Morning, April 26 Go To Evening Reading
“This do in remembrance of me.”
—1 Corinthians 11:24
It seems, then, that Christians may forget Christ! There could be no need for this loving exhortation if there were no fearful suppositions that our memories might prove treacherous. Nor is this a bare supposition: it is, alas! Too well confirmed in our experience, not as a possibility but as a lamentable fact. It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the dying Lamb and loved with everlasting love by the eternal Son of God should forget that gracious Saviour; but, if startling to the ear, it is, alas! Too apparent to the eye to allow us to deny the crime. Forget him, who never forgot us! Forget him who poured his blood forth for our sins! Forget him who loved us even to the death! Can it be possible? Yes, it is possible, but conscience confesses that it is too sadly a fault with all of us that we suffer him to be as a wayfaring man tarrying but for a night. He whom we should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein. The cross, where one would think that memory would linger and unmindfulness would be an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness. Does not your conscience say that this is true? Do you remember Jesus? Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the cross. The incessant turmoil of the world and the constant attraction of earthly things take away the soul from Christ. While memory too well preserves a poisonous weed, it suffereth the rose of Sharon to wither. Let us charge ourselves to bind a heavenly forget-me-not about our hearts for Jesus our Beloved, and whatever else we let slip, let us hold fast to him.
Go To Morning Reading Evening, April 26
“Blessed is he that watcheth.”
—Revelation 16:15
“We die daily,” said the apostle. This was the life of the early Christians; they went everywhere with their lives in their hands. We are not in this day called to pass through the same fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace to bear the test, but the tests of Christian life, at the present moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us than even those of the fiery age. We have to bear the sneer of the world—that is little; its blandishments, soft words, oily speeches, fawning, and hypocrisy are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud, give ourselves up to the fashions of this present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if wealth is not the trial, worldly care is quite as mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love for Christ and our confidence in him. I fear that the Christian church is far more likely to lose its integrity in those soft and silken days than in those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted ground and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing unless our faith in Jesus becomes a reality and our love for Jesus a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true-born children of the living God. Christian, do not think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardor; you need these things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in you that you may be able to say in all these softer things, as well as in the rougher, “We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
April 26: Bitter and Betrayed
Joshua 16:1–17:18; 2 Corinthians 11:24–33; Psalm 55
The betrayal of a loved one can shake our world. It can make us feel vulnerable and used, and if we’re not careful, it can cause us to be bitter and suspicious toward others. The psalmist in Psalm 55 experiences such a betrayal from a friend who feared God: “We would take sweet counsel together in the house of God” (Psa 55:14).
The psalmist agonizes over how he was deceived: “The buttery words of his mouth were smooth, but there was a battle in his heart. His words were smoother than oil, but they were drawn swords” (Psa 55:21). How does someone move beyond a violation of trust? Instead of growing bitter, the psalmist trusts Yahweh: “Cast your burden on Yahweh, and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved” (Psa 55:22).
Similarly, in 2 Corinthians, Paul tells the church in Corinth about his sufferings. Among Paul’s lashings, stonings, shipwrecks (three of them), and robbings, he also lists “dangers because of false brothers” (2 Cor 11:26). He suffered anxiety because of the churches (2 Cor 11:28).
Paul adds to this list by discussing a force of oppression over him. He states that he prayed for his “thorn” to be taken from him (2 Cor 12:8). However, the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for you because the power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). This reshapes Paul’s perspective on suffering: “I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in calamities, in persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). By submitting to Christ, Paul relied less on himself and more heavily on God. As a result, God’s grace and power were manifested within him.
Betrayal causes bitterness that can poison our hearts. But, like Paul, we should use trials to submit more fully to God and show others His work in us.
How are you holding onto bitterness? What would God have you do instead?
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).
April 26th
The supreme climb
Take now thy son, … and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains I will tell thee of. Genesis 22:2.
Character determines how a man interprets God’s will (cf. Psalm 18:25–26 ). Abraham interpreted God’s command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this tradition behind by the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditions that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs to be rid of, e.g., that God removes a child because the mother loves him too much—a devil’s lie! and a travesty of the true nature of God. If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of wrong traditions about God, he will do so, but if we keep faithful to God, God will take us through an ordeal that will bring us a better knowledge of Himself.
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter to what belief he went contrary. Abraham was not a devotee of his convictions, or he would have slain Isaac and said that the angel's voice was the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you remain faithful to God, God will lead you straight through every barrier into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself, but there is always this point of giving up convictions and traditional beliefs. Don’t ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did—‘I will do anything, I will go to death with Thee.’ Abraham did not make any such declaration; he remained faithful to God, and God purified his faith.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).
April 26
Consider how great things he hath done for you
1 Sam. 12:24
Look back on all the way the Lord your God has led you. Do you not see it dotted with ten thousand blessings in disguise? Call to mind the needed succor sent at the critical moment: the right way chosen for you, instead of the wrong way you had chosen for yourself; the hurtful thing to which your heart so fondly clung, removed out of your path; the breathing time granted, which your tried and struggling spirit just at the moment needed. Oh, has not Jesus stood at your side when you knew it not? Has not Infinite Love encircled every event with its everlasting arms and gilded every cloud with its merciful lining? Oh, retrace your steps, and mark His footprint in each one! Thank Him for them all, and learn the lesson of leaning more simply on Jesus.
F. Whitfield
Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).
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