Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: December 30th

" Prepare to meet thy God." - Amos 4:12.

For thou must meet him. The only uncertainty relates to the time; and even that uncertainty does not exist in the mind of God. It is not more true that God is, than that thou shalt stand before him. Thou art flurried and agitated at the thought of going into the presence of some fellow-man clothed with authority; and wilt thou make no preparation to meet thy God? The companion with whom thou wert feasting yesterday, received his summons in the night. Inquiring for another this morning thou wert informed of his recent departure. Almost every hour some one is called from thy neighborhood into the presence of God, and thy turn will surely come.

Life is given that thou mayest prepare to meet thy God. Thy path is crowded with monitors that seek to arouse thee to a sense of the awful future so fast hastening. The winds whisper it; the skies proclaim it; the earth mutters it; the mountains repeat it; all me, all change, all beauty, all joy, and all sorrow breathe this admonition, "Prepare to meet thy God."

He is thy God. He made thee, gave thee all thy powers, all thine opportunities, gave thee a work to do, and the means of doing it. He will have a multitude of questions to ask thee; alas! that I should say it, he will have a multitude of charges to bring against thee. Thou hast heard his thunder in the skies; thinkest thou he is not able to clothe himself with unendurable terrors, or thinkest thou he will forbear to do it? Thinkest thou that God will never make so much of thee, an insignificant, ephemeral, helpless being, as to set thee up on high before him, and deal with thee as an object for his wrath, his vengeance, his fiery indignation? The thought is utterly delusive. Since God has made so much of thee as to fashion and endow thee wonderfully, to create a world of beauty and splendor for thy habitation, a sun to light thee by day, and stars to shine for thee by night; since he has treated thee as a being of great consequence by giving his word to be thy guide, and above all by giving his Son to die for thee, think not that thou shalt escape his notice in the great day of account. Thou hast made war upon the universe of God; thou hast sought to make him contemptible in the eyes of his creatures by despising his commands and discarding his authority. The interests of the entire universe demand that there be a meeting between thee and God, and that it be distinctly settled, who is in the right, God thy Creator and Governor, or thou his rebellious creature.

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