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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Devotional: December 19th

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Morning Devotional

Go to, now, ye that say, today or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. - James 4:13-15.

“THEY that will be rich,” says the apostle, “fall into temptation and snares, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” There are some whose spirit and conduct seem to say they will be rich whether God wills it or not. How much we see of this in social life! Hear the language of James in this Scripture. Now, here we have an unsanctified tradesman: he must carry on business to advantage. He seems to have no desire to monopolize or to run down his rival. No; his aim seems only to get gain in a lawful way. And what harm is there in this? It is the “hand of the diligent that maketh rich.” And “he that provideth not for his own, especially those of his own house, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” But perhaps it may be found that he is avaricious, that he is ambitious; and that it is not a mere subsistence he wants, but an abundance,-not a competency, but splendour; and he is carried away by the pride of life. In his endeavours to accomplish his wishes and aims he will compass sea and land, not perhaps reflecting upon the evils of a roving disposition, and without weighing well the remark of Solomon, “As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.”

This has been the case with many. But what is the great truth here? Why, that God is not present to his mind. He never sought him before or during his undertaking; he never prayed, with the Psalmist, “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk;” “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel;” or entreated God to choose his inheritance for him. And how should he expect the divine direction and blessing? These words’-I will do this and that-are too big for a mortal, regardless of Him upon whom every thing depends. He is to succeed, he is to live through another year, regardless of sickness and accidents, and of all those changes to which mortals are exposed. Alas! all such boasting: is vain.

Evening Devotional

Every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life. - John 6:40.

OBSERVE, first, The nature of this manifestation. We cannot suppose it to be a corporeal one. If so all that he addressed were saved. But he did not speak of the eye of the senses, he spoke of the eye of faith, and therefore “to them that believe he is precious.” For love enters by the eye, and faith is the eye of the soul. There is a Spiritual discovery made of him to every believer-a perception of his excellencies. This manifestation of himself by his Spirit is distinguishable from all that knowledge which the world possesses, and also from a mere theoretical knowledge of religious truth. It is accompanied with a discernment not only of Spiritual blessings, But of their excellency and glory.

There is a great difference here: a man may believe there is such a thing as holiness, but this is not seeing the beauty of holiness and loving it. A man may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and the only way, the truth, and the life, and yet may feel no regard for him. But the knowledge which the Holy Ghost communicates descends from the head always into the heart, and then it gets out from the heart into the life, and walks abroad; and appears in all the relations, all the conditions, and in all the circumstances of human life.

Observe, secondly, What will be the consequences of this manifestation? There will be a high estimation of him. “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not; lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Hence to such he has no “form nor comeliness nor any beauty that they should desire him.” But when we do thus behold him we shall say,

“All over glorious is my Lord,

Must be beloved and yet adored,

His worth, if all the nations knew,

Sure the whole earth would love him too.”

He is “altogether lovely.” “This is my Beloved; this is my Friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.” If we have this manifestation of the Son, then we shall apply to him. This is the very end of the manifestation. If we see him as the “Refuge” set before us, we shall flee to him. If we see him as the “Foundation laid in Zion,” we shall build upon him. If we see him as “the Lord, our righteousness, and strength,” we shall therefore rejoice in him. If we thus see the Son as the consequence of the manifestation, we shall be sure to resemble him and to “walk even as he also walked.”

Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord we shall be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” There are some who boast of knowing, and in a very superior way, while in their opinion others remain partially in the dark; but where do we discover in them the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and the mind that was in Christ Jesus? Where in them do we see a deadness to the world, and a living unto God with “their conversation in heaven?” If we thus see the Son, and he is thus manifested to us, self will be annihilated, at least it will be greatly subdued.

Thus it was with Job. He said, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.” And what was the consequence? “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes:” and “Behold I am vile.” And what an influence had it upon Isaiah also: “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts.” The world also will lose its attractions. The enjoyment of the greater weakens, more than anything else, our attachment to the less. Those who have tasted the grapes of Eschol will no longer sigh after the leeks, and onions, and garlick of Egypt.

“When I can say my God is mine,

When I can feel his glories shine,

I tread the world beneath my feet,

And all that earth calls good or great.”

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