Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: March 22nd

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. - Psalms 32:1.

WHEN David looked around to find a truly happy man, he does not say, blessed is he whose grounds bring forth plentifully; blessed is the man who governs the nations with a nod; blessed is the man who achieves victory after victory; blessed is the man who is admired for genius and science. To many of these distinctions he himself was no stranger. He was a musician, a poet, a hero, and a king; but these distinctions were not sufficient to give him happiness; and therefore he prayed, “Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.” For “Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound; they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance, in thy name shall they rejoice all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted.” And here he exclaims, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”

The Psalmist here intimates that the enjoyment of forgiveness of sins is a present blessing; not that a man shall be blessed at some future time, but he says, “Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven,” &c. The man who realizes by faith that his transgressions are forgiven has the true notion of blessedness, and the reality. Happiness, present, future, and eternal, is hereby insured to him, and in the enjoyment of this distinguished privilege he has everlasting blessedness begun. They are indeed truly blessed to whom this blessing is assured; for, while our safety depends upon our state, our consolation principally depends upon our knowledge. How many of the Lord’s family, for want of this “full assurance of hope,” go mourning all their days!

Those who are favoured to “know the joyful sound” are blessed in their duties, blessed in their comforts, blessed in their trials. To them affliction has no curse, death has no sting, eternity has no terrors.

Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. - Philippians 1:29.

HERE is an honour often conferred upon Christians. Nothing strikes us like a fact; and nothing is ever so impressive as the display and the exercise of the passive graces in the believer. God, therefore, gives his people the grace of being placed in a state of affliction, in order that they may become his witnesses; that they may be examples to display to others the truth of the excellency and efficacy of the religion of the gospel; and they are often enabled peculiarly to glorify God in the fire of tribulation.

Sometimes, when they are laid by, through accident, or an affliction, or a disease, they are ready to think they are approaching a very useless part of their lives. They are led to conceive of it as Job says, as being “made to possess months of vanity,” during which they can do nothing for God or their generation, when, in fact, they have been in such circumstances as to be approaching the most useful part of their lives, when they have been enabled to suffer as Christians; when their whole frame and character has been expressive of the language, O Lord, I mourn, but I do not, dare not murmur; “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.” “Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.” And how salutary has the effect of this been! how useful has been the impression it has produced! And even where Christians have lived, perhaps, in a mud-wall cottage-stretched, it maybe, on nothing better than a pallet of straw, where they are hardly observed by any of their fellow-creatures-by the manner in which they suffer, for aught we know, they may excite even praise and thanksgiving in another world; for the Apostle tells us we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.