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

 Morning, February 16 Go To Evening Reading

"I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content."

—Philippians 4:11

These words show us that contentment is not a natural propensity of man. "Ill weeds grow apace." Covetousness, discontent, and murmuring are as natural to man as thorns are to the soil. We need not sow thistles and brambles; they come up naturally enough because they are indigenous to earth, and so, we need not teach men to complain; they complain fast enough without any education. But the precious things of the world must be cultivated. If we have wheat, we must plow and sow; if we want flowers, there must be the garden and all the gardener's care. Now, contentment is one of the flowers of heaven, and if we would have it, it must be cultivated; it will not grow in us by nature; it is a new nature alone that can produce it, and even then, we must be cautious and watchful that we maintain and cultivate the grace which God has sown in us. Paul says, "I have learned … to be content;" as much as to say, he did not know how at one time. It cost him some pain to attain that great truth's mystery. No doubt he sometimes thought he had learned and then broke down. And when at last he had attained unto it and could say, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content," he was an old, grey-headed man, upon the borders of the grave—a poor prisoner shut up in Nero's dungeon at Rome. We might well be willing to endure Paul's infirmities and share the cold dungeon with him if we, too, attain his good degree. Do not indulge in the notion that you can be contented with learning or learn without discipline. It is not a power that may be exercised naturally but a science to be acquired gradually. We know this from experience. Brother, hush that murmur, natural though it be, and continue a diligent pupil in the College of Content.

Go To Morning Reading Evening, February 16

"Thy good Spirit."

—Nehemiah 9:20

Familiar, too common, is the sin of forgetting the Holy Spirit. This is folly and ingratitude. He deserves well at our hands, for he is sound, terrific. As God, he is essentially good. He shares the threefold ascription of Holy, holy, holy, which ascends to the Triune Jehovah. Unmixed purity, truth, and grace is he. He is good benevolently, tenderly bearing our waywardness, striving with our rebellious wills, quickening us from our death in sin, and training us for the skies as a loving nurse fosters her child. How generous, forgiving, and tender is this patient Spirit of God. He is good at operatively. All his works are good in the most eminent degree: he suggests good thoughts, prompts good actions, reveals good truths, applies good promises, assists in good attainments, and leads to good results. There is no spiritual good in all the world of which he is not the author and sustainer, and heaven itself will owe the perfect character of its redeemed inhabitants to his work. He is good officially; whether as Comforter, Instructor, Guide, Sanctifier, Quickener, or Intercessor, he fulfills his office well, and each work is fraught with the highest good to the church of God. They who yield to his influences become good, they who obey his impulses do good, and they who live under his power receive good. Let us then act towards a person who is so good according to the dictates of gratitude. Let us revere his person and adore him as God over all, blessed forever; let us own his power and our need of him by waiting upon him in all our holy enterprises; let us hourly seek his aid, and never grieve him; and let us speak to his praise whenever occasion occurs. The church will never prosper until it believes in the Holy Ghost more reverently. He is so good and kind that it is sad that he should be grieved by slights and negligences.

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

February 16: Wit, Wordplay, and Euphemism

Exodus 37–38; John 6:25–51; Song of Solomon 5:1–4

The Bible is a passionate book. It's about a God who is impassioned for His people and who ultimately sends His Son to die for them to save them from themselves. It also portrays the passion seen in romantic love.

Song of Solomon 5:1–4 is full of wit, wordplay, and euphemism. It's dramatic, like a play. The man is full of zeal for the woman he loves, and the woman is excited to see her man. And this isn't a Michael Bolton ballad or Kenny G song. There is haste. There is anxiety—you can almost hear the heart palpitations. This isn't the stuff for the unmarried, but it is definitely not for kids or teenagers. This is true romance, as God designed it.

The woman says, "I slept, but my heart was awake" (Song 5:2). She may be asleep, but her love for the man is not. That is the type of love we must have in marriage and the kind of love we must have for our God—never sleeping, always wide awake.

Jesus makes a similar contrast between subtle love (or necessary love) and real love: "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. [God provided them the manna shortly after the exodus (Exodus 16).] This is the bread that comes down from heaven [being Jesus and His message], so that someone may eat from it and not die" (John 6:49–50).

What fills our minds and keeps our hearts awake at night says who we really are; we will dedicate ourselves to what we care most about. Let us dedicate ourselves to the love of family, others, and Christ.

What are you wrongly in love with right now? What can you do to refocus your passion?

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).

February 16

The inspiration of spiritual initiative

Arise from the dead. Eph. 5:14.

All initiative is not inspired. A man may say to you—'Buck up, take your disinclination by the throat, throw it overboard, and walk out into the thing!' That is ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes in and says, in effect, 'Buck up,' we find that the initiative is inspired.

We all have any number of visions and ideals when we are young, but sooner or later, we find that we have no power to make them real. We cannot do the things we long to do, and we are apt to settle down to the visions and ideals as dead, and God has to come and say—"Arise from the dead." When the inspiration of God does come, it comes with such miraculous power that we can arise from the dead and do the impossible things. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that life comes after we do the 'bucking up.' God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says—"Arise from the dead," we have to get up; God does not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand—"Stretch forth thy hand," and as soon as the man did so, his hand was healed, but he had to take the initiative. If we do the overcoming, we shall find we are inspired by God because He gives life immediately.

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

February 16

Boast not thyself of tomorrow

Prov. 27:1

The only preparation for the morrow is the proper use of today. The stone in the hands of the builder must be put in its place and fitted to receive another. The morrow comes for naught if today is not heeded. Neglect, not the call that comes to thee this day, for such neglect is nothing else than boasting thyself of tomorrow.

G. Bowen

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