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Friday, March 29th, 2024
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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: March 3rd

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Morning Devotional

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. - Hebrews 4:16.

WE are to come to this throne boldly. But what can this boldness be? It is expounded by the objects for which we are to approach him,-namely, “mercy and grace;” for, if we come to the throne of grace sensible of our need of mercy and grace, the boldness can only be the boldness of penitence;-the boldness which is becoming those who know that they have no claim upon the Giver, whose language therefore must be, “God be gracious” -“God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

We may consider this boldness:-First, As opposed to that despair which very naturally arises from the conviction of sin. When a sinner is awakened and enlightened to see and reflect upon his character and condition, he must feel his need of Strong consolation at the thought of entering into the presence of a Being so great and glorious, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, “and who can as righteously as easily destroy him.” Dare I approach? and shall I succeed if I do? This is his experience; and to meet this the Saviour says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” and “him that cometh I will in no wise cast out.” To encourage such an approach, the Scripture places before us a number of persons, none of whom could possibly have any claim upon the Giver. We have a Manasseh, who sinned away all the advantages of a pious education, and became an idolater, a necromancer, a persecutor, and a murderer of the innocent and the righteous, and who made the streets of Jerusalem to run down with blood. We have the Corinthians, of whom the apostles give such an infamous character that Satan could not have made or wished them to have been worse than they were. “But,” says he, “ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified as by the Spirit of our God.” And the Apostle Paul, referring to himself, says, “Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy;” as much as to say, “None should despair:-you cannot, for I have found mercy.”

Then, Secondly, We may view it in opposition to the bondage of Judaism. God was much less accessible under the former dispensation than under the present economy. While God was upon Sinai, the Israelites were not suffered to approach without imperilling their lives. Into the holy of holies, where God dwelt between cherubims, only one person in the whole nation was allowed to enter, and he as high-priest was to go only once a year, and then stay there but a few minutes. God revealed himself then more as a sovereign than as the “Father of mercies” and “God of all grace;” and the disposition of the worshipper partook of the nature of the dispensation itself in a measure. “Therefore,” says the apostle, “the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from the servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.”

Such is the difference, says he, between the Jew and the real Christian. “Even so we when we were children in bondage under the elements of the world; but, when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and, because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father; therefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, and then an heir of God through Christ.” Let us approach our Father’s throne at all times.

Nothing is too little to bring before him, for we are encouraged “in every thing, by prayer and supplication, to make our requests known unto God.”

Evening Devotional

I will go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy. - Psalms 43:4.

THIS regards the worship of God; and our worship is infinitely due to him, whether we consider the eminency of his perfections or his relation to us. Some are above all the formalities of religion; they find every day a Sabbath, and every place a temple, and in so saying give too much reason to question whether they worship God at all. Those who are most regardful of the Sabbath and the sanctuary are the most attentive to all the other duties of life; and, indeed, one good work always prepares for another. Our nature is such that we need seasons, and forms, and places of worship. The mind must be approached through the medium of the body, and our communion with things unseen and eternal must be maintained by means of things temporal. God is to be glorified in our bodies as well as in our spirits, which are his. Under the Jewish dispensation there was a tabernacle and a temple.

Our Saviour attended in the synagogue and the temple. His followers are commanded not to forsake the assembling of themselves together, and in order to incite and encourage them he hath. said: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” The public services of the sanctuary are indispensable to the maintenance of religion in a neighbourhood or country. In the sanctuary the various distinctions of life are preserved from becoming excessive. There the rich and the poor meet together in the presence of Him who is the Maker of them all. There are they reminded of their original equality- their final and their religious equality-and who has not often exclaimed,

“Lord, how delightful ’tis to see

A whole assembly worship thee;

At once they sing, at once they pray,

They hear of heaven, and learn the way.”

And how do the public services of the sanctuary enliven our affections! How much information is obtained while we see his beauty and inquire in his temple! What consolation is experienced there! “God is known in his palaces for a refuge.” The widow there draws to her knee her fatherless boy, and there she hears God is a father to the fatherless, and a judge of the widow in his holy habitation. There she hears: “Let thy widows trust in me;” and she departs rejoicing in the God of providence. Where is the Christian who has not said-

“In every new distress

We to his house repair;

We’ll think upon his wondrous grace,

And seek deliverance there.”

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