Daily Devotionals

Spiritual Treasury For The Children of God

Devotional: December 28th

Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.- Romans 13:14.

Man is an active being. Happiness is his pursuit. "Who will shew me any good?" is his continual enquiry. But to seek it from wrong objects is his constant practice. Hence naturally we are ever restless and uneasy. The new-born soul only has found the centre of true felicity, real good, and permanent happiness, in the knowledge and enjoyment of his Saviour! Here paradise is regained: a heaven of bliss is restored to his soul. It is the peculiar glory of the gospel, it ever presents a precious object to our mind, even the Lord Jesus, from whom alone we derive peace of conscience, joy of heart, and transport of soul. Is there, believer, a day in the year, an hour in the day, wherein thou wouldst pray to be excused from putting on the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfection of thy nature, and the adorning of thy soul? Surely not. As "one made alive from the dead," the Holy Ghost, by the word, stirs up thy "pure mind, by way of remembrance." Thou art not called to dream over dry, heathenish lectures of morality; nor from philosophic rules to acquire this and the other habit of virtue; neither art thou left to licentious liberty, to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. But it is to be the daily exercise of thy believing mind to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as the essence of every virtue; for in this consists all thy present comfort and holiness. And by this thou wilt become dead to all the pleasing, inviting objects that stand so thick around thee to beguile thy mind, and draw thine heart from its best friend.

The miser calls his gold his own, it is his god. Hence he exercises all his affections upon it, and derives all his happiness from it. The man of pleasure is in continual search after the enjoyment of new delights from the gay surrounding objects of a perishing world. Infinitely greater blessings are Christians called to. O, believer, Jesus is thine. In the exercise of thy mind and the affections of thy soul; put on thy Lord continually as thy righteousness, thy strength, thy riches, thy pleasure, thy honor, thy glory, thy ALL. Oppose Christ to all the pleasures of the world, to all the delights of sense, and every scene of vanity. Put on Christ in thy conscience; there plead the atonement of his precious blood against the guilt of sin, the perfection of his righteousness to every demand of the law, the prevalency of his intercession against all thy fears, the freeness and fulness of his promises against all thy doubts. Boldly withstand every accusation from Satan with, "Christ hath died, yea rather is risen again; and ever lives to make intercession for us:" "Who is he that condemned?"- Romans 8:34.

Strangely, my soul, art thou array’d

By the great sacred three!

In sweetest harmony of praise

Let all thy powers agree.

Ye are dead, and your life is hid with CHRIST in GOD. Colossians 3:3.

We are apt to mistake the words, and pervert the meaning of scripture. This charge is brought against us by Jeremiah: “Ye have perverted the words of the living God,” (Jeremiah 23:36.) This dejects our souls, robs Christ of the glory of our hearts, and prevents our holy and comfortable walk in him. See if this be not the case with respect to this text. Ye believers in Christ, are dead, (1st.) “to the law by the body of Christ,” (Romans 7:4.) Being one with Christ by faith, you are dead to all legal hopes, from your own works. (2d.) Dead to sin, being baptized into Christ by his Spirit. (Romans 6:3.) (3d.) Dead to the world, being crucified with Christ, (Galatians 6:14.) O says one, and another sincere soul, I am not thus dead. I have no true faith. I find sin alive in me-legal hopes and fears cleaves to me-and too much love of the world in me, to my grief and burden. Behold, here is distress through mistake. St. Paul doth not say, all these things are dead in you; but ye are dead to them. So that you are not in subjection to them-they are your burden-you groan under, and long for deliverance from them, these are the clearest proofs that you partake of the life of Christ. Glory to Jesus for this. Your life is hid. Entirely from carnal men. They cannot see the spring and motive of your conduct. Marvel not that they deride you for it. Your life is often hid to yourself. When the dunghill of corruption’s steam, temptation’s smoke, the black exhalations of unbelief arise, and Christ our life withdraws his presence, then it is so hid, that we fear our life is dead. But that is as impossible as for God to die. For our life is hid with Christ. Then it can never be lost. Who can deprive us of it? Not all the powers of sin, earth, or hell. True, they may and do often rob our souls of the comforts and joys of our spiritual life, because we do not live and walk close with Christ; but our life is safe and secure, while our all-conquering Head lives. For it is also in God. God the Father chose us to eternal life-God the Son redeemed us to it-God the Spirit bestowed it upon us, therefore we can never perish-none can pluck us out of God’s hands. We need not fear any enemy. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” O believer, view your safety and security. Your enemies must first overcome, and take away the life of Christ and of God, before they can deprive you of your life which is hid in them. “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” Isaiah 54:17.