Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: January 21st

Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. - Haggai 1:5.

THE religion of the Bible is a reasonable service; nothing can be more widely different from groundless belief, or opposed to the enthusiasm of ignorant impulses, a heated imagination, or excited unintelligible feelings. It commences with “the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, so that we may see what is the hope of our calling;” and all its subsequent processes are carried on through the medium of a mind renewed by the Spirit of God. “Whatever is connected with love to God and obedience to his revealed will is the result of intention, and is influenced by corresponding motive. The Holy Spirit’s influences do not operate in us like the cures of a charm, of whose efficiency no account can be given. A Christian is able to give a reason of the hope that is in him. We are not forced into religion as are the motions of a machine, insensible of its workings and results; nor as the varied operations of the functions of our physical being are carried on in our bodies, which act independently of the mind and will. We are not only subjects of religious influences, but also instruments in producing them in others. What is done in us is done by us. Therefore, says the apostle, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his own good pleasure.”

We are here taught that, while God is the Author of all good, and our progress in goodness is from him, yet he does not carry us along in the way everlasting, but enables us to walk. He works in us, but it is that we may will and do. We are not only impressed, but employed. Faith and repentance are gifts of God; yet we believe and repent, and not God.. Thus we see that all true religion arises from consideration. Therefore, God, complaining of the Jews, says, “My people do not consider.” Therefore, David says, “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.”

The Christian’s abhorrence of sin is not a thoughtless aversion. “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” His godly sorrow is not a thoughtless grief. “Then shall ye,” says God, “remember your own evil ways, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight.” His confidence is not a thoughtless trust; it is the result of knowledge:- “They that know thy name shall put their trust in thee.” His hope is not a presumptive expectation. He has “two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie,” which give him sure anchorage for his hope, of which he is “ready to give a reason to every one that asketh.” His patience in trouble is not the result of natural hardihood, or stoical apathy, or a reckless desperation: it is the effect of thought,-scriptural, sanctified thought.

May we consider our ways, and the Lord give us understanding in all things!

When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. Psalms 27:8

THIS in the Scriptures stands for the whole of religion, and for two reasons: First, Because it is with him we have principally to do. He is the greatest and the best of beings. We are most importantly related to him, our principal dependence is upon him, our principal expectations from him, our principal connections with him. He is our Creator, Proprietor, Preserver, Benefactor, Governor, and our Judge.

Secondly, Because before we can have anything to do with him we must find him. Essentially God is nigh unto us, for “in him we live, and move, and have our being.” He is about our path, and is acquainted with all our ways-

“Oh, may these thoughts possess my breast,

Where’er I roam, where’er I rest;

Nor let my sinful passions dare

Consent to sin, for God is there.”

But, morally and Spiritually considered, sinners are away from God, and God is away from them. We all left him criminally, and he left us penally. So that we who sometimes were “afar off,” and were living without God in the world, have been “made nigh.” Our first and chief concern, therefore, is to find God. Where shall we find him if we do seek? Why, in heaven. Hence we are taught to address him as “our Father, who art in heaven.” But if ever we get there, and before we get there, we must find him-Where? In the Son of his love. Without him, God is a consuming fire. In him he is reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. He is to be found in his house; he has promised to be there, and his people have seen the goings of their God and their King in the sanctuary.

God is to be found-and they have found him- in his “palaces for a refuge,” at his table, at the family altar, and in the devotions of the closet.

“Where we seek him he is found,

And every place is hallowed ground.”