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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: April 21st

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THE HIGHEST TYPE OF COURAGE

And when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John, and had perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled, and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. - Acts 4:13

Moral characteristics do not reach a climax unless there has been much underground building to bear the lofty pinnacle. And no man, when great occasions come to him, develops a courage and an unwavering confidence which are strange to his habitual life. There must be the underground building; and there must have been many a fighting down of fears, many a curbing of tremors, many a rebuke of hesitations and doubts in the gaunt, desert-loving prophet, before he was man enough to stand before Herod and say, "It is not lawful for thee to have her."

Of course, the highest type of this undaunted boldness and unwavering firmness of conviction is not in John and his like. He presented strength in a lower form than did the Master from whom his strength came. The willow has a place as well as the oak. Firmness is not obstinacy; courage is not rudeness. It is possible to have the iron hand in the velvet glove, not of etiquette - observing politeness, but of a true considerateness and gentleness. They who are likest Him that was " meek and lowly m heart" are surest to possess the unflinching resolve which set His face like a flint, and enabled Him to go unhesitatingly and unrecalcitrant to the Cross itself.

Do not let us forget, either, that John’s unwavering firmness wavered; that over the clear heaven of his convictions there did steal a cloud; that he from whom no violence could wrench his faith, felt it slipping out of his grasp when his muscles were relaxed in the dungeon; and that he sent "from the prison" - which was the excuse for the message - to ask the question, " After all, ’ Art Thou He that should come?’"

Nor let us forget that it was that very moment of tremulousness which Jesus Christ seized in order to pour an unstinted flood of praise for the firmness of his convictions on the wavering head of the Forerunner. So if we feel that though the needle of our compass points true to the pole, yet when the compass frame is shaken the needle sometimes vibrates away from its true goal, do not let us be cast down, but believe that a merciful allowance is made for human weakness. This man was great because he had such dauntless courage and firmness that over his headless corpse in the dungeon at Machaerus might have been spoken what the Regent Murray said over John Knox’s coffin, " Here lies one that never feared the face of man."

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