Day 4 - Wednesday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 Morning, August 20 Go To Evening Reading

“The sweet psalmist of Israel.”

—2 Samuel 23:1

Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Writ, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and instructive character. In his history, we encounter trials and temptations, and in the experiences that are not for other saints of ancient times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord. David knew the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd’s crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist was also tried by his friends; his counselor, Ahithophel, forsook him, saying, “He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.” His worst foes were they of his own household: his children were his most excellent affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honour and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his peace, and from within to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency and alarm than he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God’s waves and billows rolled over him. It is probably from this cause that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of experienced Christians. Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart because he had been tutored in the best of all schools—the school of heartfelt, personal experience. As we are instructed in the same school, as we grow mature in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David’s psalms and find them to be “green pastures.” My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel thee this day.

Go To Morning Reading Evening, August 20

“And they fortified Jerusalem unto the broad wall.”

—Nehemiah 3:8

Cities well fortified have broad walls, and so had Jerusalem in her glory. The New Jerusalem must, in like manner, be surrounded and preserved by a wide wall of nonconformity to the world, and separation from its customs and spirit. These days break down the holy barrier and make the distinction between the church and the world merely nominal. Professors are no longer strict and Puritanical, questionable literature is read on all hands, frivolous pastimes are currently indulged, and a general laxity threatens to deprive the Lord’s peculiar people of those sacred singularities which separate them from sinners. It will be an ill day for the church and the world when the proposed amalgamation shall be complete, and the sons of God and the daughters of men shall be as one: then shall another deluge of wrath be ushered in. Beloved reader, be it your aim in heart, in word, in dress, in action to maintain the broad wall, remembering that the friendship of this world is enmity against God.

The broad wall afforded a pleasant place of resort for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, from which they could command prospects of the surrounding country. This reminds us of the Lord’s exceeding broad commandments, in which we walk at liberty in communion with Jesus, overlooking the scenes of earth, and looking out towards the glories of heaven. Separated from the world, and denying ourselves all ungodliness and fleshly lusts, we are nevertheless not in prison, nor restricted within narrow bounds; nay, we walk at liberty, because we keep his precepts. Come, reader, this evening walk with God in his statutes. As friends met upon the city wall, so meet thou thy God in the way of holy prayer and meditation. The bulwarks of salvation thou hast a right to traverse, for thou art a freeman of the royal burgh, a citizen of the metropolis of the universe.

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

August 20th

Completeness

And I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28. Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain that is causing disharmony. Take every element of disintegration as something to wrestle against, and not to suffer. Say—‘Lord, prove Thy consciousness in me’, and self-consciousness will go, and He will be all in all. Beware of allowing self-consciousness to continue because, by slow degrees, it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is Satanic. ‘Well, I am not understood; this is a thing they ought to apologize for; that is a point I really must have cleared up.’ Leave others alone and ask the Lord to give you Christ-consciousness, and He will poise you until the completeness is absolute.

The complete life is the life of a child. When I am consciously conscious, there is something wrong. It is the sick man who knows what health is. The child of God is not mindful of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask—‘What is Thy will?’ A child of God never prays to be conscious that God answers prayer; he is so restfully sure that God always does answer prayer.

If we attempt to overcome self-consciousness through any commonsense method, we develop it significantly. Jesus says, “Come unto Me and I will give you rest,” i.e., Christ-consciousness will replace self-consciousness. Wherever Jesus comes, He establishes rest, the rest of the perfection of activity that is never conscious of itself.

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

August 20

By faith Noah … prepared an ark to the saving of his house

Heb. 11:7

What a humble, what a modest sphere for the exercise of faith! One would have said that the purpose was quite disproportionate to the work. The ark was a significant undertaking, but what was it undertaken for? To save his own family. Is so narrow a sphere worthy to be the object of faith? Is so commonplace a scene as the life of the family circle fit to be a temple for the service of God?… My soul, when thou hast finished thy prayers and ended thy meditations, do not say that thou hast left the house of God. God’s house shall to thee be everywhere, and thine own house shall be a part of it. Thou shalt feel that all the duties of this place are consecrated; that it is none other than the house of God and one of the gates to Heaven. Thou shalt feel that every one of its duties is an act of high communion. Therefore, be it thine to make thy house His house. Be it thine to consecrate each word, look, and deed in the social life of home. Be it thine to build thine ark or refuge for the wants of standard days; verily, thy labor of love shall be called an act of faith.

George Matheson

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