Day 2 - Monday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 Morning, September 15 Go To Evening Reading

“He shall not be afraid of evil tidings.”

—Psalm 112:7

Christian, you ought not to dread the arrival of evil tidings, because if you are distressed by them, what do you more than other men? Other men have not your God to fly to; they have never proved his faithfulness as you have done, and it is no wonder if they are bowed down with alarm and cowed with fear: but you profess to be of another spirit; you have been begotten again unto a lively hope, and your heart lives in heaven and not on earthly things; now, if you are seen to be distracted as other men, what is the value of that grace which you profess to have received? Where is the dignity of that new nature which you claim to possess?

Again, if you should be filled with alarm, as others are, you would, doubtless, be led into the sins so common to others under trying circumstances. The ungodly, when they are overtaken by evil tidings, rebel against God; they murmur and think that God deals hardly with them. Will you fall into that same sin? Will you provoke the Lord as they do?

Moreover, unconverted men often run to wrong means to escape from difficulties, and you will be sure to do the same if your mind yields to the present pressure. Trust in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Your wisest course is to do as Moses did at the Red Sea, “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” For if you give way to fear when you hear of evil tidings, you will be unable to meet the trouble with that calm composure which nerves for duty, and sustains under adversity. How can you glorify God if you play the coward? Saints have often sung God’s high praises in the fires, but will your doubting and desponding, as if you had none to help you, magnify the Most High? Then take courage, and relying in sure confidence upon the faithfulness of your covenant God, “let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Go To Morning Reading, Evening, September 15

“A people near unto him.”

—Psalm 148:14

The dispensation of the old covenant was that of distance. When God appeared even to his servant Moses, he said, “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet”; and when he manifested himself upon Mount Sinai, to his own chosen and separated people, one of the first commands was, “Thou shalt set bounds about the mount.” Both in the sacred worship of the tabernacle and the temple, the thought of distance was always prominent. The mass of the people did not even enter the outer court. Into the inner court none but the priests might dare to intrude; while into the innermost place, or the holy of holies, the high priest entered but once in the year. It was as if the Lord in those early ages would teach man that sin was so utterly loathsome to him that he must treat men as lepers put without the camp; and when he came nearest to them, he yet made them feel the width of the separation between a holy God and an impure sinner. When the gospel came, we were placed on quite another footing. The word “Go” was exchanged for “Come”; distance was made to give place to nearness, and we who aforetime were afar off were made nigh by the blood of Jesus Christ. Incarnate Deity has no wall of fire about it. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” is the joyful proclamation of God as he appears in human flesh. Not now does he teach the leper his leprosy by setting him at a distance, but by himself suffering the penalty of his defilement. What a state of safety and privilege is this nearness to God through Jesus! Do you know it by experience? If you know it, are you living in the power of it? Marvellous is this nearness, yet it is to be followed by a dispensation of greater nearness still, when it shall be said, “The tabernacle of God is with men, and he doth dwell among them.” Hasten it, O Lord.

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

September 15: The Pain of Idolatry

Micah 1:1–3:12; Acts 13:13–14:7; Job 22:14–30

Idolatry causes pain. If this truth were present in our minds each time we placed something before God, we would make different decisions. Micah’s account of the sins of Samaria makes this fact painfully and dramatically clear:

“So I [Yahweh] will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the field, a place for planting a vineyard. And I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations. Then all her idols will be broken in pieces, and all her prostitution wages will be burned in the fire, and all her idols I will make a desolation. From the wage of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the wage of a prostitute they will return. On account of this, I will lament and wail. I will go barefoot and naked. I will make a lamentation like the jackals, and a mourning ceremony like the ostriches” (Mic 1:6–8).

Throughout this section, the voices of God and the prophet intermingle, a common occurrence in prophetic literature. This device creates a sense of empathy, both for God’s perspective on idolatry and for the people’s pain as the consequences of their idolatry bear down on them. Micah’s position is one we should emulate. When we understand what God feels, we begin to see the world from His point of view. When we feel what others think, we’re able to meet their needs and learn to love them as thoroughly and radically as God loves us.

Micah’s depiction of idolatry—how God views it and what it does to us—should be a wake-up call. When God takes second place in our lives, we inflict pain on Him, ourselves, and others. We shove Him out of His rightful place and thus move ourselves out of a relationship with Him. But when He is the focus of our lives, we have an opportunity to empathize with others and to love them, and our idols dissipate like smoke.

How are you combating idolatry in your life? How do you show love to people who idolize others?

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).

September 15th

What to renounce

But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. 2 Cor. 4:2.

Have you “renounced the hidden things of dishonesty”—the things that your sense of honour will not allow to come to the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be dragged into the light? Renounce it as soon as it springs up; renounce the whole thing until there is no hidden thing of dishonesty or craftiness about you. Envy, jealousy, strife—these things arise not necessarily from the disposition of sin, but from the make-up of your body which was used for this kind of thing in days gone by (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1–2 ): Maintain a continual watchfulness so that nothing of which you would be ashamed arises in your life.

“Not walking in craftiness,” that is, resorting to what will carry your point. This is a great snare. You know that God will only let you work in one way, then be careful never to catch people the other way; God’s blight will be upon you if you do. Others are doing things that to you would seem like walking in craftiness, but it may not be so with them; God has given you a different standpoint. Never blunt the sense of your Utmost for His Highest. For you to do a sure thing would mean the coming of craftiness for an end other than the highest, and the blunting of the motive God has given you. Many have returned because they are afraid of things from God’s perspective. The crisis comes spiritually when a man has to emerge a bit farther on than the creed he has accepted.

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

September 15

The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Matt. 20:28

We are so to surrender ourselves to Christ that this great purpose of His coming shall claim and possess the whole life. We are to live, like God, to bless others. This is His will, His purpose concerning us. This is what His power waits to do for us. And this, too, is the claim of His great love upon us.

Do not sigh a poor assent to the truth of it, and then pass by neglectfully on the other side. Do not think about it and pray about it without even a passing hope that the prayer will be answered. Do not gather yourself up in great resolutions to be good and valuable. Kneel in sight of the Crucified. In the cross of Christ, spell out His great purpose and yearning love to men. Let the heart feel all the might of the appeal that comes to us from those torn hands and feet and bleeding brow, from all the dreadful shame and agony of our dear Lord. And, bought and bound by all this, surrender yourself to Him for His great purpose. Take Him as your strength for this life-work.

Mark Guy Pearse

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