Day 6 - Friday | Morning and Evening | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 Morning, September 19 Go To Evening Reading

“The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.”

—Galatians 5:1

This “liberty” makes us free to heaven’s charter—the Bible. Here is a choice passage, believer, “When thou passest through the rivers, I will be with thee.” You are free to do that. Here is another: “The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee”; you are free to that. You are a welcome guest at the table of the promises. Scripture is a never-failing treasury filled with boundless stores of grace. It is the bank of heaven; you may draw from it as much as you please, without let or hindrance. Come in faith, and you are welcome to all covenant blessings. There is no promise in the Word that shall be withheld. In the depths of tribulations, let this freedom comfort you; amidst waves of distress, let it cheer you; whend thee, sorrows surround let it be thy solace. This is thy Father’s love-token; thou art free to it at all times. Thou art also free to the throne of grace. It is the believer’s privilege to have access at all times to his heavenly Father.

Whatever our desires, our difficulties, our wants, we are at liberty to spread all before him. It matters not how much we may have sinned; we may ask and expect pardon. It signifies nothing how poor we are; we may plead his promise that he will provide all things needful. We have permission to approach his throne at all times—in midnight’s darkest hour, or in noontide’s most burning heat. Exercise thy right, O believer, and live up to thy privilege. Thou art free to all that is treasured up in Christ—wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It matters not what thy need is, for there is fulness of supply in Christ, and it is there for thee. O what a “freedom” is thine! Freedom from condemnation, freedom to the promises, freedom to the throne of grace, and at last freedom to enter heaven!

Go To Morning Reading Evening, September 19

“For this child I prayed.”

—1 Samuel 1:27

Devout souls delight to look upon those mercies which they have obtained in answer to supplication, for they can see God’s especial love in them. When we can name our blessings Samuel, that is, “asked of God,” they will be as dear to us as her child was to Hannah. Peninnah had many children, but they came as everyday blessings unsought in prayer: Hannah’s one heaven-given child was dearer far, because he was the fruit of earnest pleadings. How sweet was that water to Samson, which he found at “the well of him that prayed!” Quassia cups turn all waters bitter, but the cup of prayer puts a sweetness into the draughts it brings. Did we pray for the conversion of our children? How doubly sweet, when they are saved, to see in them our own petitions fulfilled!

Better to rejoice over them as the fruit of our pleadings than as the fruit of our bodies. Have we sought the Lord for some choice spiritual gift? When it comes to us, it will be wrapped up in the gold cloth of God’s faithfulness and truth, and so be doubly precious. Have we petitioned for success in the Lord’s work? How joyful is the prosperity which comes flying upon the wings of prayer! It is always best to get blessings into our house in the legitimate way, by the door of prayer; then they are blessings indeed, and not temptations. Even when prayer is not answered, the blessings grow all the richer for the delay; the child Jesus was all the more lovely in the eyes of Mary when she found him after having sought him in sorrow. That which we win by prayer we should dedicate to God, as Hannah dedicated Samuel. The gift came from heaven; let it go to heaven. Prayer brought it, gratitude sang over it, let devotion consecrate it. Here will be a special occasion for saying, “Of thine own have I given unto thee.” Reader, is prayer your element or your weariness? Which?

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

September 19: Honestly Questioning God

Habakkuk 1:1–2:5; Acts 17:1–34; Job 25:1–6

Many people are afraid to be honest with God, which is odd, considering that He already knows what we’re thinking. The biblical authors indeed expressed their feelings to God, and they did so frequently and eloquently.

The prophet Habakkuk remarked, “O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? How long will I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” (Hab 1:1–2). Habakkuk felt that God was not answering his prayers—that God was ignoring his petitions. He reminded God of the desperate need for His intercession. In doing so, Habakkuk reminds us that wrestling with God is a healthy and necessary component of following Him.

Habakkuk went on to make more desperate, even angry, pleas: “Why do you cause me to see evil while you look at trouble? Destruction and violence happen before me; contention and strife arise. Therefore, the law is paralyzed, and justice does not go forth perpetually. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted” (Hab 1:3–4). Habakkuk’s honest questions reveal the state of his heart. He was not afraid to tell God what he felt because he understood that God already knew. He also believed that God could be persuaded to intercede.

Yet it’s not language or skillful rhetoric that causes God to intercede—after all, He is a free being who can do what He wills, and He will not be manipulated. God wants to use us for His work, and He longs for us to acknowledge what He is doing. When we pray, God listens; when God acts in response to our prayers, we know that it is His work. We must pray honestly and acknowledge God’s rightful place and acts.

What are you praying about? What are you honestly confessing to God?

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 19th

Do you continue to go with Jesus?

Ye are they who have continued with Me in My temptations. Luke 22:28.

Jesus Christ is indeed with us in our temptations, but are we going with Him in His temptations? Many of us cease to go with Jesus from the moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God shifts your circumstances, and see whether you are going with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His badge, but are we going with Him? “From that time, many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going with Jesus in the life we are living now?

We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. Never! God engineers circumstances, and whatever they may be, we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. The honour of Jesus Christ is at stake in your bodily life. Are you remaining loyal to the Son of God in the things that beset His life in you?

Do you continue to go with Jesus? The way lies through Gethsemane, through the city gate, outside the camp; the way lies alone, and the way lies until there is no trace of a footstep left, only the voice, “Follow Me.”

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

September 19

I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction

Isa. 48:10

Does not the word come like a soft shower, assuaging the fury of the flame? Yeah, is it not an asbestos armor, against which the heat hath no power? Let affliction come—God has chosen me. Poverty, thou mayest stride in at my door—but God is in the house already, and He has chosen me. Sickness, thou mayest intrude, but I have a balsam ready—God has chosen me. Whatever befalls me in this vale of tears, I know that He has “chosen” me. Fear not, Christian; Jesus is with thee. In all thy fiery trials, His presence is both thy comfort and safety. He will never leave one whom He has chosen for His own. “Fear not, for I am with thee,” is His sure word of promise to His chosen ones in the “furnace of affliction.”

Spurgeon

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