the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:12-13.
The Apostle found it necessary to give this warning to the first Christians who had been awakened and led by him or by other apostles of the Lord. How much more necessary, then, is it not for us! Alas! how easy it is to backslide, to become lukewarm and at last unsusceptible to all the emotions of grace, which little by little leads to hardening of heart. Nothing is more treacherous than sin. It easily deceives him who may have renounced it, but not completely; who does not constantly fear it and does not possess his heart in humility and cling to the Lord in a childlike manner. Evil is easily hidden in the heart and makes it unbelieving, so that it backslides from the living God and remains hanging to the dead letter in forms and in habitual outward exercises. But the living God, Christ and His Spirit, His peace and His presence, have departed from the heart. What shall become of such a Christ-less and ungodly heart? Another enters in who brings with him seven others who are more wicked than himself. Why does Paul use the words, ’’from the living God"? Because God is a dead God to us if He does not live within us. God lives; but He is not living to you unless you feel His life, His nature, His Spirit, and His power within you. You possess then only the idols of the spiritless letter and of the empty word. This is a result of the deceitfulness of sin. If God and Christ dwell not in you, sin will most willingly let you retain a dead God upon the tongue and a heart without spirit; then sin is allowed free scope in your heart. But the reverse should be the case: sin must be mortified in you that Christ may live in you. If not, you have departed from the living God, and your religious practices become empty idols that harden your heart.
Help me to watch and pray.
And on Thyself rely,
Steadfast to walk in Christ’s dear way
And God to glorify.
