the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
"Be thou exalted, God, above the heavens, and thy glory above all the earth." - Psalms 108:5.
Whether men honor him or not, God is forever infinitely honorable. His perfections remain the same. By virtue of his divine power and Godhead, he is exalted where no conception of a finite being can follow him, much less add anything to or take anything from his exaltedness. But when God condescended to call creation into existence, it was for the purpose of revealing himself unto his intelligent subjects, and setting up a throne in the heart of each of them.
In this world, men are in a state of revolt; they have cast down the throne of God in their heart, and denied their obligation to glorify him. They are bent upon their own exaltation, and conceive that they have enough to do to accomplish their own glory, without attending to that of God. We have all heard of the Calendar published in France within a few years, in which all the days of the year were distributed among three hundred and sixty-five great men, who in their several days were to be worshiped by men, and this was to be the only worship. But those who thus proclaim man to be the only divine being known, are just a little more outspoken than their fellow-men. For he who sees without sorrow and solicitude how God is slighted and forgotten in the world; he who protests not against the ungodly ways of men, he who is not intent upon knowing the perfections of God; earnestly and assiduously studies not the word; knows not Christ as God manifest in the flesh; prays not, labors not, that God by his Spirit may be enthroned in his own heart; he is one of those who are engaged in the bold and absurd attempt to dismiss God and put man in his place.
Christians are a little company who say from the heart, as they address God, " Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory," and who are consecrated to the great work of restoring to God, so far as in them lies, the glory that is due to him. Understand then, Christian, thy vocation. Thou art to live in such a way, that all thy actions, all thy deportment shall give expression to the great truth that God is on the throne of the universe, that He alone is worthy to have his will done by all, that he is ineffably, incomparably glorious. And the blasphemous extravagance of self-glorification to which man is carried at the present day, should only be an additional stimulus to the Christian to exalt God by humble obedience, by love to his brethren, by the prayer of faith, by self-denial and watchfulness, by simplicity of life and of speech, by communicating the knowledge of Christ, and by wise, loving, and faithful remonstrances with men, upon the greatness of their error.
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