Day 5 - Thursday - Daily Devotions - Logos

 Morning, December 7 Go To Evening Reading

“Base things of the world hath God chosen.”

—1 Corinthians 1:28

If you dare, walk the streets by moonlight, and you will see sinners then. Watch when the night is dark, the wind is howling, and the picklock grates in the door, and you will see sinners then. Go to yon jail, walk through the wards, and mark the men with heavy over-hanging brows, men whom you would not like to meet at night, and there are sinners there. Go to the Reformatories and note those who have betrayed rampant juvenile depravity, and you will see sinners there. Go across the seas to where a man will gnaw a bone upon which is reeking human flesh, and there is a sinner there. Go where you will; you need not ransack earth to find sinners, for they are familiar enough; you may find them in every lane and street of every city, town, village, and hamlet. It is for this that Jesus died. If you select me the grossest specimen of humanity, if he is but born of woman, I will have hope of him yet because Jesus Christ comes to seek and to save sinners. Electing love has selected some of the worst to be made the best. Pebbles of the brook grace turn into jewels for the crown royal. Worthless dross, he transforms into pure gold. Redeeming love has set apart many of the worst of mankind to be the reward of the Saviour’s passion. Effectual grace calls forth many of the vilest of the vile to sit at the table of mercy and, therefore, let none despair.

Reader, by that love looking out of Jesus’ tearful eyes, by that love streaming from those bleeding wounds, by that faithful love, that intense love, that pure, disinterested, and abiding love; by the heart and by the bowels of the Saviour’s compassion, we conjure you turn not away as though it were nothing to you; but believe on him and you shall be saved. Trust your soul with him; he will bring you to his Father’s right hand in everlasting glory.

Go To Morning Reading Evening, December 7

“I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”

—1 Corinthians 9:22

Paul’s great object was not merely to instruct and to improve but to save. Anything short of this would have disappointed him; he would have men renewed in heart, forgiven, sanctified, and, in fact, held. Have our Christian labors been aimed at anything below this great point? Then let us amend our ways, for of what avail will it be at the last great day to have taught and moralized men if they appear before God unsaved? Blood-red will our skirts be if, through life, we have sought inferior objects and forgotten that men needed to be saved. Paul knew the ruin of man’s natural state and did not try to keep him; to educate him, he saw men sinking to hell and did not talk of refining them but protecting them from the wrath to come. To compass their salvation, he gave himself up with untiring zeal to tell abroad the gospel, to warn and beseech men to be reconciled to God. His prayers were necessary, and his labors were incessant. To save souls was his consuming passion, his ambition, his calling. He became a servant to all men, toiling for his race, feeling a woe within him if he preached not the gospel. He laid aside his preferences to prevent prejudice; he submitted his will in things indifferent, and if men would but receive the gospel, he raised no questions about forms or ceremonies: the gospel was the one all-important business with him. If he might save some, he would be content. He strove for this crown, the sole and sufficient reward of all his labors and self-denials. Dear reader, have you and I lived to win souls at this noble rate? Are we possessed with the same all-absorbing desire? If not, why not? Jesus died for sinners; can we not live for them? Where is our tenderness? Where is our love for Christ if we seek not his honor in the salvation of men? O that the Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the souls of men.

 Spurgeon, C. H. Morning and Evening: Daily Readings. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896. Print.

December 7: Relationship Will Change Us

Jeremiah 12:1–13:27; Philemon 1:8–25; Proverbs 14:15–35

Although God has granted us complete access to Him through Christ, we sometimes struggle to live this reality (John 17:15–17). The stale or frightening depictions of God in stained glass and Renaissance paintings have convinced us that He is distant, quick to anger, or disinterested. Nothing could be further from the truth; the Psalms remind us that He is caring, close, and listening (e.g., Pss 22, 23; 26) and yearns for a relationship with us.

Sometimes, it helps to hear the words of others who have struggled with the same thing. Jeremiah provides us with such an example. He remarks, “You will be right, O Yahweh, when I complain to you. Even so, let me speak my claims with you. Why does the way of the wicked succeed? All those who deal treacherously with treachery are at ease.” (Jer 12:1). Jeremiah knows that Yahweh is correct in all He does, but this does not prevent him from freely expressing his concerns.

If we look into our hearts, we may find that fear is preventing us from entering into an intimate relationship with Him. We’re afraid of what He will say and concerned that He may rebuke us. Indeed, this is what He does when Jeremiah speaks to Him: “If you run with foot soldiers and they have made you weary, how will you compete with horses? If you have fallen in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan? For even your relatives and your father's house, even they have dealt treacherously with you, even they call loudly after you. You must not trust in them, though they speak kindly to you” (Jer 12:5–6). Yet within this rebuke, we also find advice—and the advice is comforting. By openly communicating his concerns to God, Jeremiah now knows what he must do. He knows how he must act.

There is a joy to be found in knowing that we have a God who listens and is not offended when we speak to Him but is eager for our company. What are we afraid of? After all, He already knows what’s on our minds. We need to grasp the idea that God is all about relationships.

What would change about your life if you went deeper into your relationship with Christ? What should you be asking God right now?

John D. Barry

 Barry, John D., and Rebecca Kruyswijk. Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012. Print.

December 7th

Repentance

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation. 2 Cor. 7:10.

Conviction of sin is best portrayed in the words—

‘My sins, my sins, my Saviour.

How sad on Thee they fall.’

Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came, He would convict of sin. When the Holy Spirit rouses a man’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God—“against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight.” Conviction of sin, the marvel of forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that only the forgiven man is the holy man; he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: ‘I have sinned.’ The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for ‘the gift of tears.’ If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry.

 Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986. Print.

December 7

And they came unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy

Mark 2:3

This man might never have seen Christ had it not been for the palsy!

Selected

 Hardman, Samuel G., and Dwight Lyman Moody. Thoughts for the Quiet Hour. Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997. Print.