Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: January 3rd

TO-DAY

Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts. - Hebrews 3:15

I SAY nothing about other reasons for prompt action, such as every moment makes it harder for a man to turn to Jesus Christ as his Saviour. The dreadful power of habit weaves chains about him, thin at first as a spider’s web, solid at last as an iron fetter. Associations that entangle, connections that impede, grow with terrible rapidity. And if it is hard for you to turn to your Lord now, it will never be easier, and will certainly be harder.

And, dear friend, " to-day " - how long is it going to last? Of course, I know that all the deepest reasons for your being a Christian remain unaffected if you were going to live in the world for ever. And, of course, I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is as good to live by as it is to die by. But, notwithstanding, common sense says that if our time here is so uncertain as we know it to be, there is no time to put off. You and I have to die, whether we find a convenient season for it or not. And perhaps we have to die before we find Felix’s "convenient season" to send for Paul or Paul’s Master. So, in the narrowest sense of the word, "To-day , . . harden not your hearts,"

But I dare say some of you, and especially some of you young people, may be kept from accepting Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and serving Him, by a vague disinclination and dread to make so great a change. I beseech you, do not give a feather’s weight to such considerations. If a change is right, the sooner it is made the better. The shrinking all passes when it is made, just as a bather recovers himself when once his head has been plunged beneath the water.

And some of you may be kept back because you know that there are sins that you will have to unveil if you become Christians. Well, do not let that keep you back either. Confession is healing and good and sweet to the soul, if it is needful for repentance. Sins that men have a right to know hurt as long as they are hid, and cease to hurt when they are acknowledged, like the fox beneath the Spartan boy’s robe, that gnawed when it was covered up, and stopped biting when it was revealed.

So, dear friend, you hear Christ speaking to you in His Word, in His servants, in the depths of your hearts. He speaks to you of a dying Saviour, of His infinite love, of His perfect sacrifice, of a complete salvation, a cleansed heart, a blessed life, a calm death, an open heaven for each, if we will take them "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh."