Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: January 13th

For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer. - Psalms 109:4.

DAVID was a man of prayer. We here read of his giving himself unto prayer; that is, he made it the leading business of his life. Now in this he is an example worthy of our imitation, for prayer is the very life of religion, without which it cannot exist, much less prosper, therefore we should be found much in the exercise of it. For this purpose we may take three views of it.

First, View it as a duty. Though God knows all things, and sees the end from the beginning, and works all things after the counsel of his own will, yet he hath said, “For these things I will be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them;” thus they are commanded to “seek the Lord and his strength.”

Secondly, It is a due acknowledgment of his nature, and our dependence upon him, as our Benefactor, Preserver, and Governor, and “the God of our salvation, to whom belong the issues of life.”

Thirdly, We may view it as an honour. We should deem it an honour if we had free and full access to an earthly sovereign-and is it nothing that we can have access at all times to the “blessed and only Potentate, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords”? Prayer places us nearly upon a level with the glorified spirits above, with this difference-they approach the throne of glory, and we the throne of grace. We can enter the secret of his pavilion here, we can come even to his seat, can pour out our hearts before him with more freedom than we can to the dearest friend or nearest relative upon earth.

Fourthly, Let us view it also as an advantage. “It is good for me,” says David, “to draw near to God.” What a relief does the very exercise of prayer afford! How it eases the aching heart, and binds up the broken spirit! Oh, there are times and seasons in which every refuge seems to fail us, and God is our only resource; when we look inward, and perceive nothing but decaying affections and withered hopes. We go forth, and there we meet with an unfeeling and repulsive world. The mind is thrown upon futurity, and there we find a vast ocean, where we are wearied with winds, and waves, and without a compass, without a chart. It is then devotion comes, and wraps us up in” its soft mantle, bearing us away to him in whom we may find an asylum into which no enemy can enter, and where no ill can approach. Thus we enjoy an emblem and earnest of that state “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”

Oh, the luxury of prayer! How relieving is it to pour our complaints into the bosom of a friend, who, having rejoiced with us when we rejoiced, does not suffer us to cry in vain, “Have pity on me, have pity on me, O ye my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.” But how much more relieving and delightful is it to make God our Friend, and, like David, to pour out our hearts before him! And this is what he himself enjoins:-“Cast thy burden on the Lord, and he will sustain thee.” He would not have us struggle and turmoil with it ourselves, but we are commanded to roll our burden on the Lord, for we can roll what we cannot heave.

This is done by prayer, and each petition we offer takes off some of the load, and lays it upon him:-“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.” The apostle also says, “Be careful for nothing;” but how is this to be accomplished? This is the way:-“Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.” The heathens allowed that care was an evil, and they wished to cure it: but all their efforts reached only to the paroxysms of the complaint; they knew not God, and that “peace of God which passeth all understanding.” But we can tell God all our complaints, and leave all with him; nothing will tranquillize the mind like this, but this will do it. He blesses us in the exercise of our various graces, and it is thus he prepares us for the manifestations of his love and the communications of his goodness.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13.

FRIENDSHIP among men arises from the possession of some real or supposed amiable quality in the object of regard; but the friendship of Christ arises from no excellency in its subject. His regards are all undeserved. What were they when he first took knowledge of them? Unworthy of the least possible favour, undeserving, ill-deserving, and hell-deserving creatures. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” “When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” Behold! and see what friendship he has manifested towards us. He “who thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” taking upon him the form of a servant, becoming “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;” “who though he was rich yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich.” What friendship! See him “bruised for our iniquities,” that by “his stripes we may be healed,” and dying that we may live. “Behold,” said the spectators at the grave of Lazarus, when they saw him weep, “how he loved him!”

And we can look up and see his friendship to us marked even in stronger colours. What did the angels think of him when they saw him bleeding on the cross? Behold how he loved them! What friendship! See him delivering us “from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” What friendship! to wash us from our sins in his own blood-to sympathise with us in all our sorrows, and to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities now in his glorified state.