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

 June 26: A Famous God

Nehemiah 10:28–11:36; 1 John 5:17–21; Psalm 113:1–114:8

Fame can have startling effects on people. Those who attain power and influence suddenly become less available: They’re selective with the phone calls they take, the emails they answer, and the people they associate with. Those who receive their attention tend to feel special.

When we call on God, we expect Him to answer us and help us. Sometimes, we are so confident that He will or should help us that we forget how amazing it is that He interacts with us at all.

Psalm 113 reminds us that God is beyond our comprehension. The psalm praises the power and glory of God, who is “high above all nations.” God isn’t just ruling over the earth, though. His realm of power extends even “above the heavens” (Psa 113:4). Both earthly and heavenly powers are subject to Him.

His power is astounding, but what is most confounding is His nature and character. Psalm 113 points out that even in His power, God is still concerned with the plights of those far below: “Who is like Yahweh our God, who is enthroned on high, who condescends to look at what is in the heavens and in the earth?” (Psa 113:5–6). And He isn’t just concerned with the powerful and mighty; He is concerned about the helpless and the needy. “He raises the helpless from the dust, he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to seat them with princes, with the princes of his people” (Psa 113:7–8).

God is more majestic and powerful than we can comprehend. His fame exceeds that of any celebrity. Yet He still desires to help us—to lift us “up from the ash heap.” This alone should astound us, but there’s more: He cares for us so much that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son to restore our relationship with Him.

How are you astounded by God’s nature and His care for you?

Rebecca Van Noord

 John D. Barry and Rebecca Kruyswijk, Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).

Morning, June 26: Go To Evening Reading

“Art thou become like unto us?”

—Isaiah 14:10

What must be the apostate professor’s doom when his naked soul appears before God? How will he bear that voice, “Depart, ye cursed; thou hast rejected me, and I reject thee; thou hast played the harlot, and departed from me: I also have banished thee for ever from my presence, and will not have mercy upon thee.” What will be this wretch’s shame at the last great day when, before assembled multitudes, the apostate shall be unmasked? See the profane and sinners who never professed religion, lifting themselves up from their beds of fire to point at him. “There he is,” says one, “will he preach the gospel in hell?” “There he is,” says another, “he rebuked me for cursing, and was a hypocrite himself!” “Aha!” says another, “here comes a psalm-singing Methodist—one who was always at his meeting; he is the man who boasted of his being sure of everlasting life; and here he is!” No greater eagerness will ever be seen among Satanic tormentors than in that day when devils drag the hypocrite’s soul down to perdition. Bunyan pictures this with the massive, yet awful, grandeur of poetry when he speaks of the back way to hell. Seven devils bound the wretch with nine cords and dragged him from the road to heaven, in which he had professed to walk, and thrust him through the back door into hell. Mind that back way to hell, professors! “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.” Look well to your state; see whether you be in Christ or not. It is the easiest thing in the world to give a lenient verdict when oneself is to be tried, but O, be just and true here. Be just to all, but be rigorous to yourself. Remember, if it is not a rock on which you build, when the house shall fall, great will be the fall of it. O may the Lord give you sincerity, constancy, and firmness; and in no day, however evil, may you be led to turn aside.

Go To Morning Reading, Evening, June 26

“Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

—2 Peter 1:4

Vanish forever all thought of indulging the flesh if you would live in the power of your risen Lord. It was ill that a man who is alive in Christ should dwell in the corruption of sin. “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” said the angel to Magdalene. Should the living dwell in the sepulcher? Should divine life be immured in the charnel house of fleshly lust? How can we partake of the cup of the Lord and yet drink the cup of Belial? Surely, believer, from open lusts and sins you are delivered: have you also escaped from the more secret and delusive lime-twigs of the Satanic fowler? Have you come forth from the lust of pride? Have you escaped from slothfulness? Have you escaped from carnal security? Are you seeking day by day to live above worldliness, the pride of life, and the ensnaring vice of avarice? Remember, it is for this that you have been enriched with the treasures of God. If you are indeed the chosen of God and beloved by him, do not suffer all the lavish treasure of grace to be wasted upon you. Follow after holiness; it is the Christian’s crown and glory. An unholy church! It is useless to the world and of no esteem among men. It is an abomination, hell’s laughter, heaven’s abhorrence. The worst evils which have ever come upon the world have been brought upon her by an unholy church. O Christian, the vows of God are upon you. You are God’s priest: act as such. You are God’s king: reign over your lusts. You are God’s chosen: do not associate with Belial. Heaven is your portion: live like a heavenly spirit, so shall you prove that you have true faith in Jesus, for there cannot be faith in the heart unless there be holiness in the life.

“Lord, I desire to live as one

Who bears a blood-bought name,

As one who fears but grieving thee,

And knows no other shame.”

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

June 26th

Always now

We … beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 Cor. 6:1.

The grace you had yesterday will not do for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God; you can always reckon it is there to draw upon. “In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses”—that is where the test for patience comes. Are you failing the grace of God there? Are you saying—‘Oh, well, I won’t count this time?’ It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you; it is taking the grace of God now. We make prayer the preparation for work, but the Bible never presents it that way. Prayer is the exercise of drawing on the grace of God. Don’t say—‘I will endure this until I can get away and pray.’ Pray now; draw on the grace of God in the moment of need. Prayer is the most practical thing; it is not a reflex action of devotion. Prayer is the last thing in which we learn to draw on God’s grace.

“In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors,”—in all these things manifest a drawing upon the grace of God that will make you a marvel to yourself and to others. Draw now, not presently: The one word in the spiritual vocabulary is Now. Let circumstances bring you where they will; keep drawing on the grace of God in every conceivable condition you may be in. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be humiliated without manifesting the slightest trace of anything but His grace.

“Having nothing …” Never reserve anything. Pour out the best you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful about the treasure God gives. This is poverty triumphant.

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

June 26

Small things

Zech. 4:10

It is the little words you speak, the little thoughts you think, the little things you do or leave undone, the little moments you waste or use wisely, the little temptations which you yield to or overcome—the little things of every day that are making or marring your future life.

Selected

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