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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: July 7th

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Morning Devotional

Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord. - Psalms 119:65.

LET us beware of reflecting on him. He does as he pleaseth; he putteth down one and setteth up another. Suppose a fellowcreature succeeded more than ourselves; suppose he has greater talents than we possess; suppose he is placed in a higher situation than ourselves: whose arrangement is this the effect of? And may not God do what he will with his own? We are to leave others to his disposal as well as ourselves; and we may learn from this consideration, “In whatsoever state we are, therewith to be content;” yes, “and in every thing to give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning us.” Let us remember this in two cases. Let us think of it when we look back upon our past life. God said to Moses, “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness.”

Life would be a poor business in review unless we could connect God with it, with its crosses and with its comforts. Have we failed in our plans? have our purposes been broken off, even the thoughts of our hearts? have we been sent back in life, or put down? Who has done it? We learn from David: he says, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it.” We learn from Job. Job was stripped of all; yet he says, “The Lord hath taken away.” Would Job think of commencing an action against God for damages? So far from it that he said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Or are we looking forward? who can avoid it? We know not what a day nor an hour may bring forth; we cannot pierce through these futurities and uncertainties. But we can think of God’s all-disposing agency, and say, With him I leave myself; with him I leave my beloved relatives; with him I leave my business; with him I leave every thing that can befall me.

“My cares, I give you to the wind,

And shake you off like dust;

“Well may I trust my all with him

With whom my soul I trust.”

Christians may put themselves and all their concerns on board this vessel, and give to God the entire command of it. Let us not, under any circumstances, call him away from the helm, but leave him to manage all, and say, with David, unto the Lord, “Thou hast dealt well with thy servant,” and “Thou, Lord, shalt choose my inheritance for me.”

Evening Devotional

Thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. - Psalms 138:2.

THAT is, above all other modes of manifesting himself; for God has displayed himself in various other ways. He has shown much of his power and his wisdom in the constitution of nature, and in the dispensations of providence; yea, and much of his goodness, too. Some contend that he has shown enough of his goodness there to answer all the purposes of religion; but very unjustly: for the display of his goodness there is often intermixed with other effects, that more than neutralise it. We thus witness not only zephyrs, but hurricanes; not only health, but sickness; not only ease, but cholera; not only life, but death. And these awful consequences will always produce more fear in the guilty (and every mind is conscious of guilt) than the pleasing appearances will ever have power to produce hope.

We see that this accords with the history of idolatry and superstition in every age of the world. It has not only been absurd and foolish, but also cruel and bloody. The character altogether upon which man must return to God as a sinner to obtain pardon and peace, is the only view we can have of God that will give us confidence and bring us to himself; namely, as the “Father of mercies” and “God of all grace;” as “ready to forgive;” as engaged to renew and sanctify us: this is only to be seen in “the face of Jesus Christ.” In its influence and efficacy, God has magnified his word above all his other works, not only with regard to the illumination of the mind, or the relief of the pardoned conscience, or the setting of the man’s poor heart to rest, so that he shall no longer run up and down this wide world, crying, “Who will show us any good?” but this efficiency is also seen in his moral transformation. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”

And our Saviour therefore said unto the Jews, “The words I speak unto you, they are Spirit and life;” “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” We see that it did this on its original proclamation. We see that though Plato complained that he could not prevail upon the inhabitants of a single village to walk according to his maxims and rules, the fisherman of Galilee never complained so. Did Corinth refuse, or Rome, or Thessalonica, or Ephesus? Did either or all these places refuse to receive the gospel? No. “The kingdom of God was not in word, but in power.” They “received the word;” “were made free from sin, became servants to God; having their fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” And the same effects arise from the same doctrine now.

For God’s grace and God’s truth always go together wherever the gospel is received; it comes not in word only, but, as the Apostle says, “both in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.” The drunkard becomes sober; the swearer learns to fear an oath; the man who lived in chambering and wantonness no longer follows the desires of the flesh; the proud are humbled; the avaricious become liberal; and they who walked by sight walk by faith. And where the word of God is not available to renew, it restrains; where it does not sanctify, it civilizes; and it is this that humanizes mankind.

We might have gone through the whole of the pagan world, and not have seen a hospital or a poorhouse. It is this that softens the fierceness of the passions, and corrects the savageness of the manners of the multitude. It is this that will finally beat the sword into the ploughshare, the spear into the pruning-hook, and put an end to war. It is this that will finally banish slavery; and it is this that has raised marriage to its original institution, and, by excluding polygamy and divorce, at once reduced it to a state of purity, peace, and happiness. It is this that has raised the tone of morals amongst us, and the very vices which the most admired characters of antiquity practised and dared themselves to avow, now drive a man from the dregs of society. It is this that makes us revere the memory of a Howard or a Wilberforce, because they pitied and relieved the distressed.

Thus the Scriptures have closed the numerous avenues of wretchedness, and opened to mankind scenes of comfort. What would be the state of every family and every nation, if the precepts of this book were universally obeyed, and the Spirit of this book universally felt? Why, our earth would be turned into a paradise. The few words of the Apostle, “By love serve one another,” were they enthroned in every heart, soon “the wilderness and the solitary place would be made glad, and the desert would rejoice and blossom as the rose.”

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