Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: February 11th

Our vile body. - Philippians 3:21.

HOWEVER we may pamper, or adorn, or indulge the body, it is what the apostle calls it:-a vile body,-or, as it is in the margin, the body of our humiliation.” And how humble is it in the lowness of its appetites-in the multitude and importunity of its wants-in the frailty of its frame-in the numerous diseases to which it is exposed, the seeds of which are often in the constitution, and, by external circumstances, ripen and bring forth fruit unto death! How often can an accident dismember or confine us! A few grains of sand, by collecting together in the body, will produce an obstruction that will yield such excruciating torment that the man chooses strangling and death rather than life. “Dropsy is drowning one, fever is burning up another, the palsy is benumbing a third, the ague is chilling a fourth.” “Am I not made to pass months of vanity?” says Job, “and wearisome nights are appointed unto me. When I lie down I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? And I am full of tossings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day.”

Here is another picture: (never were there such painters as the sacred writers:) “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat, and his flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyer.” Admitting that this be not the case, allowing the constitution to be ever so vigorous, age impairs it, and loads it with infirmity, so that the man says, I cannot see, I cannot hear: “those that look out of the windows are darkened, the strong men bow themselves, the voice of the grinding is low, there is fear in the way, the grasshopper is a burden, desire fails because man goeth to his long home.” And we may observe here, also, that these physical evils often becloud the mind; they often lead us to draw the conclusion that we have no part nor lot in the matter, and that our heart is not right in the sight of God himself. They often, also, deprive a Christian of the public means and ordinances of religion. He is the Lord’s prisoner. He can say, “When I remember these things I pour out my soul in me, for I had gone with the multitude that kept holy day.”

“But we,” says the apostle, “look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.”

He knoweth them that trust in him. - Nahum 1:7.

DOES he not know those who do not trust in him? Yes, he does. “His eyes are upon the ways of man, and he pondereth all his goings.” This knowledge, therefore, may at first view seem to be no privilege. But it is a privilege, and it affords no common satisfaction to the mind of the Christian to reflect, that under all the misconceptions of friends, and the reproaches of enemies, “he knoweth them that are his.” Yes, “he knoweth our frames, and remembereth that we are but dust;” “he knows our souls in adversity;” and he knows all our walkings through the wilderness, all the moral maladies of the mind, and what remedies to apply; he knows where and when to afflict, and how to deliver, and so as to make “all things work together for our good.” Is not this a privilege-a source of satisfaction which lays the foundation for his universal providence? As the prophet says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.”

Knowledge here does not intend mere perception and intelligence, but approbation, complacency, and acknowledgment; therefore it is said, “If a man love God, the same is known of him;” that is, he is approved of and delighted in: the meaning therefore is, that Christians are “accepted in the Beloved;” that God is “well pleased with them for his righteousness’ sake,” that he “takes pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy;” that their alms are the odor of a sweet smell; that their services are Spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ; and that God stands in an attitude of the most perfect friendship toward them and says of them, as he did of Abraham, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee.”

What then remains, but that we say with the Church, “Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation-my God will hear me.”