Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: March 9th

" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." - Matthew 5:8.

Man is without God. He walks in the mansion of the King of kings, wondering who contrived it, and what has be come of its royal owner; sometimes even doubting if it ever had a contriver, a proprietor. To his mind, God, if he is at all, is an absentee. He examines the treasures around him studies them, weighs them, grasps them, and speculates of the Creator as of one who may be or may not be. Generally, in deed, he speculates not at all. In his conception, God is so remote that it is idle to waste time in searching for him.

Yet God is nigh and wonderfully manifest. To see him we need not climb the empyrean, nor wing our way to a central sun. Even upon this earth it is possible to behold, by virtue of an uttered spell, one after one the successive walls of the mystery of God melt away and disappear, until the Almighty, unveiled and glorious, is seen where the seraphim saw him when they sang, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of thy glory." To them the whole earth was full of the glory of God, and they would have veiled their faces in love and adoration, even in the heart of Arabia Deserta; while, in the midst of the most beautiful and teeming landscapes of the earth, man, un-sanctified man, condescends to occupy his mind with the baffling question, " Is there a God?"

Some who have been taught from above to desire greatly the manifestations of God, and who wrestle earnestly, perhaps passionately, in prayer, that their Lord would be pleased to draw nigh unto them, and give them visions of his excellence, would find it to their inexpressible advantage to cease from the pursuit of extraordinary manifestations, and by faith and purity of heart school themselves into the ability to discern a present God, and to abide in blissful intercourse with him in whom they live and move and have their being. Let them understand that what they need is not the accomplishment of some change out of themselves - the bringing near of something that is afar - but a purging of their mental vision, the removal of a film that yet too much beclouds the eye of their soul. There is a word with us, and it is as follows: - " Lo! I am with you always." To the unbeliever, a mere word, and no more; but to the initiated, a means of finding forever, and in every place, the brightness of the divine glory.

If any one be offering the petition of Moses, " I beseech thee, shew me thy glory," let him hear the Saviour reply, " Seek purity of heart, and thou wilt find me. Be like me, and thou shalt look upon me. Cease to regard thyself; be meek and lowly of heart; let no guile be found in thy mouth; delight thyself in the Lord; thus shall thy power of discerning and enjoying me be day by day augmented." This word " purity" invites us to linger. But when could one satisfy himself with discourse upon it?

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