the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
The Poor Man's Morning and Evening Portions
September 24—Morning—Luke 16:5
"How much owest thou unto my lord?"—Luke 16:5.
My soul, if this question, which the unjust steward put to his lord’s debtors, was put to thee concerning that immense debt which hath made thee insolvent for ever, what wouldest thou answer? Never couldest thou conceive the extent of it, much less think of paying the vast amount. A debtor to free grace for thy very being; a debtor to free grace for thy well-being; ten thousand talents, which the man in the parable owed his master, would not be sufficient to reckon up what thou in reality owest thy Lord, for even the common gifts of nature and of providence. But when the calculation goeth on in grace, what archangel shall write down the sum total? To the broken law of God, a bankrupt exposed to the justice of God; to the dreadful penalty of everlasting death; to the fears and alarms of a guilty conscience; to the worm that dieth not; to the accusations of Satan, unable to answer one in a thousand! My soul, how much owest thou unto thy Lord? Are there yet any other outstanding debts? Oh yes, infinitely and beyond all these! What thinkest thou, my soul, of Jesus? How much owest thou to the Father’s love in giving; to the Redeemer’s love in coming; and to the Holy Ghost in making the whole effectual to thy soul’s joy; by which Jesus hath paid all thy debts, cancelled all the demands of God’s righteous law, silenced Satan, answered justice; and not only redeemed thee out of the hands of everlasting bondage, misery, and eternal death, but brought thee into his everlasting kingdom of freedom, joy, and glory! Say, say, my soul, how much owest thou unto thy Lord? Oh precious debt! ever increasing, and yet everlastingly making happy in owing. Lord Jesus! I am thine, and thy servant for ever; thou hast loosed my bonds.
September 24—Evening—Isaiah 8:19
"Should not a people seek unto their God?"—Isaiah 8:19.
To be sure they should. My soul, what would become of thee, in thine exercises, hadst thou not had a God in Christ to fly to, and a God in Christ to depend upon? Where wouldest thou find a bosom to pour all thy griefs into, did not Jesus say to thee, as to the sorrowful father, concerning his child, "Bring him hither to me?" Thou knowest, dearest Lord, that there are circumstances into which I am cast, where none but thyself can help; and even if help could be derived from man, yet who is there to whom I could seek with a certainty of success? "My friends," saith Job, "have dealt deceitfully, like a brook;" like a brook which, dried up by the summer heat, disappoints the traveller when he most needs supply to slake his thirst. Oh for grace to centre all my desires in thee, and to seek unto thee with all my concerns! Blessed Lord! let that devout frame of David, in the wilderness, be the frame of my soul in every wilderness dispensation, until I shall have passed through the whole of the valley of Baca, and have attained to the everlasting enjoyment of thee in heaven! "O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee; my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is," Psalms 63:1.
