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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: July 21st

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Morning Devotional

Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. - Isaiah 45:24.

THIS is not only a prediction, but a promise also. God foresees and foretells evil, without being the author of it. But if he foretells good he must determine to produce it, or it would never be found; for “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights;” and to him be all the glory. But what a blessed acknowledgment is this!-“In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.” We talk of happiness. Ah, he is the happy man,-not he who strides along from victory to victory; not he who joins house to house and adds field to field; not he who ingratiates himself in the esteem and friendship of the world;-but he who is a partaker of grace and an heir of glory; he who is sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and in whom the promises are accomplished. Whose language is this? “Surely shall one say;” not one exclusively, or only: though the people of God are comparatively few, they are really many, and much more numerous than our ignorance and prejudices and fears often lead us to imagine. Elias said, “I am left alone, and they seek my life;” but God said, “I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal, and whose lips have not kissed him.” The “one,” therefore, here spoken of, is “one” specially “one,” so to speak, as a sample of others. Any “one,” every “one” of a certain class.

Of this class are they who are taught of God, who are born from above, and who are bound for glory; for here they are all agreed, under the law, and under the gospel dispensation in every country and in every age. There are some persons who seem to think that there are various ways to heaven, and that we may all choose our own; but the way of life from the beginning has always been the same. All who have been washed from their sins have been washed in the same fountain, opened for sin and uncleanness; all who have been healed have been healed by the same “balm and by the same Physician.” Though David lived under a very inferior economy, he expressed himself in the same language as the most enlightened believer would under a more glorious dispensation. Yea, he not only says, “In the Lord have I righteousness and strength,” but, “I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.” This includes more than possession; it includes use also: this comprehends more than acknowledgment; it includes also improvement. These are not always connected, but, alas, how often are they at variance!

And how often do we fall short of our duties and of our privileges! or we should much more “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things” than we do. How interesting, how delightful, are these representations of the principles, the experience, and the resolutions of the true Israel of God! Hence, as we have already stated, the man after God’s own heart said, “I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.”

His resolution, we see, contains two things. First, That he will avail himself of God’s strength. Secondly, That he will glory in his righteousness. Oh that we may make these resolutions our own!

Evening Devotional

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. - 1 John 4:10.

THIS fact and incident is mentioned by the Apostle in order to set forth and illustrate the doctrine that “God is love.” Let us notice, first, the grandeur and the dearness of the gift. He sent not an angel, but the Lord of angels; not a servant, but a Son. His “own Son,” his “only begotten Son,” the “brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.” “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” This gift insures and includes every other. “With him he will freely give us all things.”

Observe, secondly, the condition he entered. It was not the angelic state; this would have been a mighty condescension, but he became lower; “the Word was made flesh.” Then our Saviour appeared in the most inferior forms of our nature. He lived a life of penury, of reproach, and of persecution. Peter had a home of his own. John had a home. “The foxes have holes,” says he, “the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” There are few who are destitute of all sympathy and compassion; but, says he, “I looked for some to take pity, and there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” There are none who are strangers to sorrow of some kind; but he was a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief .” But who can imagine or describe his inward sufferings, when he was in the garden and was “‘sore amazed,” and “very heavy,” when he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death;” when his sweat was “as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground;” when he exclaimed on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And yet “it pleased the Father to bruise him,” and for our sakes, and for our recovery. “God is love.”

Observe, thirdly, the unworthiness of the persons for whom he was sent to suffer and to die. Paul has been beforehand with us here. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We were all criminals, we lay entirely at his mercy, and he could both righteously and easily have destroyed us, but he did not. Herein is love.

Behold, fourthly, the beneficial consequences of the dispensations. “In this was manifested,” says the Apostle, “the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” God, says the Saviour himself, “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” What is it to perish? Not the loss of worldly substance, but the loss of the soul -not the physical loss of the soul-not the loss of its being, but the loss of its well-being, the loss of its happiness, the loss of it for ever.

And what is everlasting life? “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” And is it a light thing for my soul to be like his soul; my body to be like his body; my condition to be like his condition? Is it a light thing that when he who is my life shall appear I shall appear with him in glory, and walk with him in white, and sit with him at his table in his kingdom, and “inherit all things?” And even now this everlasting life is begun, even now our emancipated Spirits feel a freedom already, and “do enter into rest,” and “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

Fifthly, the number of the partakers. It is a multitude which no man can number, compared in the Scriptures to drops of morning dew, to the stars of heaven, and to the sand of the seashore. Half mankind die in a state of infancy; and surely if “of such is the kingdom of heaven,” here is half of the human race mercifully disposed of already. Oh how many would appear if we knew all! for the Lord has his “hidden ones.” How many have been saved since the foundation of the world! How many are the subjects of Divine grace, now passing through this vale of tears!

And we are looking forward to better times, when “a nation shall be born in a day,” when “he shall sprinkle many nations, when all nations shall fall down before him, and all flesh shall see the salvation of our God together.”

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