Day 1 - Lord's Day (Sunday) | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Hour |

 Morning, November 24 Go To Evening Reading

“The glorious Lord will be a place of broad rivers and streams unto us.”

—Isaiah 33:21

Broad rivers and streams produce fertility and abundance in the land. Places near broad rivers are remarkable for their plants' variety and plentiful harvests. God is all this to his Church. Having God, she has abundance. What can she ask for that he will not give her? What want can she mention that he will not supply? “In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things.” Want ye the bread of life? It drops like manna from the sky. Do you want to refresh streams? The rock follows you, and that Rock is Christ. If you suffer any want, it is your own fault; if you are straitened, you are not straitened in him, but in your own bowels.

Broad rivers and streams also point to commerce. Our glorious Lord is to us a place of heavenly merchandise. Through our Redeemer, we have commerce with the past; the wealth of Calvary, the treasures of the covenant, the riches of the ancient days of election, and the stores of eternity all come to us down the broad stream of our gracious Lord. We have commerce, too, with the future. What galleys, laden to the water’s edge, come to us from the millennium! What visions do we have of the days of heaven upon earth? Through our glorious Lord, we have commerce with angels, communion with the bright spirits washed in blood, who sing before the throne, and nay. Better still, we have fellowship with the Infinite One. Broad rivers and streams are specially intended to set forth the idea of security. Rivers were of old a defense. Oh! Beloved, what a defense is God to his Church! The devil cannot cross this broad river of God. How he wishes he could turn the current, but fear not, for God abideth immutably the same. Satan may worry, but he cannot destroy us; no galley with oars shall invade our river, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.

Go To Morning Reading Evening, November 24

“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.”

—Proverbs 24:33, 34

The worst sluggards only ask for a bit of slumber; they would be indignant if accused of thorough idleness. A little folding of the hands to sleep is all they crave, and they have a crowd of reasons to show that this indulgence is a very proper one. Yet by these littles, the day ebbs out, the time for labor is all gone, and the field is grown with thorns. It is by little procrastination that men ruin their souls. They have no intention to delay for years—a few months will bring the more convenient season—tomorrow, if you will, they will attend to serious things, but then a suitable present hour is so occupied and altogether so u that they beg to be excused. Like sands from an hourglass, time passes, life is wasted by driblets, and seasons of grace are lost by little slumbers. Oh, to be wise, to catch the flying hour, to use the moments on the wing! May the Lord teach us this sacred wisdom; otherwise, a poverty of the worst sort awaits us, eternal poverty that shall want even a drop of water and beg for it in vain. Like a traveler steadily pursuing his journey, poverty overtakes the slothful, and ruin overthrows the undecided: each hour brings the dreaded pursuer nearer; he pauses not by the way, for he is on his master’s business and must not tarry. As an armed man enters with authority and power, so shall want come to the idle and death to the impenitent, and there will be no escape. O that men were wise be-times, and would seek diligently unto the Lord Jesus, or ere the solemn day shall dawn when it is too late to plow and to sow, too late to repent and believe. In harvest, lamenting that the seed time was neglected is vain. As yet, faith and holy decisions are timely. May we obtain them this night?

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

November 24: The Ties that Bind

2 Kings 13:1–14:29; Galatians 4:1–31; Proverbs 7:21–27

We don’t often consider our former lives enslavement. We characterize our lives before Christ through bad decisions and sinful patterns, not bondage. We like to think of ourselves as neutral beings. But Paul paints another picture. The things or people we once trusted were the ones who enslaved us. Paul asks the Galatians why they would ever want to return to bondage.

“But at that time when you did not know God, you were enslaved to the things which by nature are not gods. But now, because you have come to know God, or rather have come to be known by God, how can you return to the weak and miserable elemental spirits? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again?” (Gal 4:8–9).

Paul tells the Galatians that turning back to the things they trusted formerly—whether the law for the Jews or spiritual beings for the Gentiles—is choosing enslavement. For us, it could be anything from thought patterns, greed, habits, people—anything we used to find value, comfort, or worth that is not God.

Before, we were subject to these things, which ruthlessly dictated our fate. Yet God didn’t leave us in this state. Paul says we “have come to know God, or rather have come to be known by God” (Gal 4:9). While we were still sinners, He broke into our spiritual bondage and broke the chains, giving us freedom and life in Christ.

We are no longer slaves with no freedom to make decisions; we are adopted as sons and daughters—we are heirs (Gal 4:7). By making this association, Paul shows the Galatians that Christ has paid the price. He also pushes them to grow up. They can’t just continue on in spiritual immaturity. Rather than trusting in the former things, they must continue in faith by being transformed by the Spirit.

What things from your life before Christ tempt you to return to spiritual bondage?

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).

November 24th

Direction of aspiration

Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, … so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God. Psalm 123:2.

This verse is a description of the entire reliance upon God. Just as the eyes of the servant are riveted on his master, so our eyes are up unto God, and our knowledge of His countenance is gained (cf. Isaiah 53:1. R.V.). Spiritual leakage begins when we cease to lift up our eyes unto Him. The leakage comes not so much through trouble on the outside as in the imagination when we start to say—‘I expect I have been stretching myself a bit too much, standing on tiptoe and trying to look like God instead of being an ordinary, humble person.’ We have to realize that no effort can be too high.

For instance, you came to a crisis when you made a stand for God and had the witness of the Spirit that all was right, but the weeks have gone by, and the years maybe, and you are slowly coming to the conclusion, ‘Well, after all, was I not a bit too pretentious? Was I not taking a stand a bit too high?’ Your rational friends come and say—‘Don’t be a fool; we knew when you talked about this spiritual awakening that it was a passing impulse; you can’t keep up the strain; God does not expect you to.’ And you say—‘Well, I suppose I was expecting too much.’ It sounds humble, but it means that reliance on God has gone, and reliance on worldly opinion has come in. The danger is that you no longer rely on God; you ignore the lifting of your eyes to Him. Only when God brings you to a sudden halt will you realize how you have been losing out? Whenever there is a leakage, remedy it immediately. Recognize that something has been coming between you and God, and get it readjusted immediately.

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

November 24

Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord

Col. 3:16

Remember, your life is to be a singing life. This world is God’s grand cathedral for you. You are to be one of God’s choristers, and there is to be a continual eucharistic sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving going up from your heart, with which God shall be continually well pleased. And there should be the offering of the lips and the surrender of life with joy. Yes, with pleasure and not with constraint. Every faculty of our nature should be presented to Him in gladsome service, for the Lord Jehovah is my song and strength.

W. Hay Aitken

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