Day 7 - Sabbath (Saturday) | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Thoughts for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 Morning, February 1 Go To Evening Reading

“They shall sing in the ways of the Lord.”

—Psalm 138:5

The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture, which gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross, he gave three great leaps and went on his way singing—

“Blest Cross! Blest Sepulchre! blest rather be

The Man that there was put to shame for me!”

Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you and said, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions and as a thick cloud thy sins; they shall not be mentioned against thee anymore forever.” Oh! What a sweet season it is when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from dancing. On my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty, I thought I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So complete was my soul of joy that I wanted to say to every snowflake falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have a reason for the song; as long as they live, they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of his constant lovingkindness leads them to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” See to it, brother, that thou magnifies the Lord this day.

“Long as we tread this desert land,

New mercies shall new songs demand.”

Go To Morning Reading Evening, February 1

“Thy love to me was wonderful.”

—2 Samuel 1:26

Come, dear readers, let us speak for ourselves of the incredible love, not of Jonathan, but of Jesus. We will not relate what we have been told but the things we have tasted and handled of the love of Christ. Thy love to me, O Jesus, was terrific when I was a stranger wandering far from thee, fulfilling the flesh's and mind's desires. Thy love restrained me from committing the sin which is unto death and withheld me from self-destruction. Thy love held back the axe when Justice said, “Cut it down! why cumbereth it the ground?” Thy love drew me into the wilderness, stripped me there, and made me feel the guilt of my sin and the burden of my iniquity. Thy love spake thus comfortably to me when I was dismayed—“Come unto me, and I will give thee rest.”

Oh, how matchless thy love when, in a moment, thou didst wash my sins away, and make my polluted soul, which was crimson with the blood of my nativity, and black with the grime of my transgressions, to be white as the driven snow, and pure as the finest wool. How thou didst commend thy love when thou didst whisper in my ears, “I am thine, and thou art mine.” Kind were those accents when thou saidst, “The Father himself loveth you.” And sweet the moments, passing sweet, when thou declared “the love of the Spirit.” Never shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where thou has unveiled thyself to me. Had Moses his cleft in the rock, where he saw the train, the back parts of his God? We, too, have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full splendors of the Godhead in the person of Christ. Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, the land of Jordan, and the Hermonites? We, too, can remember spots to memory dear, equal to these in blessedness. Precious Lord Jesus, give us a fresh draught of thy wondrous love to begin the month with. Amen.

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

February 1: God’s Ideas: More than Good

Exodus 1–3; John 1:1–18; Song of Solomon 1:1–4

It’s exciting to see ideas take shape and then become reality. Even more exciting, though, is when God’s ideas take form. The Bible shows us these events repeatedly. As the reader, we’re given glimpses into what God is doing—events the characters are unaware of. Or we have a hint that God is up to something unexpected and will make good out of the evil that’s happening.

The story of Moses is like this. God’s people are terribly oppressed, but there are many (Exod 1). And we all know there is power in numbers. We’re ready for something amazing to happen when baby Moses comes along. From this unassuming moment, God will do the least expected (Exodus 2:1–10): He will help those on the underside of power. Our suspicion is confirmed when Moses is willing to kill for justice (Exodus 2:11–12). Moses flees, and God hears Israel’s complaints about their pain (Exodus 2:23–25). He answers their cry by calling Moses (Exod 3:1–22). Moses hesitates because he can’t speak well, but God will (as we thought) use this unexpected turn of events (Exodus 4:10–17).

Like Moses’ story, we see behind the veil at the beginning of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word … And the Word became flesh and took up residence among us, and we saw his glory … For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:1, 14, 17). God gave Moses His law and the opportunity to guide His people from oppression to the wilderness and almost to freedom. But He gave Jesus grace and truth.

And that’s the message of the testaments: from cry to freedom cry, from calling upon God to salvation, and from mere men guided by God, to God in a man guiding men. Our love for God should be as great—and far more significant—than the love shown by the chorus of people in Song of Solomon. We must say about our God, like they say about people, “Let us be joyful and let us rejoice in you; let us extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you!” (Song 1:4).

We are called to see God’s work in our everyday life. We must recognize His story. He’s involved. Are we?

Are you worshiping God with your entire being—seeing His workings in your everyday life?

John D. Barry

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

January 3rd

Clouds and darkness

Clouds and darkness are round about Him. Psalm 97:2.

A man who has not been born of the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when baptized with the Holy Ghost, you find “clouds and darkness are round about Him.” When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ, we have our first insight into this aspect of things. The only possibility of understanding the teaching of Jesus is by the light of the Spirit of God on the inside. Suppose we have never had the experience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet and getting rid of all the undue familiarity with which we approach God. In that case, whether we have ever stood in His presence is questionable. The people who are flippant and familiar are those who have never yet been introduced to Jesus Christ. After the extraordinary delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does comes the impenetrable darkness of realizing Who He is.

Jesus said: “The words that I speak unto you,” not—‘the words I have spoken’—“they are spirit, and they are life.” The Bible has been so many words to us—clouds and darkness, then all of a sudden, the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us in a particular condition. That is how God speaks to us, not by visions and dreams but by words. When a man gets to God, it is by the most straightforward way of words.

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

February 1

Continue in prayer

Col. 4:2

Dost thou want nothing? Then I fear thou dost not know thy poverty. Hast thou no mercy to ask of God? Then may the Lord’s mercy show thee thy misery. A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus.

Spurgeon

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