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

 Morning, November 17: Go To Evening Reading

“To whom be glory for ever. Amen”

—Romans 11:36

“To whom be glory for ever.” This should be the single desire of the Christian. All other wishes must be subservient and tributary to this one. The Christian may wish for prosperity in his business, but only so far as it may help him to promote this—“To him be glory for ever.” He may desire to attain more gifts and more graces, but it should only be that “To him may be glory for ever.” You are not acting as you ought to do when you are moved by any other motive than a single eye to your Lord’s glory. As a Christian, you are “of God, and through God,” then live “to God.” Let nothing ever set your heart beating so mightily as love to him. Let this ambition fire your soul; be this the foundation of every enterprise upon which you enter, and this your sustaining motive whenever your zeal would grow chill; make God your only object. Depend upon it, where self begins sorrow begins; but if God be my supreme delight and only object,

“To me ’tis equal whether love ordain

My life or death—appoint me ease or pain.”

Let your desire for God’s glory be a growing desire. You blessed him in your youth; do not be content with such praises as you gave him then. Has God prospered you in business? Give him more as he has given you more. Has God given you experience? Praise him by a stronger faith than you exercised at first. Does your knowledge grow? Then sing more sweetly. Do you enjoy happier times than you once had? Have you been restored from sickness, and has your sorrow been turned into peace and joy? Then give him more music; put more coals and more sweet frankincense into the censer of your praise. Practically, in your life, give him honour, putting the “Amen” to this doxology to your great and gracious Lord, by your own individual service and increasing holiness.

Go To Morning Reading Evening, November 17

“He that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.”

—Ecclesiastes 10:9

Oppressors may get their will of poor and needy men as easily as they can split logs of wood, but they had better mind, for it is a dangerous business, and a splinter from a tree has often killed the woodman. Jesus is persecuted in every injured saint, and he is mighty to avenge his beloved ones. Success in treading down the poor and needy is a thing to be trembled at: if there be no danger to persecutors here, there will be great danger hereafter.

To cleave wood is an everyday business, and yet it has its dangers; so then, reader, there are dangers connected with your calling and daily life which it will be well for you to be aware of. We refer not to hazards by flood and field, or by disease and sudden death, but to perils of a spiritual sort. Your occupation may be as humble as log splitting, and yet the devil can tempt you in it. You may be a domestic servant, a farm labourer, or a mechanic, and you may be extensively screened from temptations to the grosser vices, and yet some secret sin may do you damage. Those who dwell at home and mingle not with the rough world may yet be endangered by their very seclusion. Nowhere is he safe who thinks himself so. Pride may enter a poor man’s heart; avarice may reign in a cottager’s bosom; uncleanness may venture into the quietest home; and anger, and envy, and malice may insinuate themselves into the most rural abode. Even in speaking a few words to a servant, we may sin; a little purchase at a shop may be the first link in a chain of temptations; the mere looking out of a window may be the beginning of evil. O Lord, how exposed we are! How shall we be secured! To keep ourselves is work too hard for us: only thou thyself art able to preserve us in such a world of evils. Spread thy wings over us, and we, like little chickens, will cower down beneath thee, and feel ourselves safe!

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

November 17: When in Need

2 Kings 1:1–2:5; Mark 13:24–14:21; Proverbs 6:1–5

When we encounter trouble, we look wherever we can for help: We turn in whatever direction seems most promising at the moment. In doing so, we may unwittingly walk away from Yahweh. Should practicality or convenience stand between God and us?

When King Ahaziah falls through a lattice and is injured, he seeks help from a foreign god rather than Yahweh—likely because it seems natural or right. He thinks the god of Ekron, Baal-Zebub, can provide the healing he needs. But what Ahaziah sees as a desperate situation is actually an opportunity for Yahweh to act; He plans to use it for His glory.

When Ahaziah sends messengers to Ekron, Yahweh intercedes. Elijah approaches them bearing a word from Yahweh that had been spoken to him by an angel: “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?” (2 Kgs 1:3).

When we experience physical or spiritual pain, do we first recognize Yahweh’s power and seek Him, or do we turn to other sources? Does our turning to other places demonstrate a lack of faith? What do we really believe in when we seek people, ideas, or things rather than God in our time of need?

The consequences of turning away from Yahweh can be tragic. Elijah goes on to declare: “The bed upon which you have gone, you will not come down from it, but you shall surely die” (2 Kgs 1:4). Let us turn to God before it comes to this. Let us choose Yahweh.

Whom are you turning to right now in your time of need?

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).

November 17th

The external goal

By Myself have I sworn, said the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, … that in blessing I will bless thee..… Genesis 22:15-19.

Abraham has reached the point where he is in touch with the very nature of God; he now understands the reality of God.

‘My goal is God Himself …

At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.’

‘At any cost, by any road’ means nothing self-chosen in the way God brings us to the goal.

There is no possibility of questioning when God speaks if He speaks to His own nature in me; prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says—“Come,” I simply come; when He says—“Let go,” I let go; when he says—“Trust in God in this matter,” I do trust. The whole process of working out is evidence that the nature of God is in me.

God’s revelation of Himself to me is determined by my character, not by God’s character.

‘Tis because I am mean,

Thy ways so oft look mean to me.’

By the discipline of obedience, I get to the place where Abraham was, and I see who God is. I never have a real God until I have come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ, then I know that “in all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee.”

The promises of God are of no value to us until, by obedience, we understand the nature of God. We read some things in the Bible three hundred and sixty-five times and they mean nothing to us; then all of a sudden we see what God means, because in some particular way we have obeyed God, and instantly His nature is opened up. “All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen.” The “yea” must be born of obedience; when, by the obedience of our lives, we say “Amen” to a promise, then that promise is ours.

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

November 17

Who is my neighbor

Luke 10:29

“Who is thy neighbor?” It is the sufferer, wherever, whoever, whatsoever he be. Wherever thou hearest the cry of distress, wherever thou seest anyone brought across thy path by the chances and changes of life (that is, by the providence of God), whom it is in thy power to help—he, stranger or enemy though he be—he is thy neighbor.

A. P. Stanley

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