the Third Week after Easter
Click here to join the effort!
Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Galatians 6:14.
WE may here observe how the apostle regarded the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus: he gloried in it. Now, glory supposes the realization or appropriation of some excellence; then, also, it is satisfaction issuing in delight, and triumph, and rapture. Oh that we were like-minded with the Apostle Paul! for, if we were,-if we could “glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,”-there are ways enough in which it might be expressed and manifested.
If we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall “rejoice in Christ Jesus, having no confidence in the flesh.” We shall make it the subject of our choice with regard to preachers; we shall choose such a one who dwells much on the cross of Christ, and prefer their labours to those of others, however inferior they may be as to talent or as to manner; “for what is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?”
If we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall think of it with feelings of pleasure, saying, with the Psalmist, “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with thee.” “My meditation of him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord.” “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips, when I remember thee upon my bed,” O my dying Saviour, “and meditate upon thee in the night-watches.”
Thoughts are the first-born offspring of the mind, and in a Christian we shall find them clinging to the cross, as the bees cling around the hive,- and for the very same reason, for there is the honey.
“Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross I spend.”
There the Christian feels his highest delight to be. If we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall speak of it, not by constraint, but willingly; not formally, but from affection; not with indifference, but out of the abundance of the heart.
If we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall endeavour to bring others to our own views and feelings:-
“Then shall we tell to sinners round
What a dear Saviour we have found,-
Point them to his redeeming blood,
And say, Behold the way to God.”
If we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be comforted by it under all our losses, depressions, and privations. We well know that trials urge us to repair to that which we consider our treasure or our portion; and we solace ourselves in this when we have nothing else to cheer and encourage us.
Finally, If we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be willing to make sacrifices for it. We know what sacrifices Paul made. Ah, what a sufferer was he! and yet he says, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong.” Yes, Paul could say, “For whom I have suffered the loss of all things.”
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. - James 1:22.
TRUE religion does not consist in mere theory. It is more than a notion of things-something is known and felt. There is such a thing as real experience in divine things. “He that believeth hath the witness in himself,” and this is what we are to seek after, to taste and see that the Lord is good. We are told that the publican went down to his house “justified,” he carried away the blessing itself.
How different is this from many who hear the gospel, who, after hearing a discourse, carry away the doctrine, but are regardless of the practice; they are hearers of the word, and not doers of it. These are self-deceivers. But this is the grand thing, to partake of the blessing sent, to know that we are pardoned through the blood of the cross, and to receive the gospel, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. This is the proof that we have not received it in vain: if it teaches us to “deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world;” if it enables us to say, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
What opportunities of hearing the word have some enjoyed. But, alas! while they hear the gospel constantly, they walk according to the course of this world. Some attend the house of God and places of dissipation, endeavouring to serve God and mammon; wearing the form of godliness, but denying the power of it. In all ages, God’s servants have been compelled to exclaim, “Who hath believed our report?”
Four kinds of soil received the same seed in the same season from the same hand, and what is the result? Only one of the four yields anything to the purpose, and if an appeal is made to the lives, and tempers, and conversation of those who hear the word, and who hear the word of the gospel too, what reason have we to hope that one in four of those who hear the gospel believe? -that one in four of the large numbers of hearers have received the grace of God to the salvation of their souls- are doers of the word and not hearers only? Alas, how awful the conclusion; they are “deceiving their own selves.”
