Day 3 - Tuesday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 Morning, September 17: Go To Evening Reading

""ring him unto me.""—Mark 9:19

Despairingly, the poor, disappointed father turned away from the disciples to their Master. His son was in the worst possible condition, and all means had failed, but the miserable child was soon delivered from the evil one when the parent in faith obeyed the Lord JJesus'word, ""ring him unto me."" Children are a precious gift from God, but much anxiety comes with them. They may be a great joy or bitterness to their parents; they may be filled with the Spirit of God or possessed with the spirit of evil. In all cases, the Word of God gives us one receipt for curing all their ills: ""ring him unto me."" O for more agonizing prayer on their behalf while they are yet babes! Sin is there; let our prayers begin to attack it. Our cries for our offspring should precede those cries which betoken their actual advent into a world of sin. In the days of their youth, we shall see sad tokens of that dumb and deaf spirit which will neither pray aright nor hear the voice of God in the soul, but Jesus still commands, ""ring them unto me."" When they grow up, they may wallow in sin and foam with enmity against God; when our hearts are breaking, we should remember the great PPhysician'swords, ""ring them unto me."" Never must we cease to pray until they cease to breathe. No case is hopeless while Jesus lives.

The Lord sometimes causes his people to be driven into a corner so that they may experimentally know how necessary he is to them. Ungodly children, when they show us our own powerlessness against the depravity of their hearts, drive us to flee to the strong for strength, which is a great blessing to us. Whatever our morning needs may be, let it, like a strong current, bear us to the ocean of divine love. Jesus can soon remove our sorrow; he delights in comforting us. Let us hasten to him while he waits to meet us.

Go To Morning Reading Evening, September 17

""Encourage him.""—Deuteronomy 1:38

God employs his people to encourage one another. He did not tell an angel, ""Gabriel, my servant Joshua is about to lead my people into Canaan—go, encourage him."" God never works needless miracles; if his purposes can be accomplished by ordinary means, he will not use miraculous agency. Gabriel would not have been half so well fitted for the work as Moses. A bbrother'ssympathy is more precious than an aangel'sembassy. The angel, swift of wing, had better known the bidding than the people. An angel had never experienced the hardness of the road, seen the fiery serpents, or led the stiff-necked multitude in the wilderness as Moses had done. We should be glad that God usually works for man by man. It forms a bond of brotherhood, and being mutually dependent on one another, we are fused more completely into one family. Brethren, take the text as a message to you.

Labor to help others and especially strive to encourage them. Talk cheerily to the young and anxious enquirer, lovingly trying to remove stumbling blocks from his way. When you find a spark of grace in the heart, kneel down and blow it into a flame. Leave the young believer to discover the roughness of the road by degrees, but tell him of the strength that dwells in God, the sureness of the promise, and the charms of communion with Christ. Aim to comfort the sorrowful and to animate the desponding. Speak a weary word to him in season and encourage those fearful to go on their way with gladness. God encourages you by his promises; Christ encourages you as he points to the heaven he has won for you, and the spirit encourages you as he works in you to will and to do of his own will and pleasure. Imitate divine wisdom and encourage others, according to the word of this evening.

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

September 17: What Shall Be Done?

Micah 7:1–20; Acts 15:22–16:5; Job 24:1–11

How should we respond when those around us seem to be not only falling short of the glory of God but actually abandoning God? What should we do when we witness neighbors or friends tolerating or even justifying injustice, oppression, greed, or idolatry? We live in such a time. So did the prophet Micah:

""It is me! For I have become like the gatherings of summer, like the gleanings of the grape harvest, when there is no cluster of grapes to eat or early ripened fruit that my soul desires. The faithful person has perished from the land, and none is upright among humankind. They all lie in wait; each hunts his brother with a net. Their hands are upon evil, to do it well; the official and the judge ask for the bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; and they weave it together"" (Mic 7:1–3).

Micah did what was right—he spoke up and told the truth. We must do the same when we find ourselves in evil times among evil people. God may call us to be a voice crying in the wilderness (John 1:19–25; compare Isa 40:3). By boldly proclaiming the truth, we may make a way for others to return to God.

Much of the world is corrupt, and it is our job as Christians to fight such corruption, to stand above it, and to help others find the better way—God's way. Our world's brokenness is not simple. How many people are led astray unconsciously? How often does money or power trump the rights of the vulnerable? Do we recognize injustice when we see it? Do we have the courage to speak up, even when it hurts?

Micah provides an example here, too. Although he spoke vividly about God's coming judgment on Samaria, he also told us where we would find the Savior who would heal our brokenness once and for all—in Bethlehem.

How are you standing against the evils of our age?

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 17

What's The good of temptation?

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. 1 Cor. 10:13.

The word "emptation’'has come down in the world; we are apt to misuse it. Temptation is not sin; it is the thing we are bound to meet if we are men. Not to be tempted would be to be beneath contempt. Many of us, however, suffer from temptations. We have no business in suffering simply because we have refused to let God lift us to a higher plane where we would face temptations of another order.

A man's position on the inside, i.e., what he possesses in his personality, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the nature of the one tempted and reveals the possibilities of nature. Every man has the setting of his own temptation, and the temptation will come along the line of the ruling disposition.

Temptation is a suggested shortcut to the realization of the highest at which I aim—not towards what I understand as evil but towards what I understand as good. Temptation completely baffles me for a while; I do not know whether the thing is right or wrong. Temptation yielded to lust deified, and it is proof that timidity prevented sin before.

Temptation is not something we may escape; it is essential to the full-orbed life of a man. Beware lest you think you are tempted as no one else is tempted; what you go through is the common inheritance of the race, not something no one ever went through before. God does not save us from temptations; He succors us in the midst of them (Heb. 2:18.)

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

September 17

And the angel of the Lord said unto her [Hagar], Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands

Gen. 16:9

Submission is a great Christian law, but we find it early in Genesis, early in, and angel-given.

Selected

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