Day 7 - Sabbath - Saturday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for is Highest| Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 May 9: Success Deceives

Judges 15:1–17:13; Philippians 4:2–9; Psalm 69:18–70:5

When leaders come to power, there are always people who become insistent on stopping them. It’s incredible how easy it is for people to justify envy or hatred for authority figures. Most of us have made the offhand remark, “I hate that guy.” And in those words, even when they’re meant in jest, we reveal the motives of the human heart. But this doesn’t represent who we’re meant to be—people who live for others.

Samson, an Israelite judge, endured that fate. A young warrior, he had enemies who wanted him dead and would do nearly anything to bring him down—spiritually or physically. The Philistines, who opposed him, went so far as to burn his wife and her father alive (Judg 15:6). Samson brought these trials on himself by disobeying God and marrying a foreign wife who would ultimately lead him to worship foreign gods. Even so, the acts of violence against him were not just his own doing.

The Philistines, like many people today, didn’t like to see an enemy succeed. They were envious and frustrated, and they weren’t used to being second to anyone.

There are lessons here for all of us, no matter where we are in life. If we succeed, we should be thrilled when others do the same. We should try to help them succeed in the work God has called them to, designated specifically for them. If you have yet to come into that realm of success, you should be excited when others do, for the same reasons. Whatever your position in life, set aside the obstacles of envy or hatred. Set your sight on the work God has called you to and encourage those around you who are working toward theirs.

How can you help others succeed in God’s work? How can you set your sight on your own work without becoming envious?

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).

Morning, May 9: Go To Evening Reading

“Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings.”

—Ephesians 1:3

All the goodness of the past, the present, and the future Christ bestows upon his people. In the mysterious ages of the past, the Lord Jesus was his Father’s first elect, and in his election, he gave us an interest, for we were chosen in him from before the foundation of the world. He had from all eternity the prerogatives of Sonship, as his Father’s only-begotten and well-beloved Son, and he has, in the riches of his grace, by adoption and regeneration, elevated us to sonship also, so that to us he has given “power to become the sons of God.” The eternal covenant, based upon suretiship and confirmed by oath, is ours, for our strong consolation and security. In the everlasting settlements of predestinating wisdom and omnipotent decree, the eye of the Lord Jesus was ever fixed on us; and we may rest assured that in the whole roll of destiny there is not a line which militates against the interests of his redeemed. The great betrothal of the Prince of Glory is ours, for it is to us that he is affianced, as the sacred nuptials shall ere long declare to an assembled universe. The marvelous incarnation of the God of heaven, with all the amazing condescension and humiliation which attended it, is ours. The bloody sweat, the scourge, the cross, are ours forever. Whatever blissful consequences flow from perfect obedience, finished atonement, resurrection, ascension, or intercession, all are ours by his own gift. Upon his breastplate, he is now bearing our names, and in his authoritative pleadings at the throne, he remembers our persons and pleads our cause. His dominion over principalities and powers, and his absolute majesty in heaven, he employs for the benefit of them who trust in him. His high estate is as much at our service as was his condition of abasement. He who gave himself for us in the depths of woe and death doth not withdraw the grant now that he is enthroned in the highest heavens.

Go To Morning Reading, Evening, May 9

“Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field … let us see if the vine flourish.”

—Song of Solomon 7:11,12

The church was about to engage in earnest labor and desired her Lord’s company in it. She does not say, “I will go,” but “let us go.” It is a blessing to work when Jesus is at our side! It is the business of God’s people to be trimmers of God’s vines. Like our first parents, we are put into the garden of the Lord for usefulness; let us therefore go forth into the field. Observe that the church, when she is in her right mind, in all her many labors, desires to enjoy communion with Christ. Some imagine that they cannot serve Christ actively, and yet have fellowship with him: they are mistaken. Doubtless, it is very easy to fritter away our inward life in outward exercises, and come to complain with the spouse, “They made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept:” but there is no reason why this should be the case except our own folly and neglect. A professor may certainly do nothing, and yet grow quite as lifeless in spiritual things as those who are most busy. Mary was not praised for sitting still, but for sitting at Jesus’ feet. Even so, Christians are not to be praised for neglecting their duties under the pretense of having secret fellowship with sitting, but sitting at Jesus’ feet, Jesus: it is not what is commendable. Do not think that activity is in itself an evil: it is a great blessing, and a means of grace to us. Paul called it a grace given to him to be allowed to preach, and every form of Christian service may become a personal blessing to those engaged in it. Those who have most fellowship with Christ are not recluses or hermits, who have much time to spare, but indefatigable laborers who are toiling for Jesus, and who, in their toil, have him side by side with them, so that they are workers together with God. Let us remember, then, that in anything we have to do for Jesus, we can and should do it in close communion with him.

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

May 9th

Grasp without reach

Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint. Proverbs 29:18 (R.V.).

There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. A man’s conception of Deity may be used to justify the deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah argued that because God was a God of justice and of mercy, everything would be all right. I may have a right conception of God, and that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of rectitude because the vision imparts moral incentive.

Ideals may lead to ruin. Take stock of yourself spiritually and see whether you have ideals only or if you have vision.

‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?’

“Where there is no vision …” When once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless, we cast off certain restraints, we cast off praying, we cast off the vision of God in little things, and begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating what we have out of our own hands, doing things on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on the downward path; we have lost the vision. Is our attitude today an attitude that springs from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done? Is there a freshness and vigor in our spiritual outlook?

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

May 9

Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth

Heb. 12:6

It has been well said that “earthly cares are a heavenly discipline,” but they are even something better than discipline; they are God’s chariots, sent to take the soul to its high places of triumph. In the Canticles, we are told of “a chariot paved with love.” We cannot always see the love lining to our own particular chariot—it often looks very unlovely; but every chariot sent by God must necessarily be paved with love, since God is love. It is His love, indeed, that sends the chariot.

Look upon your chastenings, then, no matter how grievous they may be for the present, as God’s chariots, sent to carry your souls into the “high places” of spiritual achievement and uplifting, and you will find that they are, after all, “paved with love.”

Smith

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