never forsake you. Notice
the word shall-"The Lord shall guide thee." How certain this makes it! How sure
it is that God will not forsake us! His precious "shalls" and "wills" are
better than men's oaths. "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Then
observe the adverb continually. We are not merely to be guided sometimes, but
we are to have a perpetual monitor; not occasionally to be left to our own
understanding, and so to wander, but we are continually to hear the guiding
voice of the Great Shepherd; and if we follow close at His heels, we shall not
err, but be led by a right way to a city to dwell in. If you have to change
your position in life; if you have to emigrate to distant shores; if it should
happen that you are cast into poverty, or uplifted suddenly into a more
responsible position than the one you now occupy; if you are thrown among
strangers, or cast among foes, yet tremble not, for "the Lord shall guide thee
continually." There are no dilemmas out of which you shall not be delivered if
you live near to God, and your heart be kept warm with holy love. He goes not
amiss who goes in the company of God. Like Enoch, walk with God, and you cannot
mistake your road. You have infallible wisdom to direct you, immutable love to
comfort you, and eternal power to defend you. "Jehovah"-mark the word-"Jehovah
shall guide thee continually."
Morning...
Galatians 2:20 The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God.
When the Lord in mercy passed by and saw us in our blood, He first of all
said, "Live"; and this He did first, because life is one of the absolutely
essential things in spiritual matters, and until it be bestowed we are
incapable of partaking in the things of the kingdom. Now the life which grace
confers upon the saints at the moment of their quickening is none other than
the life of Christ, which, like the sap from the stem, runs into us, the
branches, and establishes a living connection between our souls and Jesus.
Faith is the grace which perceives this union, having proceeded from it as its
firstfruit. It is the neck which joins the body of the Church to its
all-glorious Head.
"Oh Faith! thou bond of union with the Lord,
Is not this office thine? and thy fit name,
In the economy of gospel types,
And symbols apposite-the Church's neck;
Identifying her in will and work
With Him ascended?"
Faith lays hold upon the Lord Jesus with a firm and determined grasp. She
knows His excellence and worth, and no temptation can induce her to repose her
trust elsewhere; and Christ Jesus is so delighted with this heavenly grace,
that He never ceases to strengthen and sustain her by the loving embrace and
all-sufficient support of His eternal arms. Here, then, is established a
living, sensible, and delightful union which casts forth streams of love,
confidence, sympathy, complacency, and joy, whereof both the bride and
bridegroom love to drink. When the soul can evidently perceive this oneness
between itself and Christ, the pulse may be felt as beating for both, and the
one blood as flowing through the veins of each. Then is the heart as near
heaven as it can be on earth, and is prepared for the enjoyment of the most
sublime and spiritual kind of fellowship.
Luke 22:31
(New King James Version)
(31) And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you,
that he may sift you as wheat.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Jesus asks His Father to strengthen Peter's faith. But notice Jesus'
perception: He could see that Peter would stumble—and stumble very badly. He
had such confidence that God would turn Peter around that He says, "When you
return, when you are converted and come back to Me, strengthen your brethren."
That is how confident Jesus was that God would hear His prayers.
Faith is the foundation of Christian character. Without it, we have no
access to God. "He who comes to God must believe that He is" (Hebrews 11:6).
Satan was out to destroy Peter's trust in God, and Jesus acted to guard him.
"That your faith should not fail" means that it should not come to an end or
disappear completely. Peter did stumble badly, but he also got up and went on.
It is entirely possible that Peter had a lot of confidence (remember that he
says in verse 33, "Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to
death"), but that confidence was in himself.
For Peter to have the right kind of faith, God had almost to smash the
man where he could easily see his faith, his confidence in himself, as
absolutely nothing, and that if he were going to have a good relationship with
God, it would have to be on the basis of his confidence in God, not in Peter.
Peter had to stumble in order to have true faith in God. When faith is broken
down, the foundations of true spiritual life give away. That is why Satan
wanted to destroy Peter's faith. If he could do that, the entire structure of
the man's relationship with God would collapse, but God did not allow it.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From Faith and Prayer
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Evening...
Matthew 22:42 What think ye of Christ?
The great test of your soul's health is, What think you of Christ? Is He to
you "fairer than the children of men"-"the chief among ten thousand"-the
"altogether lovely"? Wherever Christ is thus esteemed, all the faculties of the
spiritual man exercise themselves with energy. I will judge of your piety by
this barometer: does Christ stand high or low with you? If you have thought
little of Christ, if you have been content to live without His presence, if you
have cared little for His honour, if you have been neglectful of His laws, then
I know that your soul is sick-God grant that it may not be sick unto death! But
if the first thought of your spirit has been, How can I honour Jesus? If the
daily desire of your soul has been, "O that I knew where I might find Him!" I
tell you that you may have a thousand infirmities, and even scarcely know
whether you are a child of God at all, and yet I am persuaded, beyond a doubt,
that you are safe, since Jesus is great in your esteem. I care not for thy
rags, what thinkest thou of His royal apparel? I care not for thy wounds,
though they bleed in torrents, what thinkest thou of His wounds? are they like
glittering rubies in thine esteem? I think none the less of thee, though thou
liest like Lazarus on the dunghill, and the dogs do lick thee-I judge thee not
by thy poverty: what thinkest thou of the King in His beauty? Has He a glorious
high throne in thy heart? Wouldst thou set Him higher if thou couldst? Wouldst
thou be willing to die if thou couldst but add another trumpet to the strain
which proclaims His praise? Ah! then it is well with thee. Whatever thou mayst
think of thyself, if Christ be great to thee, thou shalt be with Him ere long.
"Though all the world my choice deride,
Yet Jesus shall my portion be;
For I am pleased with none beside,
The fairest of the fair is He"
Morning...
Ecclesiastes 7:8 Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.
Look at David's Lord and Master; see His beginning. He was despised and
rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Would you see the
end? He sits at His Father's right hand, expecting until His enemies be made
his footstool. "As He is, so are we also in this world." You must bear the
cross, or you shall never wear the crown; you must wade through the mire, or
you shall never walk the golden pavement. Cheer up, then, poor Christian.
"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof." See that creeping
worm, how contemptible its appearance! It is the beginning of a thing. Mark
that insect with gorgeous wings, playing in the sunbeams, sipping at the flower
bells, full of happiness and life; that is the end thereof. That caterpillar is
yourself, until you are wrapped up in the chrysalis of death; but when Christ
shall appear you shall be like Him, for you shall see Him as He is. Be content
to be like Him, a worm and no man, that like Him you may be satisfied when you
wake up in His likene ss. That rough-looking diamond is put upon the wheel of
the lapidary. He cuts it on all sides. It loses much-much that seemed costly to
itself. The king is crowned; the diadem is put upon the monarch's head with
trumpet's joyful sound. A glittering ray flashes from that coronet, and it
beams from that very diamond which was just now so sorely vexed by the
lapidary. You may venture to compare yourself to such a diamond, for you are
one of God's people; and this is the time of the cutting process. Let faith and
patience have their perfect work, for in the day when the crown shall be set
upon the head of the King, Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, one ray of glory shall
stream from you. "They shall be Mine," saith the Lord, "in the day when I make
up My jewels." "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof."
Romans 11:33
(33) Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
James 1:17
(17) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow
of turning.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Most successful televangelists preach what is called "the
Prosperity Gospel." Using select Scriptures, they teach that if one gives his
life to Jesus, and if he follows certain biblical principles, God is obligated
to fulfill His promises of wealth, health, and well-being. In the end, God
becomes little more than a genie-in-a-bottle, granting wishes out of sheer
compulsion. To these preachers, this is the abundant life God promises, and
hundreds of thousands of people agree with them.
It is true that the Bible is full of promises. It is also true that
Jesus tells us several times in John 14-16, "If you ask anything in My name, I
will do it" (John 14:14; see also 14:13; 15:7, 16; 16:23-24, 26). Psalm 37:4
pledges, "Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires
of your heart." These sound like absolute promises, and if God is to be true to
His Word, He must fulfill them, right?
This is what the televangelists have concluded, but in the end, it
is a facile conclusion. Very few of God's promises in the Bible are absolute in
nature; they are, instead, conditional promises, governed not only by our
responses to God, fulfilling certain requirements, but also by the perfect
judgment of God. As James 1:17 says, He gives only good and perfect gifts; He
will never give one of His children a "blessing" that would ultimately derail
His purpose for him or that would be too much for him to handle.
It works similarly among mere mortals. A human parent would not
send his son to vocational school if he really wanted him to be a doctor, even
though tuition to the vocational school would be a "good thing." Likewise, the
same parent would not entrust his child with thousands of dollars in cash at
Toys 'R Us, despite the fact that such sums of money would be considered a
wonderful gift. If human parents have enough wisdom to give goal- and
maturity-dependent gifts to their children, how much more does God (Romans
11:33)?
The faithful Abraham and Sarah are good examples of this aspect of
God's promises. In Genesis 12:2, God tells Abraham, age 75 at the time (verse
4), that He would make of him "a great nation," implying that he would have
children. God makes this promise again in verse 7: "The LORD appeared to Abram
and said, 'To your descendants I will give this land.'" Yet, He does not give
Abraham the promised child when he is 76 or 78 or 80!
After his rescue of Lot from the confederation of kings, Abraham
pleads with God in Genesis 15:2-3—he is now 80 years old—for an heir. God
repeats the promise, and Abraham believes Him (verses 4-6), yet Sarah does not
become pregnant any time soon. Later, after Ishmael is born of Hagar when
Abraham is 86 years old (Genesis 16:16), the patriarch wonders if this is the
promised seed, but when the boy is thirteen—Abraham is now 99!—God reiterates,
"No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son" (Genesis 17:19).
Finally,
. . . the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for
Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old
age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. . . . Now Abraham was one
hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. (Genesis 21:1-2, 5)
Evidently, a great deal had to happen in the lives of Abraham and
Sarah—predominantly in terms of spiritual maturity—before God felt the right
time had come to give them their promised baby boy. Twenty-five years passed
before God fulfilled His promise. Notice that Scripture itself informs us that
God performed the miracle to allow Sarah to conceive "at the set time." There
was one perfect time for this promise to be fulfilled, and God fulfilled it
when all the conditions were right.
And we can thank Him profusely for doing the same for us (II
Corinthians 4:15).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
From Are You Living the Abundant Life?
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