Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: June 18th

" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." - Acts 16:31.

And is this so difficult? Does your heart find itself competent to everything, rather than this? Oh, what a reproach to you! In fact, it is impossible to conceive of any more severe condemnation than that which you pass upon yourself, and day by day reiterate, while you continue not to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You are asked to take his righteousness in preference to your own, his wisdom rather than your own; his influence at the throne of God rather than your own. You are asked to become the servant of Christ, rather than continue the servant of sin; to be the friend of Christ, rather than the friend of Satan; and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to free you from the control of unclean spirits. You are asked to choose him whom the good have chosen; him whom all the angels, the most exalted of finite beings; whom God himself has chosen. You refuse; and choose rather to identify yourself with the multitude that crucified him. The blackest catalog of crimes cannot more truly condemn a man, than the fact that you believe not on Jesus Christ condemns you. Your character comes out dark, base, odious, by this one fact. In vain you pretend to have love for your fellow-men, while you declare, as you emphatically do, " Not this man!" "Were a vessel freighted with provisions to approach an island whose inhabitants were dying with starvation, what would you think of him who should refuse to co-operate in bringing her to shore?" And what must be thought of him who cannot believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? You may for the present be deemed respectable; but a day is coming when Christ will be known as the touchstone of morality, and all who are without affinity with him, will be known as utterly reprobate.

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