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

Morning, December 9 Go To Evening Reading

“Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you.”

—Isaiah 30:18

God often delays in answering prayer. We have several instances of this in sacred Scripture. Jacob did not get the blessing from the angel until near the dawn of day—he had to wrestle all night for it. The poor woman of Syrophenicia was answered not a word for a long while. Paul besought the Lord thrice that “the thorn in the flesh” might be taken from him, and he received no assurance that it should be taken away, but instead, a promise that God’s grace should be sufficient for him. If thou hast been knocking at the gate of mercy and received no answer, shall I tell thee why the mighty Maker hath not opened the door and let thee in? Our Father has reasons peculiar to himself for thus keeping us waiting. Sometimes, it is to show his power and sovereignty so that men may know that Jehovah has a right to give or withhold. More frequently, delays are for our profit. Thou art perhaps kept waiting so that thy desires may be more fervent. God knows that delay will quicken and increase desire and that if he keeps thee waiting, thou wilt see thy necessity more clearly, seek more earnestly, and prize the mercy all the more for its long tarrying. There may also be something wrong in thee which must be removed before the joy of the Lord is given. Perhaps thy views of the Gospel plan are confused, or thou mayest be placing some little reliance on thyself instead of trusting simply and entirely to the Lord Jesus. Or, God makes thee tarry awhile that he may fully display the riches of his grace to thee at last. Thy prayers are all filed in heaven, and if not immediately answered, they are certainly not forgotten but shall be fulfilled,d to thy delight and satisfaction, in a bit of while. Let not despair make thee silent, but continue instant in earnest supplication.

Go To Morning Reading Evening, December 9

“My people shall dwell in quiet resting places.”

—Isaiah 32:18

Peace and rest belong not to the unregenerate, they are the peculiar possession of the Lord’s people, and of them only. The God of Peace gives perfect peace to those whose hearts are stayed upon him. When man was unfallen, his God gave him the flowery bowers of Eden as his quiet resting places; alas! How soon sin blighted the fair abode of innocence. In the day of universal wrath, when the flood swept away a guilty race, the chosen family was quietly secured in the resting place of the ark, which floated them from the old condemned world into the new earth of the rainbow and the covenant, herein typifying Jesus, the ark of our salvation. Israel rested safely beneath the blood-besprinkled habitations of Egypt when the destroying angel smote the firstborn. In the wilderness, the shadow of the firstborn of cloud and the flowing rock gave the weary pilgrims sweet repose. At this hour, we rest in the promises of our faithful God, knowing that his words are full of truth and power; we rest in the doctrines of his word, which are consolation itself; we rest in the covenant of his grace, which is a haven of delight. We are More favored than David in Adullam or Jonah beneath his gourd, for none can invade or destroy our shelter. The person of Jesus is the quiet resting place of his people, and when we draw near to him in the breaking of the bread, in the hearing of the word, the searching of the Scriptures, prayer, or praise, we find any form of approach to him to be the return of peace to our spirits.

“I hear the words of love, I gaze upon the blood,

I see the mighty sacrifice, and I have peace with God.

’Tis everlasting peace, sure as Jehovah’s name,

’Tis stable as his steadfast throne, for evermore the same:

The clouds may go and come, and storms may sweep my sky,

This blood-sealed friendship changes not; the cross is ever nigh.”

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

December 9: Self-Evident Hope

Jeremiah 16:1–17:27; Romans 1:18–2:11; Proverbs 16:1–11

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and unrighteousness of people, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is evident among them, for God made it clear to them” (Rom 1:18–19). A statement like this could quickly be taken out of context if we leave off everything after “people.” But when we contextualize this message, we find hope instead of hopelessness.

Paul goes on to tell us that creation itself reveals God and His goodness to humanity, so there is no excuse for failing to understand God and the salvation He offers: “For from the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and deity, are discerned clearly, being understood in the things created, so that they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20).

We have all heard people concerned that salvation seems unfair. What about the people who won’t ever hear about Jesus? Yet Paul argues that everyone has an opportunity to witness Christ at work in creation itself. In Colossians, he remarks that it’s in the “Son [Jesus] … whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, because all things in ffirstbornsand on the earth were created by him, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things were created through him and for him” (Col 1:13–16).

All people have an opportunity to know God. No one has an excuse. God’s justice reigns in creation, in Christ, and in the lives of those who choose Christ. Christ is everywhere, in all things. The world is not condemned unfairly by a God of unreasonable wrath; instead, it’s ruled by a God of joy and empathy who is love.

What misperceptions do you have of God? How can you correct them and work in the lives of others to do the same? How can you spread the empathy God wants you to display?

John D. Barry

December 9

The offense of the natural

And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. Gal. 5:24.

The natural life is not sinful; we must be apostatized from sin and have nothing to do with sin in any shape or form. Sin belongs to hell and the devil; I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and God. It is not a question of giving up sin but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and self-assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought. The things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint keep us back from God’s best. Discerning that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God brings our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get on the scale of natural virtues, the more intense the opposition to Jesus Christ is. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh”—it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something. Jesus said—“If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself,” i.e., his right to himself, and a man has to realize Who Jesus Christ is before he will do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.

Natural life is not spiritual and can only be made spiritual by sacrifice. If we do not resolutely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural in us. There is no royal road there; each of us has it entirely in his own hands. It is not a question of praying but of performing.

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

December 9

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee

Isa. 43:2

God’s presence in the trial is much better than exemption from the trial. The sympathy of His heart with us is sweeter far than the power of His hand for us.

Selected

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