the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Golden Treasury
But unto you that fear my name, shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, and he shall go forth, and grow up as the calves of the stall. Malachi 4:2. If thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God. John 11:46. Against hope we believe in hope. Romans 4:18.
He that pretends to see and comprehend every thing before hand, with his own natural reason, shuts his eyes against the sun of righteousness, and can never learn to see rightly by faith. This is downright unbelief; and unbelief is the source of all sins, though it is hardly believed. Hundreds being asked, whether they are in faith, they will all answer in the affirmative, though there is not so much as the least beginning of it; since they are without the necessary hunger and thirst after righteousness: they want that broken heart to which the Lord has given the promise of faith alone; neither have they ever prayed for it earnestly. Whereas, Luther, and all other faithful witnesses, say, “we must needs first ardently pray to God for faith, else we shall be faithless to all eternity.” But this done, we may say, Lord, I have long prayed, and am still praying for faith, consequently I am in the same.
Our guilty souls are drowned in tears
’Till Christ’s atoning blood appears;
Then we awake from deep distress,
And sing the Lord our righteousness.
Our very frame is mixed with sin,
His spirit makes our natures clean:
Such virtues from his sufferings flow,
At once to cleanse and pardon too.
