Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: October 14th

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.

LET us turn aside and behold, First, the grandeur and dearness of the gift. It was 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; “for he that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?”

Behold, Secondly, The condition into which he entered. It was not the angelic state: this would have been a mighty condescension; but he descended still lower; “he took not on him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham;” “the Word was made flesh.” Though man, absolutely considered, is nothing, yet he is otherwise comparatively and relatively viewed. But our Saviour never appeared in any of the superior forms of our nature. He lived a life of penury, and reproach, and persecution. Peter had a house of his own; John had a house; and “the foxes have holes, and 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 comfort, but I found none.” There are none who are strangers to sorrow of some kind; and he was “a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” But who can describe or imagine 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. We notice,

Thirdly, The unworthiness of the persons for whom he was sent thus to suffer and to die. Paul has been beforehand with us here:-“When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly; God commendeth his love towards us, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,”

Fourthly, Let us contemplate the beneficial consequences of the dispensation. “In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” And “God,” says our Saviour, “so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Let us notice, finally, The number of the partakers. It is a “multitude which no man can number,” compared in the Scriptures, sometimes to the drops of morning dew, sometimes to the stars of heaven, and sometimes to the sand of the sea-shore. Half mankind die in a state of infancy; and surely, if “of such is the kingdom of heaven,” here is half the human race mercifully disposed of at once. And as to the other half, how many would appear if we knew all! for the Lord has his “hidden ones.” How many have been saved already since the foundation of the world! How many are the subjects of divine grace now passing through this vale of tears! And oh, when we look 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 kings shall serve him,” “and all flesh shall see the salvation of our God.”

They shall take hold of the shirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. - Zechariah 8:23.

KNOWLEDGE is necessary to all influence, but all knowledge is not influential. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them;” but we here see that the knowledge of these people was effective; it constrained them to “lay hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you.” This is a simple and striking expression. We have seen a dear little infant, when he wished to engage the attention of his mother, pulling her by the clothes. When a child has been walking along with his father, and has been afraid that he would leave him, he not only cries, but lays hold of his coat. When the cripple had been healed at the beautiful gate of the temple, he held Peter and John, and was afraid to let them go (probably dreading a return of his former misery), as much as to say: You shall not go, and if you do I will go with you, and you shall draw me after you. Just so it is here. It shows conviction, attachment, eager attention, a wishing to be among them and to be of them. Ah, says one of them, I see they are rich, they are happy; oh that I was with them in glory everlasting. I see that they are travelling, and they are bound for that very country which I now long to enter. I must join them. Will they receive me into their number?

God is with them, and it is God I now want. I have been living without him in the world, but I can live without him no longer. It is God I now want-his favour-his presence- the comforts of his Holy and Blessed Spirit. What can I do without God? If I find prosperity in the world, my prosperity will destroy me, and what can I do with adversity, if it should come upon me, without God? What shall I do, if I have no God, when I come to die? Before this other qualities, other companions, attracted and drew the man; but, as the Apostle says, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature,” he has new views, new feelings, new hopes, new pleasures, new aversions, and new companions.

How much depends on association. While the “companion of fools will be destroyed,” “he that walketh with the wise shall be wise.” He that chooses good men for his companions will have God as his Guide, Guardian, and Comforter, and Portion in the land of the living. We shall have fellowship with them while we live, and when we come to die we may say as a good man once said, “I am going to change my place, but not my company.” Death will take us to our home, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven, where

“For us our elder brethren stay,

And angels beckon us away,

And Jesus bids us come.”