Morning, March 29 Go To Evening Reading
“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”
—Hebrews 5:8
We are told that the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering, therefore we who are sinful and who are farect from being perf must not wonder if we are called to pass through suffering too. Shall the head be crowned with thorns and the other body members be rocked upon the dainty lap of ease? Must Christ pass through seas of his own blood to win the crown, and will we walk to heaven dryshod in silver slippers? No, our Master’s experience teaches us that suffering is necessary, and the true-born child of God must not, would not, escape it if he might. But there is one very comforting thought in Christ’s “being made perfect through suffering”—that he can have complete sympathy with us. “He is not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” In this sympathy of Christ, we find a sustaining power. One of the early martyrs said, “I can bear it all, for Jesus suffered, and he suffers in me now; he sympathizes with me, and this makes me strong.” Believers lay hold of this thought in all times of agony. Let the thought of Jesus strengthen you as you follow in his steps. Find sweet support in his sympathy, and remember that suffering is honorable—to suffer for Christ is glory. The apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to do this. Just so far as the Lord shall give us the grace to suffer for Christ, to suffer with Christ, just so far does he honor us. The jewels of a Christian are his afflictions. The regalia of the kings whom God has anointed are their troubles, sorrows, and griefs. Let us not, therefore, shun being honored. Let us not turn aside from being exalted. Griefs exalt us, and troubles lift us up. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.”
Go To Morning Reading Evening, March 29
“I called him, but he gave me no answer.”
—Song of Solomon 5:6
Prayer sometimes tarrieth, like a petitioner at the gate, until the King cometh forth to fill her bosom with the blessings she seeks. When he hath given great faith, the Lord has been known to try it by long delayings. He has suffered his servants’ voices echoing in their ears like from a brazen sky. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained immovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, “Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.” Thus, faithful saints have continued long in patient waiting without reply, not because their prayers were not vehement or unaccepted, but because it so pleased him who is a Sovereign and who gives according to his own pleasure. If it pleases him to bid our patience exercise itself, shall he not do as he wills with his own! Beggars must not be choosers to time, place, or form. But we must be careful not to take delays in prayer for denials: God’s long-dated bills will be punctually honored; we must not suffer Satan to shake our confidence in the God of truth by pointing to our unanswered prayers. Unanswered petitions are not unheard of. God keeps a file for our prayers—they are not blown away by the wind but treasured in the King’s archives. This is a registry in the court of heaven wherein every prayer is recorded. Tried believer, thy Lord hath a tear bottle in which the costly drops of sacred grief are put away and a book in which thy holy groanings are numbered. By and by, thy suit shall prevail. Canst thou not be content to wait a little? Will not thy Lord’s time be better than thy time? By and by, he will comfortably appear, to thy soul’s joy, and make thee put away the sackcloth and ashes of long waiting and put on the scarlet and fine linen of full fruition.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
March 29: Prayer and Hope for the Anxious
Numbers 33:1–49; 1 Corinthians 15:12–34; Psalm 28:1–9
Anxiety, depression, and fear aren’t part of the Christian life—or the ideal Christian life, anyway. But this tidy concept isn’t helpful or true for those who struggle with these emotions. What is helpful is hope and belief amid tumultuous emotion.
The writer of Psalm 28 expresses deep anxiety. Still, even as he does this, he expresses trust in Yahweh: “To you, O Yahweh, I call. O my rock, do not be deaf to me. Or else, if you are silent to me, then I will become like those descending to the pit” (Psa 28:1). Though he feels like God is not listening, the psalmist doesn’t stop pursuing God. He worships and cries for help anyway. In contrast to the “workers of evil” who “do not regard the works of Yahweh, nor the work of his hands,” the psalmist puts all of his dependence and trust in Yahweh (Psa 28:3, 5).
Halfway through the psalm, the petition turns to praise when Yahweh answers his prayer. The psalmist realizes his confidence is right: “Blessed is Yahweh because he has heard the voice of my supplications” (Psa 28:6). Even through dark times and bleak circumstances, God is faithful. He is never far from us, though emotions might dictate otherwise. He will “Shepherd them also and carry them always” (Psa 28:9). He saves, blesses, guides, and even carries us through all seasons.
We are saved not according to our own works but the work of Christ. Amid the struggle, we can be sure that we are experiencing salvation now, in part. And we can be “convinced of this same thing, that the one who began a good work in [us] will finish it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6).
How are you trusting in God amid struggle? How can you thoughtfully support someone suffering through a season like this?
Rebecca Van Noord
John D. Barry and Rebecca Kruyswijk, Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).
March 29th
Our Lord’s surprise visits
Be ye therefore ready also. Luke 12:40.
The great need for the Christian worker is to be ready to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience is. The battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances but against being so absorbed in work that we are not ready to face Jesus Christ at every turn. That is the one great need: not facing our belief, our creed, or whether we are helpful, but facing Him.
Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him and always in the most illogical connections. A worker can only keep faithful to God by being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits. It is not service that matters, but intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This will give our lives the attitude of child-wonder that He wants us to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious (that is, using religion as a higher kind of culture) and be spiritually accurate.
If you look off unto Jesus, avoid the call of the religious age you live in, set your heart on what He wants, and think on His line, you will be called unpractical and dreamy. Still, when He appears in the burden and the heat of the day, you will be the only one ready. Trust no one, not even the finest saint who ever walked this earth; ignore him if he hinders your sight of Jesus Christ.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).
March 29
The path of the just is the shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day.
Prov. 4:18
Have I begun this path of heavenly love and knowledge now? Am I progressing in it? Do I feel some dawnings of the divine light, earnests, and antepasts of the whole day of glory? Let all God’s dealings serve to quicken me in my way. Let every affection it may please Him to send me as the moving pillar—a cloud of old, beckoning me to move my tent onward, saying, “Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest.” Let me often stand now on faith’s lofty eminences, looking for “the day of God”—the rising sun to set no more in weeping clouds. Wondrous progression! How will all earth’s learning, boasted acquirements and eagle-eyed philosophy sink into the lispings of very infancy compared to this manhood of knowledge! Heaven will be the true “Excelsior,” its song, “a song of degrees,” Jesus leading His people from height to height of glory, and saying, as He said to Nathaniel, “Thou shall see greater things than these!”
Macduff
Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).
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