Day 5 - Thursday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 Morning, October 23 Go To Evening Reading

“Will ye also go away?”

—John 6:67

Many have forsaken Christ, and have walked no more with him; but what reason have you to make a change? Has there been any reason for it in the past? Has not Jesus proved himself all-sufficient? He appeals to you this morning—“Have I been a wilderness unto you?” When your soul has simply trusted Jesus, have you ever been confounded? Have you not, up till now, found your Lord to be a compassionate and generous friend to you, and has not simple faith in him given you all the peace your spirit could desire? Can you even dream of a better friend than he has been to you? Then change not the old and tried for the new and false.

As for the present, can that compel you to leave Christ? When we are hard beset with this world, or with the severer trials within the Church, we find it a most blessed thing to pillow our head upon the bosom of our Saviour. This is the joy we have today that we are saved in him, and if this joy be satisfying, wherefore should we think of changing? Who barters gold for dross? We will not forswear the sun till we find a better light, nor leave our Lord until a brighter lover shall appear; and, since this can never be, we will hold him with a grasp immortal, and bind his name as a seal upon our arm. As for the future, can you suggest anything that may arise that shall render it necessary for you to mutiny or desert the old flag to serve under another captain? We think not. If life be long, he changes not. If we are poor, what better thing is there than to have Christ, who can make us rich? When we are sick, what more do we want than Jesus to make our bed in our sickness? When we die, is it not written that “neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” We say with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

Go To Morning Reading Evening, October 23

“Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”

—Luke 22:46

When is the Christian most liable to sleep? Is it not when his temporal circumstances are prosperous? Have you not found it so? When you had daily troubles to take to the throne of grace, were you not more wakeful than you are now? Easy roads make sleepy travellers. Another dangerous time is when all goes pleasantly in spiritual matters. Christian did not sleep when lions were in the way, or when he was wading through the river, or when fighting with Apollyon, but when he had climbed halfway up the Hill Difficulty, and came to a delightful arbour, he sat down, and forthwith fell asleep, to his great sorrow and loss. The enchanted ground is a place of balmy breezes, laden with fragrant odours and soft influences, all tending to lull pilgrims to sleep. Remember Bunyan’s description: “Then they came to an arbour, warm, and promising much refreshing to the weary pilgrims; for it was finely wrought above head, beautified with greens, and furnished with benches and settles. It had also in it a soft couch, where the weary might lean.” “The arbour was called the Slothful’s Friend, and was made on purpose to allure, if it might be, some of the pilgrims to take up their rest there when weary.” Depend upon it, it is in easy places that men shut their eyes and wander into the dreamy land of forgetfulness. Old Erskine wisely remarked, “I like a roaring devil better than a sleeping devil.” There is no temptation half so dangerous as not being tempted. The distressed soul does not sleep; it is after we enter into peaceful confidence and full assurance that we are in danger of slumbering. The disciples fell asleep after they had seen Jesus transfigured on the mountain top. Take heed, joyous Christian, good frames are near neighbours to temptations: be as happy as you will, only be watchful.

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

October 23: The Time, Space, and Money Continuum

Ezekiel 45:1–46:24; Revelation 22:1–21; Job 39:11–23

When we think of setting things apart for God, we usually think of money first. But what about our time or even a place? Ezekiel 45:1 speaks of setting aside land for God: “And when you allocate the land as an inheritance, you shall provide a contribution for Yahweh as a holy portion from the land, its length being twenty-five thousand cubits and its width ten thousand cubits; it is holy in all its territory, all around” (Ezek 45:1).

We’re comfortable with the idea of donating money; we recognize that others need our help and our churches need our support. But there are other reasons for giving. Giving itself is a righteous and perhaps sacred act. It forces us to acknowledge that all we have belongs to God—He is the provider. Giving puts us in a powerful standing before God.

Similarly, allocating time and space to God helps us understand our place before Him. When we designate a particular time for God, or a specific place for meeting Him—such as a prayer room or a certain chair to sit in when we pray—we acknowledge that He deserves a special place in our lives.

Like giving, setting aside these times and places can help us glimpse what our relationship with God is meant to be. It allows us to envision a better future fueled by a relationship with God. It gives us the energy (and the reminder) we need to follow God’s will. Giving helps us see how things can and will be (e.g., Rev 22:1–3).

What should you set apart for 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).

October 23rd

Not a bit of it!

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away. 2 Cor. 5:17.

Our Lord never nurses our prejudices; He mortifies them, runs clean athwart them. We imagine that God has a special interest in our particular prejudices; we are pretty sure that God will never deal with us as He does with other people. ‘God must deal with other people in a very stern way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are all right.’ We have to learn—‘Not a bit of it!’ Instead of God being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately wiping them out. It is part of our moral education to have our prejudices run straight across by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him; there is only one thing He wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender. When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is not a bit of the old order left; the old solemnity goes, the old attitude to things goes, and “all things are of God.” How are we going to get the life that has no lust, no self-interest, no sensitiveness to pokes, the love that is not provoked, that thinketh no evil, that is always kind? The only way is to allow not a bit of the old life to remain, but to have only simple, perfect trust in God —such confidence that we no longer desire God’s blessings, but only His presence. Have we come to the place where God can withdraw His blessings, and it does not affect our trust in Him? When we once see God at work, we will never worry about things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in Heaven, whom the world cannot see.

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

October 23

As my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do

1 Kings 2:38

There is something infinitely better than doing a great thing for God, and the infinitely better thing is to be where God wants us to be, to do what God wants us to do, and to have no will apart from His.

G. Campbell Morgan

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