the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
The Poor Man's Morning and Evening Portions
December 23—Morning—Psalms 40:7
"Lo, I come."—Psalms 40:7.
What a longing had old testament saints for the Lord Jesus’s coming! And what an earnest wish and prayer it is among new testament believers, for Jesus’s coming by the visits of his grace, and the sweet influences of his Holy Spirit, from day to day! My soul, methinks I would realize by faith this day, even this very day, these words of thy Redeemer, as if he were now standing at the door of thine heart, and asking for admission. And shall I not say, under this sweet impression, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord, wherefore standest thou without?" Oh blessed Jesus, when I consider the many precious instances of thy coming, set up from everlasting in thy goings forth for the salvation of thy chosen, thy anticipation, in thy visits before the season of thy tabernacling in our flesh; thy visits to the patriarchs and prophets; thy manifestation openly to the people; thy secret, sweet, and inexpressibly gracious visits now, and thy promised return in the clouds at the final consummation of all things; Oh Lamb of God, dost thou say, "Lo, I come?" Oh for the earnestness of faith, in all her devout longings, to cry out with the church of old, and say, "Make haste, my Beloved, and come! Oh come quickly, Lord Jesus!"
December 23—Evening—Luke 1:78
"The day-spring from on high."—Luke 1:78.
Truly it was so when Jesus came; for a long night of Jewish darkness and ignorance had covered the earth, and gross darkness the people. Look, my soul, at Jesus under this blessed similitude. Though it be evening with’ thee, this day-spring will give light, and the promise will be fulfilled, "at even-time it shall be light." Jesus was the day-spring in the everlasting council and purpose of Jehovah, when he stood up the light of his people from all eternity. And when, in the fulness of time, he came, it was to fulfil all the shadows of ordinances concerning him. And what is it now, in every individual instance of his visiting his people, but as "the day-spring" on their souls? When first, from a state of nature, he calls them to a state of grace, is it not "the day-spring from on high?" And in all the after-stages, during a life of grace leading, to glory, is not every renewed manifestation of his love as the day-spring from on high?" And what will it be after the night of death, when Jesus shall come "to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all that believe," but the same? Jesus will then be "the day-spring," and "the morning-star" of that everlasting day, whose sun shall go down no more. Precious day-spring of my God! arise daily on my poor soul, and fill my heart with light and glory.
