Daily Devotionals

Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time

Devotional: October 15th

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

It has been called the passing of religious opportunity. It means that people are favored with a marvelous visitation, a glorious opportunity, but they fail to seize it.

That is what happened to Jerusalem. The incarnate Son of God walked its dusty streets. Its ochre-tinted buildings looked down on the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. The people heard His matchless words and saw Him perform miracles that no other man had ever performed. But they failed to appreciate Him. They would not receive Him.

Things would have been so much better for them if they had. Conditions would have been like those described in HYPERLINK "javascript:" : “Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured forever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.”

Isaiah also describes what might have been. “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea: Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me”.

Bret Harte wrote, “Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are, ‘It might have been.’”

Think of those who have rejected the Gospel call. Jesus of Nazareth passed by but they missed Him. Now they are living empty lives and facing an eternity of doom.

Or think of those believers who heard the call of Christ to some specific sphere of service but failed to respond. They have no idea of the present blessings and eternal rewards which they have missed.

It is true that sometimes opportunity knocks only once. Though it is laden with choicest treasures, it may seem at the moment to conflict with personal plans or to involve personal sacrifice. It represents God’s very best for us, but for reasons of our own we let the opportunity pass. We refuse His best and settle for His second best. All the time He is saying, “I would but you would not.”