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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: September 28th

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Morning Devotional

Who remembered us in our low estate. - Psalms 136:23.

LET us contemplate “our low estate.” In doing so, we observe, first, That this is our natural state, but not our original condition. Man was made a little lower than the angels, and God gave him dominion over all his works. What completed his elevation was, that God created him in his own image in righteousness and true holiness; but here is the sad conclusion: -God made man upright, but he soon sought out many inventions. Mankind retain traces of their original grandeur.

Enough is left to convince a man that he is greatness in ruins. His fall is low even in comparison with his present powers, Man is still high in the scale of his capacities, being endowed with reason, conscience, and immortality. The expansion of his capacity and of his improvement is boundless. This is apparent in the knowledge that man can acquire of the arts and sciences; in his skill, in measuring the distances of the stars; in the achievements he is continually making to excite our wonder and admiration; but so much the more degraded does he appear, when we see him, with these capabilities, “earthly, sensual, and devilish.” What a sight for an angel!-an heir of immortality, “led captive by the devil at his will,” and a slave to his own appetites, passions, and vices!

Secondly, Let us consider him in relation to God. A creature never thinking of his Creator, -a child unmindful of his heavenly Father,-a beneficiary who never remembers his Benefactor. God is not in all his thoughts; and, if he ever approaches him, he is repulsed as an unwelcome intruder. He says unto God, Depart from me, “I desire not a knowledge of thy ways.”

Thirdly, Let us view him with regard to mankind. All his fellow-creatures are really his brethren; he is bound by the law of his being, to regard his neighbour as himself. But, alas, how one man is trying to take advantage of the ignorance and weakness of his fellow-man! How frequently is friendship but a mere commerce of advantage! government, a system of intrigue and corruption!-man seeking glory in fields of blood, in desolated houses and demolished towns, in weeping widows and fatherless children!

Fourthly, In relation to inferior creatures. So low has man sunk, that to humble him he is sent to learn wisdom of the beasts that perish. Yea, the Scriptures represent men as being lower than the beasts:- “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”

Fifthly, Let us consider how low is man’s condition with regard to his body. Paul calls it a “vile body.” How numerous its infirmities! How offensive its diseases, requiring all the force of friendship to discharge the common duties of humanity! And then, a few days after it has ceased to breathe, we must hide its shame in the earth; and then Abraham comes to mourn for his once fair and beautiful Sarah, and to weep for her, and says, “Give me possession of a burial-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” There is only one state lower, and that is Hell. And man is reduced to this:-

“Buried in sorrow and in sin,

At hell’s dark door we lay.”

Alas! these are not exceptions, as some might suppose, from the general rule. We have not gone to the very dregs of society for our representations. We have the language of God in his word to set forth man’s awful degradation. Here he is represented as being “in a horrible pit, wherein is no water,” as being in the “region of the shadow of death,” as “ready to perish.” And we are told that “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint;” that “from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores,” and that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;” “for from within out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness; all these evil things come from within and defile the man.”

These views of human nature and of our natural condition, though very mortifying, are true, and not only true, but useful and necessary. They are necessary to explain the scheme of the gospel, and to prepare us for and induce us to seek after the blessedness it is designed to convey.

Evening Devotional

The Son of man came not to he ministered unto but to minister. - Matthew 20:28.

THERE are persons who will often dispense with the attendance of others on themselves, who are not willing themselves to attend upon others, and especially those who are below them; but what do we see yonder? “Jesus rises from supper and lays aside his garments, and takes a towel and girds himself. After that he pours water into a basin and begins to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded; and he said, Know you, my disciples, what I have done? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another’s feet.” Not as to the action, but the principle of the action; this we are to seek after. Jesus came to minister.

He may be considered a servant: “Behold my servant,” says God, “my righteous servant. “He took upon him the form of a servant.” He was emphatically “the servant of all;” and there never was a servant yet in the world that was so attentive to the calls of his office. Here a centurion has a servant sick of the palsy; the word is a slave. He addresses him on his behalf; immediately he says, “I will come and heal him. Behold the Lord of lords and the King of kings, proceeding at a moment’s notice, and passing through the mansion to a hinder apartment and standing by the pallet of a poor diseased slave. The Son of man came “to minister.”

There is a large class of mankind who are trampled upon or overlooked by those around them; they are the poor. He at once enriched their minds and fed their bodies; “he had compassion on the multitude because they had nothing to eat,” and “he taught them many things,” and “the poor had the gospel preached unto them.” Here is a poor woman following a funeral; it was her own and her only son, and she too was a widow. Already she had entombed her husband, whose grave was now to be re-opened, to awaken all her tears and to receive the remains of one who was her last prop struck from under her. Our Saviour saw her, and had compassion on her, and said unto her, “Weep not.” And he said, “Young man, I say unto thee arise; and he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And”-O what a present!-“he delivered him up to his mother.” The Son of man came to minister to the relief of a guilty mind.

We talk of anguish; can anything heal the pangs of a distressed and wounded conscience? Here is a woman taken in adultery. By the law of Moses she was condemned to be stoned; she is mercilessly dealt with, and at length turned over to the Saviour by a company of wretches, every one of whom was guilty of the very same crime, though they had as yet escaped detection. And he turned to the woman; instead of condemning her, he said, “Go, and sin no more.” On another occasion he dined in the house of a Pharisee. While he was there, a woman in the city that was a sinner, knowing that Jesus was there, came, and, ashamed and afraid to look him in the face, got behind him, and stood at his feet weeping, and “began to wash his feet with her tears and to wipe them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment.” What said our Saviour to her? “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” The Pharisee murmured. Never mind, said he: “Woman, I say unto thee, thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister.”

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