the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
" His mercy is on them that fear him." - Luke 1:50.
Is there not reason to apprehend that we presume upon a great deal of mercy that is not really accorded? We know that the world takes for granted that God forgives it, and reserves all its anxiety for matters that seem to it invested with much more difficulty. But may it not be that we, who consider ourselves, on apparently good grounds, as God’s real children, that we are daily presuming on God’s forgiveness when that forgiveness is not really pronounced? We are not notified of forgiveness by some special messenger; but are taught by the Spirit of God to find it in the word of God by a process in which there is some scope for self to intermingle and vitiate the result. It requires no little wisdom, but especially much meekness, and self-mistrust, and love of the truth, and docility, to ascertain unerringly, that forgiveness has been pronounced.
God’s mercy is on them that fear him. It is not intended to make men think lightly of transgression; but greatly to increase their estimate of God’s authority, and their loathing for the sin forgiven. Is it impossible to find in our practice the evidence that we continue on good terms with the sin that we presume God is day by day forgiving? Are we aware that this is a foul mockery of God, a caricature of his mercy? There is no true fear of God before our eyes, if to-day’s sin keeps ever following upon yesterday’s forgiveness.
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