Day 7 - Sabbath - Saturday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |
Morning, October 18 Go To Evening Reading
“Thy paths drop fatness.”
—Psalm 65:11
Many are “the paths of the Lord” which “drop fatness,” but a special one is the path of prayer. No believer, who is much in the closet, will have need to cry, “My leanness, my leanness; woe unto me.” Starving souls live at a distance from the mercy-seat and become like the parched fields in times of drought. Prevalence with God in wrestling prayer is sure to make the believer strong—if not happy. The nearest place to the gate of heaven is the throne of heavenly grace. Much alone, and you will have much assurance; little alone with Jesus, your religion will be shallow, polluted with many doubts and fears, and not sparkling with the joy of the Lord. Since the soul-enriching path of prayer is open to the very weakest saint, since no high attainments are required, since you are not bidden to come because you are an advanced saint, but freely invited if you be a saint at all; see to it, dear reader, that you are often in the way of private devotion. Be much on your knees, for so Elijah drew the rain upon famished Israel’s fields.
There is another special path dropping with fatness to those who walk therein; it is the secret walk of communion. Oh! The delights of fellowship with Jesus! Earth hath no words which can set forth the holy calm of a soul leaning on Jesus’ bosom. Few Christians understand it; they live in the lowlands and seldom climb to the top of Nebo. They live in the outer court, do not enter the holy place, and do not take up the privilege of priesthood. At a distance, they see the sacrifice, but they sit not down with the priest to eat thereof, and to enjoy the fat of the burnt offering. But, reader, sit thou ever under the shadow of Jesus; come up to that palm tree, and take hold of the branches thereof; let thy beloved be unto thee as the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, and thou shalt be satisfied as with marrow and fatness. O Jesus, visit us with thy salvation!
Go To Morning Reading Evening, October 18
“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.”
—1 Samuel 15:22
Saul had been commanded to slay utterly all the Amalekites and their cattle. Instead of doing so, he preserved the king, and suffered his people to take the best of the oxen and of the sheep. When called to account for this, he declared that he did it with a view of offering sacrifice to God, but Samuel met him at once with the assurance that sacrifices were no excuse for an act of direct rebellion. The sentence before us is worthy to be printed in letters of gold and to be hung up before the eyes of the present idolatrous generation, who are very fond of the fineries of will-worship but utterly neglect the laws of God. Be it ever in your remembrance, that to keep strictly in the path of your Saviour’s command is better than any outward form of religion; and to hearken to his precept with an attentive ear is better than to bring the fat of rams, or any other precious thing to lay upon his altar. If you are failing to keep the least of Christ’s commands to his disciples, I pray you be disobedient no longer. All the pretensions you make of attachment to your Master, and all the devout actions which you may perform, are no recompense for disobedience. “To obey,” even in the slightest and smallest thing, “is better than sacrifice,” however pompous. Talk not of Gregorian chants, sumptuous robes, incense, and banners; the first thing which God requires of his child is obedience; and though you should give your body to be burned, and all your goods to feed the poor, yet if you do not hearken to the Lord’s precepts, all your formalities shall profit you nothing. It is a blessed thing to be teachable as a little child, but it is a much more blessed thing when one has been taught the lesson, to carry it out to the letter. How many adorn their temples and decorate their priests, but refuse to obey the word of the Lord! My soul, come not thou into their secret.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
October 18: A New Way of Being
Ezekiel 36:1–37:28; Revelation 18:1–24; Job 38:1–11
God calls us to live lives that are distinguished by His light, clearly separate from our old way of being. He wants to make us a new creation by separating the light from the darkness within our own hearts.
In Revelation, John describes God calling His people out of Babylon: “And I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out from her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins, and so that you will not receive her plagues, because her sins have reached up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes’ ” (Rev 18:4–5).
Sometimes we can be separated from our former ways of living in the literal sense, but the light has not yet pierced our hearts. We still live in “Babylon” because it exists right where we are. While we have inflated our position, we’ve failed to let God’s light pierce our lives. We’ve been unable to live lives that respond to His work.
Becoming separate involves putting off the old ways of thinking, acting, and being. It consists of clinging to Christ, who brings light and renewal to our lives. Christ’s sacrifice has reversed death and punishment so that He can bring us new life.
We are called to be separate not for our own sake and our own reputation, but so we can proclaim Christ’s work in our lives. Ultimately, it’s about pointing others toward Him: “For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus. For God who said, ‘Light will shine out of darkness,’ is the one who has shone in our hearts for the enlightenment of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:5).
How is your life reflecting the work of Christ?
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).
The key to the missionary devotion
For His name’s sake, they went forth. 3 John 7.
Our Lord has told us how love for Him is to manifest itself. “Lovest thou Me?” “Feed My sheep”—identify yourself with My interests in other people, not identify Me with your interests in different people. 1 Corinthians 13:4–8 gives the character of this love, it is the love of God expressing itself. The test of my love for Jesus is the practical one; all the rest is sentimental jargon.
Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of Redemption wrought in me by the Holy Ghost, who sheds abroad the love of God in my heart, and that love works efficaciously through me in contact with everyone I meet. I remain loyal to His name, although every commonsense fact gives the lie to Him, and declares that He has no more power than a morning mist.
The key to missionary devotion is being attached to nothing and no one except Our Lord Himself, without becoming detached from external things. Our Lord was amazingly in and out among ordinary things; His detachment was inward towards God. External detachment is often an indication of a secret vital attachment to the things we keep away from externally. The loyalty of a missionary is to keep his soul concentratedly open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women Our Lord sends out on His enterprises are the ordinary human stuff, plus dominating devotion to Himself wrought by the Holy Ghost.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).
October 18
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler
Ps. 91:3
He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler. That is, from the little things, the hidden traps and nets that are set for us. Great sins frighten, where little snares entangle. It is easier to escape the huntsman’s arrow than the crafty lure.
And where are they not set? Riches and poverty, sickness and strength, prosperity and adversity, friendship and loneliness, the work and the want of it—each has its snare, wherein not only are the unwary caught, but the wise and the watchful sometimes fall a prey. Little things, mere threads, hardly worth guarding against—yet they are strong enough to hold us and hinder us, and may be the beginning of our destruction.
Mark Guy Pearse
Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).
Comments