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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: October 27th

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Morning Devotional

A holy nation. - 1 Peter 2:9.

THE Lord’s people, though they consist of large numbers and their number is every day increasing, are not an undisciplined rabble. Observe their nationality. They are a multitude of people under rule and order, laws and a Governor. The worst government upon earth is a thousand times better than a mere mobocracy, where every one does that which is right in his own eyes. God’s people are under authority. They are all subjects. They have a King who reigns over them, and a King who reigns in them too; who “puts his laws into their minds” and “writes them in their hearts;” he “makes them willing in the day of his power,” and they then say, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

Secondly, They are a holy nation. Their holiness involves two things. First, Their separation from the world. Thus, under the law, the tabernacle and all the utensils thereof were called holy; not that they underwent a change, but because they were dedicated to the service of God,-“set apart” from common to special uses, from natural to spiritual uses. Thus we are told that “the Lord setteth apart him that is godly for himself,” in his purposes first, then by his grace and providence.

Then, Secondly, By the renovation of their natures. Thus they are holy, not only by dedication, but by transformation; to use the words of the apostle, being “transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” And this change is absolutely indispensable. If God were to call an angel before him, he could employ him immediately, without a change; he would be prepared and ready for his service. But if God called a poor sinner in this way, he must “work in him to will and to do of his good pleasure,” and produce in him the principles and dispositions which will render his duty his delight, and enable him to say, after the example of his divine Lord, “My meat is to do the will of my Father which is in heaven, and to finish his work.

Evening Devotional

Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. - 2 Timothy 2:3.

ALL Christians are called to experience a warfare, a real, trying, and a very peculiar warfare; so that every believer can say with the Apostle: “So fight I not as one that beateth the air;” for “we wrestle,” says the Apostle,” we agonize, not merely with flesh and blood, but with a numerous, mighty, invisible, subtle, and malignant foe.” In other wars there are some exemptions, or substitutes may be provided; but no one can engage in this warfare for us.

No one can believe, or repent, or obey, or deny himself for us. And if he promises and vows all these things on our behalf, he promises and vows what he is unable ever to perform. In other wars there are dispensations allowed; for instance, as to the royal family, ministers of the gospel, the aged, the sick and infirm, and as to females and children. But there is no discharge in this war.” Ministers must even officer this army. Women must become Amazons, and children must resemble Hannibal- who, at the age of nine, laid his little hand upon the altar and swore eternal enmity to the Romans. And they who are “faint” must yet be “pursuing,” and “endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.”

And then as to the endurance of these hardships of war, we find there is to be no cessation in this warfare. We are forbidden to conclude a peace with these enemies, or to enter into a truce with them, or even to make an armistice with them during the burial of the dead. The war is to go on night and day, summer and winter, in sickness and in health. There is to be no relaxation either of fighting or of watching; none until death proclaims the Christian’s deliverance and his triumph.

And then this warfare, this contention, is not for a trifle, as is often the case with wars amongst men, as the war between England and America was-for a pound of tea. No, but here the most awful consequences are depending. Here everything is for life-the life of the soul, the life of eternity. Eternity is to result from this struggle, an eternity of happiness or woe. If we do not overcome, we are vanquished and undone for ever.

“Fight on, my faithful band, he cries,

Nor fear the mortal blow,

Who first in such a warfare dies

Shall speediest victory know.”

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