the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
GOD’S GIFT OF HIMSELF TO US
I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness. - Zechariah 8:8
These words go far deeper than the necessary Divine relation to all His creatures. He is a God to every star that burns, and to every worm that creeps, and to every gnat that dances for a moment. But there is a closer relation, and more blessed, than that. He is a God to every man that lives, lavishing upon him manifestations of His Divinity, and sustaining him in life. But within these great and wondrous universal relations which spring from the very fact of creative power and creatural dependence, there is a tender, a truer relationship of heart to heart, of spirit to spirit, which is set forth as the prerogative of the men that trust in Jesus Christ. The special does not contradict or deny the universal, the universal does not exclude the special: " I will be a God to them," in a deeper, more blessed, soul-satisfying, and vital sense than to others around them.
And what lies in that great promise passes the wit of man and the tongues of angels fully to conceive and tell. All that lies in that majestic monosyllable, which is shorthand for life and light and all perfectness, lived in a living person who has a heart, that word God; - all that is included in that, God will be to you and me if we like to have Him for such. "I will be a God to them" - then round about them shall be cast the bulwark of the everlasting arm and the everlasting purpose. " I will be a God to them " - then in all dark places there will be a light, and in all perplexities there will be a path, and in all anxieties there will be quietness, and in all troubles there will be a hidden light of joy, and in every circumstance life will be saturated with an Almighty Presence which shall make the rough’ places plain and the crooked things straight. " I will be a God to them " - then their desires, their hungerings after blessedness, their seekings after good need no longer roam open-mouthed and empty throughout a waste world, where there is only scanty fodder, enough to keep them from expiring, and never food enough to satisfy them; but in Him longings and hopes will all find their appropriate satisfaction. And there will be rest in God, and whatsoever aspirations after loftier goodness, and whatsoever base hankerings still lingering may have to be cherished and fought, the strength of a present God will enable us to aspire, and not to be disappointed, and to cast ourselves into the conflict, and be ever victorious. "I will be to them a God " is the same as to say that everything which my complex nature can require I shall find in Him.
'Music For The Soul' daily readings for a year from the writings of the Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D., selected and arranged by the Rev. Geo. Coates, published by A.C. Armstrong and Son, 51 East Tenth Street, (1897). The original text is in the Public Domain and this electronic version is free for anyone without cost or obligation. This a year long daily devotional was written by the Rev. Alexander Maclaren over 100 years ago. This Scottish pastor had a heart to follow Jesus and a love for souls.
