Day 6 - Friday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 Morning, November 7: Go To Evening Reading

“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.”

—Isaiah 49:16

No doubt a part of the wonder which is concentrated in the word “Behold,” is excited by the unbelieving lamentation of the preceding sentence. Zion said, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hath forgotten me.” How amazed the divine mind seems to be at this wicked unbelief! What can be more astounding than the unfounded doubts and fears of God’s favoured people? The Lord’s loving word of rebuke should make us blush; he cries, “How can I have forgotten thee, when I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands? How darest thou doubt my constant remembrance, when the memorial is set upon my very flesh?” O unbelief, how strange a marvel thou art! We know not which most to wonder at, the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of his people. He keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the subsequent trial makes us doubt him. He never faileth; he is never a dry well; he is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapour; and yet we are as continually vexed with anxieties, molested with suspicions, and disturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert. “Behold” is a word intended to excite admiration. Here, indeed, we have a theme for marvelling.

Heaven and earth may well be astonished that rebels should obtain so great a nearness to the heart of infinite love as to be written upon the palms of his hands. “I have graven thee.”It does not say, “Thy name.” The name is there, but that is not all: “I have graven thee.” See the fulness of this! I have graven thy person, thine image, thy case, thy circumstances, thy sins, thy temptations, thy weaknesses, thy wants, thy works; I have graven thee, everything about thee, all that concerns thee; I have put thee altogether there. Wilt thou ever say again that thy God hath forsaken thee when he has graven thee upon his own palms?

Go To Morning Reading Evening, November 7

“And ye shall be witnesses unto me.”

—Acts 1:8

To learn how to discharge your duty as a witness for Christ, look at his example. He is always witnessing: by the well of Samaria, or in the Temple of Jerusalem, by the lake of Gennesaret, or on the mountain’s brow. He is witnessing night and day; his mighty prayers are as vocal to God as his daily services. He witnesses under all circumstances; the scribes and Pharisees cannot shut his mouth; he ate, even before Pilate, and he witnesses a good confession. He witnesses so clearly and distinctly that there is no mistake in him. Christian, make your life a clear testimony. Be you as the brook wherein you may see every stone at the bottom—not as the muddy creek, of which you only see the surface—but clear and transparent, so that your heart’s love to God and man may be visible to all. You need not say, “I am true:” be true. Boast not of integrity, but be upright. So shall your testimony be such that men cannot help seeing it. Never, for fear of feeble man, restrain your witness. Your lips have been warmed with a coal from off the altar; let them speak as heaven-touched lips should do. “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand.” Watch not the clouds, consult not the wind—in season and out of season witness for the Saviour, and if it shall come to pass that for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s you shall endure suffering in any shape, shrink not, but rejoice in the honour thus conferred upon you, that you are counted worthy to suffer with your Lord; and joy also in this—that your sufferings, your losses, and persecutions shall make you a platform, from which the more vigorously and with greater power you shall witness for Christ Jesus. Study your great Exemplar, and be filled with his Spirit. Remember that you need much teaching, much upholding, much grace, and much humility, if your witnessing is to be to your Master’s glory.

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

November 7: The Results of Worship and Teaching

1 Kings 8:54–9:28; Mark 6:7–44; Proverbs 2:16–22

“It happened that when Solomon finished praying to Yahweh, all of the prayer and this plea, he got up from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling down on his knees with his palms outstretched to heaven. He stood and blessed all of the assembly of Israel with a loud voice …” (1 Kgs 8:54–55).

Solomon demonstrates the natural and proper response to worship—declaring God’s goodness to others and blessing them in His name. These blessings can take simple forms, such as doing good to others, or they may be more elaborate, as Solomon’s prayer continues in 1 Kgs 8.

Worship can become stilted when we focus on our place before Yahweh rather than on His rightful place. We’re meant to view Yahweh for who He is and what He has done, and to respond to His work by helping others.

Jesus demonstrated a similar point in His own ministry. He could have kept His disciples with Him day and night, but instead He sent them out to do God’s will (Mark 6:6-13). For Jesus, teaching was a means to an end. Everything the disciples had learned up to that point would carry them in the ministry work they were about to do. They weren’t meant to hoard their knowledge or focus on learning for the sake of learning. Instead, teaching led to action.

We, too, must follow worship with actions. When we learn, we must act upon what we have learned. Anything that stays in a vacuum is useless. It’s only when we apply what God is doing in our lives that we live up to our calling in Him.

What is God asking you to live out?

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).

November 7th

The undetected sacredness of circumstances

All things work together for good to them that love God. Romans 8:28.

The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained by God. In the life of a saint, there is no such thing as chance. God, by His providence, brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions so that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line. Never put your hand in front of the circumstances and say—‘I am going to be my own providence here; I must watch this, and guard that.’ All your circumstances are in the hands of God; therefore, never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to enter into the agony of intercession, but to utilize the commonsense circumstances God puts you in, and the commonsense people He puts you amongst by His providence, to bring them before God’s throne and give the Spirit in you a chance to intercede for them: In this way God is going to sweep the whole world with His saints.

Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being indefinite, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession, which is the circumstances I am in and the people I am in contact with. I have to keep my conscious life a shrine of the Holy Ghost; then, as I bring the different ones before God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for them.

Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, but the Holy Ghost makes intercession in our particular lives, without which intercession someone will be impoverished.

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

November 7

Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away.

Ps. 65:3

There is much earnest religion that lives in the dreary compass of these first four words, “Iniquities prevail against me,” and never gets a glimpse beyond it. But do not put a full stop there. Fetch in one who can help. “As for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away.” The moment we bring the Lord in, that moment defeat is turned to triumphant deliverance!

Write that up in golden letters—Thou! And do not find in this word only a trembling hope, or a wondering wish. Listen to its full assurance—Thou Shalt!

There is but one result that can warrant the agony of Calvary; there is but one result that can satisfy either our blessed Saviour or ourselves, and that is our being conquerors over sin.

Mark Guy Pearse

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