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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: June 4th

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Morning Devotional

The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth. 2 John 1:1.

MUCH of the New Testament is epistolary. The Epistles are of three kinds: some of them are addressed to Christians at large, some to single churches, and some to particular individuals. These individuals were signally honoured. It is generally considered, if not flattering, most agreeable to receive communications from persons in high rank or station; and still more from one distinguished by genius, or learning, or piety; but to receive a letter from an inspired author, an epistle from John the Divine, how would the autograph be valued, and how sedulously would it be preserved! Yet two of John’s Epistles are addressed to individuals. One of them is inscribed to a male friend,-the beloved Gaius. He was distinguished by bodily indisposition and soul-prosperity, and great liberality and zeal.

The other is inscribed to a female friend, whose name is not recorded. She is called the Elect Lady. But who was this distinguished personage? Perhaps she was a deaconess; perhaps she had a church in her house; perhaps her mansion was the asylum of the persecuted, and the dwelling where the ministers of the word and the brethren always found a welcome and a home. She seems to have been a person of high reputation, and of some rank, and able disposition. But, whatever her worldly condition, it of itself would never have attracted the notice of John without her character. He regarded her according to her real worth. Birth, and wealth, and honour, are nothing in themselves. But they are powers; they may afford proofs of the power of divine grace in the preservation of the owners, and furnish opportunities for influence and for usefulness. She was preeminently pious: the foundation of all her excellencies was her personal and evangelical godliness. She was “walking in the truth.” Here by the truth we understand the truth as it is in Jesus. She exemplified the influence of the truth by her walking in the knowledge, practice, and profession of the truth, and in being “a fellowhelper to the truth.” Nothing is said of her husband: perhaps he was irreligious; perhaps he was dead. Her children, however, are here noticed, and seem to have been like-minded with herself, for they were “found walking in the truth.” How they were brought into the ways of truth is not stated. But John addresses them along with their honoured mother. Whether he had seen them at their mother’s house, or whether he had only heard of them by report, we are unable to determine. “But,” says he, “I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in the truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father.”

The dear aged disciple then falls into his old strain of affection, and endeavours to excite an increase of what had already commenced:-“And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another;” and then he passes from brotherly love to divine love; indeed, they are always enjoined and inseparable. He says, “And this is love, that we walk after his commandments.”

Evening Devotional

The hope which is laid up for you in heaven. - Colossians 1:5.

IT is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that there is another and better state of being; and there are two things in general we may always remark concerning heaven. We may view it as a state and as a place. it is principally to be considered as a state. “He that believeth hath the witness in himself.” The natural man supposes that we must ascend up millions of miles through the sky to get into heaven. There are some living who know the truth of our Saviour’s declaration: “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” At Bethel, in consequence of what he saw and what he heard, Jacob exclaimed, “This is none other than the house of God, and the very gate of heaven.” When he looked around him, the situation convinced him he was not in heaven; but his manifestations and communications induced him to believe that heaven could not be very far off.

Happiness is not a local thing; it does not depend on external things; it is mental, it is cordial. There may be wretchedness in a palace, and there may be contentedness in a mud-wall cottage. What were all his distinctions to Haman, while Mordecai the Jew sat at the king’s gate? But hear Paul, a prisoner, and in view of martyrdom: “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed against that day.” “He hath blessed us with all Spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” But although heaven is principally to be viewed as a state, yet it is also to be considered as a place. A place it necessarily must be, because it is to be the residence of finite beings and embodied beings, and because it is to be the residence of the Lord Jesus Christ, who as a man is clothed in a body like our own. Heaven is where the glorified humanity of the Saviour is. Our Saviour said to the dying thief, “This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” This was somewhere. And to his disciples he said, “I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there you may be also.”

We cannot imagine to what a perfection locality can be advanced. We know how superior the scenery of one spot of earth is to another. We know how charming and enchanting nature can be rendered under the arrangements of art. Who can tell what Eden was, the residence of Adam and Eve, especially after it came under their culture? Who then can imagine what the attractions and glories of heaven may be, even considered as a place? What a place must that be which does not “stand in need of the sun or of the moon to shine therein, for the glory of God and the Lamb are the light thereof, and where there is no temple therein, for the glory of God and the Lamb are the temple thereof.” But the principal thing with, us should be, Is it accessible?

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