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Thursday, March 28th, 2024
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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: March 12th

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Morning Devotional

Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. - 1 Corinthians 15:57.

VICTORY supposes warfare. Various are the metaphorical characters under which Christians are held forth in the Scriptures of truth. Sometimes they are labourers in God’s vineyard, sometimes they are travellers, sometimes they are merchants, sometimes they are racers, sometimes wrestlers; very frequently they are soldiers, good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and they fight not as one that beateth the air. The combat in which they are engaged is not an imaginary one, but a real, and a strenuous one too; but they have this incomparable advantage,-they war a good warfare, and in it “no weapon that is formed against them shall prosper, and every tongue that riseth up against them they shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.”

Victory, we have said, supposes warfare, and so warfare supposes enemies. The enemies of the Christian are sin, the world, Satan, death, and the grave. Let us notice the acquisition. How is this victory obtained? In other cases winning a victory is gaining a victory; but here observe: First, It is given:-“Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is true we gain it, but he giveth it. It is true we fight, but it is equally true that he “causeth us to triumph.”

He not only furnishes the crown, but he also gives us the capacity by which we acquire it: therefore, Secondly, It is dispensed through the mediation of the Lord Jesus. From the beginning to the end of our salvation, the propriety, the expediency, the necessity of Jesus as a mediator is not for one moment left out. Is God well pleased with us? “In him,” says God, “I am well pleased.” Have we “exceeding great and precious promises”? They are all “yea and amen in Christ Jesus.” Are we redeemed? “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Are we heirs? “In him,” says the apostle, “we have obtained the inheritance.” Are we blessed? In him we are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.” In him “it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell.” Thus we see that light is around us, but not a beam is transmitted through any other medium. All is goodness around us, but there is not a blessing that comes to us through any other channel. He is ALL, and in ALL.

Not only is this victory; a divine donation, and dispensed through the mediation of the Son of God; but, Thirdly, It is gradually exemplified and accomplished. It is not said that he will give us the victory, though this is true, for that is already promised, but he giveth us the victory; and this is true, because it is gradually conferred and experienced. It is not the effect of an hour or a year. This victory is not achieved at once; it is carried on through the whole course of a believer’s life, and is perfected in death, or rather in the resurrection of the dead. The apostle tells us that the good work is begun in us in the day of conviction; but he says, it is not performed “until the day of Jesus Christ.” Already the Christian has many a time overcome, and he says, as David said, when he thinks of the victories, he has obtained, “By thee I have run through a troop, and by my God have I leaped over a wall.” And this encourages believers, with regard to the future, to say, “Through God we shall do valiantly, for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.”

This victory, therefore, is both present and future: the future is the complete accomplishment; the present is the earnest in its gradual and partial accomplishment even now.

Evening Devotional

Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been a long time in that case. He saith unto him, Wilt thou he made whole? - John 5:6.

WHAT hath sin done! How various and how numerous are the evils which affect human nature! Some of our fellow creatures are made to “possess months of vanity,” and have “wearisome nights appointed to them.” These seem incapable of enjoyment, and are unfitted for the active services of life-dying while they live. Among the objects of woe found by our Saviour on this occasion, his attention was struck by a poor wretch who had groaned under his malady for thirty and eight years, and had been waiting at the pool for the propitious moment, but always had the mortification to be prevented by those who were less helpless than himself, or who were better served. The Saviour knew all his distress, and his eye affected his heart. When Jesus saw him he knew that he had now been a long time in that case; he saith unto him, “Wilt thou be made whole?” This case is here recorded for an important purpose; and we never read the gospel, nor peruse the history of the Saviour to advantage, till we learn to bring it home to our own business and bosoms; till we learn to rise from the body to the soul, and in the recovery of the one to acknowledge the salvation of the other.

He who came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost is fully acquainted with our condition, which, like that of this impotent man, is a state of disorder and disease. And here the subject comes into conflict with the prejudices and pride of man. We often hear persons talking about the dignity of human nature; and if we consider it physically and intellectually, it is dignified; when we see man in his capacity for boundless improvement, in the expansion of his powers, in the acquisition of literature, and in the progress of philosophy, we see that man is made “a little lower than the angels.” But oh, how lamentable is it to find any of these fine powers misapplied and abused! What is man morally?-what is he religiously?- what is his state and disposition towards God? Why he is a fallen, a guilty, a depraved, a perishing, and, in himself, a helpless creature. His body has become mortal, and subject to every calamity; and his soul is “alienated from the life of God.”

Many are continually acknowledging in their devotions that “they are tied and bound by the chain of sin,” and saying “there is no health in us,” meaning there is no moral and Spiritual health in them. The Scriptures have decided this melancholy fact by the glorious provisions of the gospel-else what need of a redemption if man is not enslaved; and of a Saviour if not lost; or of a remedy if not sick and dying? And Scripture also confirms this fact by the most express decisions, declaring that “all have sinned,” “all have become guilty before God;” that all are “condemned;” that, by the law of God, “every mouth is stopped;” that the “whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint;” and that, from the “crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is nothing but wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores.”

All the principles, all the powers of the soul are affected by sin, precisely in the same way as the body is injured by disease. This is seen in the perversion of the judgment, in the ignorance of the understanding, in the rebellion of the will, in the pollution of the conscience. It is seen in the inconsistency, tyranny, and carnality of the affections, and in the folly and iniquity of the life; while destruction and misery are in their paths. This is an affecting condition. We shall hereafter consider the remedy proposed.

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