the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
"FEAR NOT: ONLY BELIEVE"
Jesus hearing it, answered him, Fear not: only believe, and she shall be made whole. - Luke 8:50
This is the word of cheer which sustains a staggering faith. How preposterous this rekindling of hope must have seemed to Jairus when the storm had blown out the last flickering spark! How irrelevant, if it were not cruel, the "Fear not" must have sounded when the last possible blow had fallen. And yet, because of the word in the middle, embedded between the obligation to hope and the prohibition to fear, neither the one nor the other is preposterous. "Only believe."’ That is in the centre; and on the one side, "Fear not!" - a command ridiculous without it; and on the other side, hope! - an injunction impossible apart from faith.
Jesus Christ is saying the very same things to us. His fundamental commandment is, "Only believe"; and there effloresce from it the two things, courage that never trembles, and hope that never despairs. " Only believe." Usually He made the outflow of His miraculous power contingent upon the faith either of the sufferer himself or of some others. There was no necessity for the connection. We have instances in His life of miracles wrought without faith, without asking; simply at the bidding of His own irrepressible pity. But the rule in regard to His miracles is, that faith was the condition which drew out the miraculous energy. The connection between our faith and our experience of His supernatural sustaining, cleansing, gladdening, enlightening power is closer than that. For, without our trust in Him, He can do no mighty works upon us; and there must be confidence on our part before there is in our experience the reception into our lives of His highest blessings; just because they are greater and deeper, and belong to a more inward sphere than these outward and inferior miracles of bodily healing. Therefore the connection between our faith and His gifts to us is inevitable and constant, and the commandment, "Only believe," assumes a more imperative stringency in regard to our spiritual experience, than it ever did in regard to those who felt the power of His miracle-working hand. So it stands for us as the one central appeal and exhortation which Christ, by His life, by the record of His love, by His Cross and Passion, by His dealings and pleadings with us, through His Spirit, and His providence to-day, is making to us all. "Only believe" - the one act that vitally knits the soul to Christ, and makes it capable of receiving unto itself the fulness of His loftiest blessings.
'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.
