the Fourth Week after Easter
Daily Devotionals
The Poor Man's Morning and Evening Portions
September 15—Morning—Psalms 40:17
"As for me I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.—"Psalms 40:17.
My soul, sit down, and reckon up thy true riches. See what are thine outward circumstances, and take an inventory of all thine inward wealth. Thou art, by nature and by practice, one of the children of a bankrupt father, even Adam, who lived insolvent, and died wretchedly poor in himself, having entailed only an inheritance of sin, misery, and death, with the loss of divine favour, upon the whole race of his children. By nature and by practice thou art poor in the sight of God, despised by angels on account of thy loathsome disease of sin; thine understanding darkened; thy will corrupt; passions impetuous, proud, self-willed; all in opposition to the law of God; exposed to all present evil, everlasting evil; a slave to Satan, a willing captive in his drudgery; hastening daily to death, to the second death, and with an insensibility which is enough to make every heart mourn that beholds thee. Such, my soul, was thy state by nature; and such, and far worse, would have been thy state for ever, had not Jesus interposed, and looked upon thee, and loved thee, when thou wast cast out to perish, and no eye to pity thee, nor help thee from thy ruin. My soul, canst thou now say, though poor and needy, the Lord thinketh upon thee? Oh blessed Jesus! thou dost indeed think upon me, and provide for me, and hast given me to see, to feel, my poverty, need, and misery; and to live wholly upon thee and thy alms from day to day. Yes, Jesus! I would be poor, I would be needy; I would feel yet more and more my nothingness, worthlessness, poverty, wretchedness, that Jesus may be increasingly precious, and thy salvation increasingly dear. Oh for grace, as a poor needy debtor, daily to swell my debt account, that my consciousness of need may make thee and thy fulness increasingly blessed. Let it be my daily motto—" As for me, I am poor and needy; but the Lord thinketh upon me."
September 15—Evening—Psalms 84:10
"A door-keeper in the house of my God."—Psalms 84:10.
My soul, hast thou ever considered the blessedness of such an appointment, of such an office, when truly followed up? If Jesus indeed appoint, and both teach the nature of it, and give grace to the faithful discharge of it, then is it most honourable, and truly blessed. A door-keeper is supposed to know the several apartments of the house, and to be well acquainted with his Lord and Master, in whose service he ministers. He is supposed also to know who goeth out, and who cometh in; whether his Lord be at home, and how his fellow-servants are employed in their ministry. And if he be a faithful door-keeper, he will willingly open to none but such as his Lord approves, but most gladly shew all that come in his Lord’s name, and are welcome to his Lord, the way to his Lord’s presence and his Lord’s table. What sayest thou, my soul, to such an office? Surely, to be" an hewer of wood, and a drawer of water, in the service of the sanctuary," is an honourable employment; and how much more to be "a door-keeper in the house of God!" The man after God’s own heart was so much delighted with the thought of God’s house, that he seemed to grudge the constant abode of the birds that made their nests at the altar. Poor David, though a king in Israel, could only now and then go up to the house of God, but these birds rested there. And under the full impression of the happiness resulting from a constant residence, he broke out in an hymn of praise:" Blessed are they that dwell in thy house," whose home, whose abode, whose constant employment is there; for "they will be still praising thee." Pause, my soul! hast thou the same views as David? Consider wherein this blessedness consists: the servants of the Lord, who dwell in their Lord’s house, are blessed, not because they are in the receipt of wages; not because their bountiful Lord provides a table for them; but because he gives them employment, and his praises are their meat and drink:" they will be still praising thee," saith David. Yes! the house of God is then an heaven below, where the servants of the Lord find their joy and happiness from the everlasting praises of God and the Lamb! But, alas! if the servants of the Lord’s house, in any or all of the departments, from the highest to the lowest, dwell there, not to glorify the Lord and promote his honour, but to serve their own bellies, and, like the finger-post to the traveller, stand to direct him in his way, but move not a step themselves; so far from a blessedness, they will find in the end of their labours, that the heaviest of all condemnations will follow! Blessed Lord Jesus! thou wert a door-keeper indeed to thine own house, that in all things thou mightest have the pre-eminence! Thou, for the love thou hadst to thy Master, to thy church, thy wife, and thy children, didst, like the Jewish servant, submit to have thine ear bored at the door-post, to go out no more free, but to remain for ever. Oh! for grace to cry out, in the review of such love as passeth knowledge, "I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." See Exodus 21:5-6.
