Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: April 25th

"Forget not all his benefits." ― Psalms 103:2.

The meaning is, forget not any, remember all. The right recollection of a benefit is all but equal to a new benefit. As God is the same, as the expressions of his goodness are expressions of eternal goodness, the recollection of a past benefit may well be cherished since it is in a certain sense not past but present. Each token of love let down by God into my life, projects itself forward indefinitely, and accompanies me on an undying mission, to declare that God and I are friends through the Lord Jesus Christ. The domain of faith extends not only over the present and the future, but over the past also. It is faith that keeps snatching the past kindnesses of God from the sea of oblivion.

The gifts of God are not bestowed upon believers merely to relieve a want, or to meet a capacity for enjoyment. They are not merely bestowed for the good that is in them but to reveal something in the disposition of the giver. They are epistles telling of his love, wisdom, and power. Now it is evident that a past benefit remembered, must be about as valid for this blessed purpose as a present benefit. God is bound over to goodness by his past charities, if faith remembers them.

How odious is it not to remember benefits. The rich man whose treasures are greater than he can compute, should not treat with disdain a trifling present, if it express the good will of a poor man. Nevertheless the rich do often exhibit such disdain, especially in the form of forgetfulness. Benefits from those whose kindness we value, we presume not to forget. But is God a being so low in the scale, that gifts from him are grasped only for their own sake, and the giver immediately forgotten? Do you like that your own presents to another should be forgotten? No, not the least of them. It galls you exceedingly if one out of ten benefits should pass from the recollection of your beneficiary.

But how remember all these benefits? Those of a single day exceed in number the hairs of the head. Well, let there be a readiness to remember them. Let faith look into the past for them. Let them not be slighted.

We are not always able to see at the time the true meaning of the benefit. The length and breadth of the divine goodness does not come out, until some time has elapsed, and we are able to look back upon it from some vantage point m the future. These past benefits are like books in our library that we suppose we have read; but we take them down some day, and are astonished at the wonderful things, before unrecognized, that present themselves to our improved perception.

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