Morning, April 16 Go To Evening Reading
“The precious blood of Christ.”
—1 Peter 1:19
Standing at the foot of the cross, we see hands, feet, and sides, all distilling crimson streams of precious blood. It is “precious” because of its redeeming and atoning efficacy. By it, the sins of Christ’s people are atoned for; they are redeemed from under the law; they are reconciled to God and made one with him. Christ’s blood is also “precious” in its cleansing power; it “cleanseth from all sin.” “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Through Jesus’ blood, there is no spot left upon any believer; no wrinkle or such thing remains. O precious blood, which makes us clean, removes the stains of abundant iniquity and permits us to stand accepted in the many ways Beloved, notice have rebelled against our God. The blood of Christ is likewise “precious” in its preserving power. We are safe from the destroying angel under the sprinkled blood. Remember, God’s seeing the blood is why we are spared. Here is comfort for us when the eye of faith is dim, for God’s sight is still the same. The blood of Christ is “precious” also in its sanctifying influence. The same blood that justifies taking away sin does, in its after-action, quicken the new nature and lead it onward to subdue sin and follow God's commands. There is no motive for holiness so great as that which streams from the veins of Jesus. And “precious,” unspeakably precious, is this blood because it has an overcoming power. It is written, “They overcame through the blood of the Lamb.” How could they do otherwise? He who fights with the precious blood of Jesus fights with a weapon that cannot know defeat. The blood of Jesus! Sin dies in its presence, and death ceases to be death: heaven’s gates are opened. The blood of Jesus! We shall march on, conquering and to conquer, so long as we can trust its power!
Go To Morning Reading Evening, April 16
“And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”
—Exodus 17:12
So mighty was the prayer of Moses that all depended upon it. The petitions of Moses discomfited the enemy more than the fighting of Joshua. Yet both were needed. No, in the soul’s conflict, force and fervor, decision and devotion, valor and vehemence, must join their forces, and all will be well. You must wrestle with your sin, but the central part of the wrestling must be done privately with God. Like Moses’, prayer holds up the covenant token before the Lord. The rod was the emblem of God’s working with Moses, symbolizing God’s government in Israel. Learn, O pleading saint, to hold up the promise and the oath of God before him. The Lord cannot deny his own declarations. Hold up the rod of promise, and have what you will.
Moses grew weary, and then his friends assisted him. When at any time your prayer flags, let faith support one hand, and let holy hope uplift the other, and prayer seating itself upon the stone of Israel, the rock of our salvation, will persevere and prevail. Beware of faintness in devotion; if Moses felt it, who can escape? It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private. It is remarked that Joshua never grew weary in the fighting, but Moses did grow weary in the praying; the more spiritual an exercise, the more difficult it is for flesh and blood to maintain it. Let us cry, then, for exceptional strength, and may the Spirit of God, who helpeth our infirmities, as he allowed help to Moses, enable us like him to continue with our hands steady “until the going down of the sun;” till the evening of life is over; till we shall come to the rising of a better sun in the land where prayer is swallowed up in praise.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
April 16: Bold Requests
Deuteronomy 30:1–31:29; 2 Corinthians 8:1–7; Psalm 44
Psalm 44 is bold. Who asks the Lord to “wake up”? Who asks Him why He is sleeping?
The psalmist doesn’t stop with these questions. He makes claims regarding God that seem like accusations: “You have rejected and disgraced us,” “You have given us as sheep for food,” and “You have sold your people cheaply” (Psa 44:9, 11, 12). How do we deal with these types of psalms? Should we be as bold in our relationship with God?
But these claims aren’t made without reason. The psalmist opens his lament with, “O God, we have heard with our ears; our ancestors have told us of work you worked in their days, in days of old” (Psa 44:1). He had heard stories of God’s past faithfulness—how he delivered His people in battles. He also knew that God had claimed His people and that His favor to them was a testimony to the surrounding nations. But the psalmist experiences something different. Why is Israel “a taunt to our neighbors, a derision and a scorn to those around us” (Psa 44:13)?
The psalmist wrestles with his experience because he knows God’s will. He appeals to God’s faithfulness, love, and reputation among the nations. This is not much different from our experience as we wrestle with evil, sorrow, pain, and wonder about God’s work.
But amid the confusion, we still need to trust in God. Although the psalmist questions boldly, he acknowledges, “In God, we boast all the day, and we will give thanks to your name forever” (Psalm 44:8). At the end of the psalm, he still petitions God for help based on His love: “Rise up! Be a help for us, and redeem us for the sake of your loyal love” (Psalm 44:26).
God has redeemed us for the sake of His loyal love, and He is present and active—even when it seems otherwise. Colossians 1 tells us to give thanks to the Father, “who has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves … because all things in the heavens and on the earth were created by him … and in him all things are held together … because he was well pleased for all the fullness to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col 1:12–20).
Do you trust God’s love and deliverance, even when circumstances seem grim? Do you boldly petition Him for help, acknowledging His excellent character?
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).
April 16th
Can you come down?
While ye have light, believe in the light. John 12:36.
We all have moments when we feel better than our best, and we say—‘I feel fit for anything; if only I could be like this always!’ We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight that we must live up to when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for this workaday world when there is no high hour. We must bring our commonplace life up to the standard revealed in the high hour.
Never allow a feeling stirred in you in the high hour to evaporate. Don’t put your mental feet on the mantelpiece and say—‘What a marvelous state of mind to be in!’ Act immediately, do something, if only because you would instead not do it. If God has shown you something to do in a prayer meeting, don’t say—‘I’ll do it’; do it! Take yourself by the scruff of the neck and shake off your incarnate laziness. Laziness is always seen in cravings for the high hour; we discuss working up to a time on the mount. We must learn to live in the grey day according to what we saw on the mount.
Don’t cave in because you have been baffled once; get at it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by your own act. Never revise your decisions, but see that you make your decisions in the light of the high hour.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).
April 16
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me
John 4:34
Seek your life’s nourishment in your life’s work.
Phillips Brooks
Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).
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