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Daily Devotionals/Readings:
Morning Devotional
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
December 24
"For your sakes he became poor." —2 Corinthians 8:9
The Lord Jesus Christ was eternally rich, glorious, and exalted; but "though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor." As the rich saint cannot be true in his communion with his poor brethren unless of his substance he ministers to their necessities, so (the same rule holding with the head as between the members), it is impossible that our Divine Lord could have had fellowship with us unless He had imparted to us of His own abounding wealth, and had become poor to make us rich. Had He remained upon His throne of glory, and had we continued in the ruins of the fall without receiving His salvation, communion would have been impossible on both sides. Our position by the fall, apart from the covenant of grace, made it as impossible for fallen man to communicate with God as it is for Belial to be in concord with Christ.
In order, therefore, that communion might be compassed, it was necessary that the rich kinsman should bestow his estate upon his poor relatives, that the righteous Saviour should give to His sinning brethren of His own perfection, and that we, the poor and guilty, should receive of His fulness grace for grace; that thus in giving and receiving, the One might descend from the heights, and the other ascend from the depths, and so be able to embrace each other in true and hearty fellowship. Poverty must be enriched by Him in whom are infinite treasures before it can venture to commune; and guilt must lose itself in imputed and imparted righteousness ere the soul can walk in fellowship with purity. Jesus must clothe His people in His own garments, or He cannot admit them into His palace of glory; and He must wash them in His own blood, or else they will be too defiled for the embrace of His fellowship.
O believer, herein is love! For your sake the Lord Jesus "became poor" that He might lift you up into communion with Himself.
Faith's Checkbook
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
December 24
Over Jordan with Singing
"Thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee"
(Deuteronomy 33:29).
That archenemy, the devil, is a liar from the beginning; but he is so very plausible that, like mother Eve, we are led to believe him. Yet in our experience we shall prove him a liar.
He says that we shall fall from grace, dishonor our profession, and perish with the doom of apostates; but, trusting in the LORD Jesus, we shall hold on our way and prove that Jesus loses none whom His Father gave Him. He tells us that our bread will fail, and we shall starve with our children; yet the Feeder of the ravens has not forgotten us yet, and He will never do so, but will prepare us a table in the presence of our enemies.
He whispers that the LORD will not deliver us out of the trial which is looming in the distance, and he threatens that the last ounce will break the camel's back. What a liar he is! For the LORD will never leave us or forsake us. "Let him deliver him now!" cries the false fiend: but the LORD will silence him by coming to our rescue.
He takes great delight in telling us that death will prove too much for us. "How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" But there also he shall prove a liar unto us, and we shall pass through the river singing psalms of glory.
MORNING THOUGHTS
DAILY WALKING WITH GOD
Octavius Winslow
DECEMBER 24.
“This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has shed forth this, which you new see and hear.” Acts 2:32, 33
THE day of Pentecost, with its hallowed scenes, cannot be too frequently brought before the mind. Were there a more simple looking to Christ upon the throne, and a stronger faith in the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, and in the faithfulness of the Promiser to make it good, that blessed day would find its prototype in many a similar season enjoyed by the Church of God to the end of time. The effects of the descent of the Spirit on that day upon the apostles themselves are worthy of our especial notice. What a change passed over those holy men of God, thus baptized with the promised Spirit! A new flood of divine light broke in upon their minds. All that Jesus had taught them while yet upon earth recurred to their memory, with all the freshness and glory of a new revelation. The doctrines which He had propounded concerning Himself, His work, and His kingdom, floated before their mental eye like a newly-discovered world, full of light and beauty. A newness and a freshness invested the most familiar truths. They saw with new eyes; they heard with new ears; they understood as with recreated minds: and the men who, while He was with them, teaching them in the most simple and illustrative manner, failed fully to comprehend even the elementary doctrines and the most obvious truths of the gospel, now saw as with the strength of a prophet’s vision, and now glowed as with the ardor of a seraph’s love. Upon the assembled multitudes who thronged the temple how marvelous, too, the effects! Three thousand as in one moment were convinced of sin, and led to plunge in the “Fountain opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness.” And how does the apostle explain the glorious wonder?—“This Jesus,” says he, “has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has shed forth this which you now see and hear.”
This, and this only, is the blessing which the Church of God now so greatly needs—even the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She needs to be confirmed in the fact, that Jesus is alive and upon the throne, invested with all power, and filled with all blessing. The simple belief of this would engage her heart to desire the bestowment of the Spirit; and the Spirit largely poured down would more clearly demonstrate to her the transcendent truth in which all her prospects of glory and of happiness are involved, that the Head of the Church is triumphant. Oh, let her but place her hand of faith simply, solely, firmly, on the glorious announcement—Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, with all grace and love in His heart, with all authority in His hand, with all power at His disposal, with all blessing in His gift, waiting to open the windows of heaven, and pour down upon her such a blessing as there shall not be room enough to receive it—prepared so deeply to baptize her with the Holy Spirit as shall cause her converts greatly to increase, and her enterprises of Christian benevolence mightily to prosper; as shall heal her divisions, build up her broken walls, and conduct her to certain and triumphant victory over all her enemies—let her but plant her faith upon the covenant and essential union of these two grand truths—An exalted Redeemer and a descending Spirit—and a day on which, not three thousand only, but a nation shall turn to the Lord, and all flesh shall see His glory!
Our Daily Walk
F.B. Myer
December 24
CHRISTIAN COURTESY
"Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous."—1Pe 3:8.
IT WOULD be a marvel to find in any community under heaven a complete embodiment of the injunctions contained in this and the following verses. Yet nothing less than this is the Christian ideal, and it would be well if, without waiting for others, each one would adopt these precepts as the binding rule and regulation of daily life. This would be our worthiest contribution to the convincing of the world, and to the coming of the Kingdom of our Lord. Does not the Apostle's use of the word "finally" teach us that all Christian doctrine is intended to lead up to and inaugurate that life of love, the bold outlines of which are sketched in these words?
The general principle. "Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another." This oneness of mind does not demand the monotony of similarity, but unity in variety. We shall never be of one mind in the sense of all holding the same opinions; but we may be all of one mind when, beneath diversities of opinion, expression, and view, we are animated by a common devotion to Christ.
Note the specific applications.
Love as brethren. Love is not identical with like. Providence does not ask us whom we would like to be our brethren, that is settled for us, but we are bidden to love them, irrespective of our natural predilections and tastes. Love does not necessarily originate in the emotions, but in the will; it consists not in feeling, but in doing; not in sentiment, but in action; not in soft words, but in unselfish deeds.
Be pitiful Oh, for the compassion of our blessed Lord! How often it breaks out in the Gospel narrative to the weak and erring, to the hungry crowds, and to the afflicted who sought His help!
Be courteous. Be ready to take the least comfortable seat, or to let others sit while you stand. Let the manners of your Heavenly Father's Court be always evident in your daily life, so that the world may learn that Christianity produces not simply the heroism of a great occasion, but the minute courtesies of daily living.
PRAYER
Blessed Lord, I beseech Thee to pour down upon me such grace as may not only cleanse this life of mine, but beautify it a little, if it be Thy will .... Grant that I may love Thee with all my heart and soul and mind and strength, and my neighbour as myself. AMEN.
Daily Portions
Joseph Philpot
December 24
"It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn your statutes." Psalm 119:71
We may have everything naturally that the carnal heart desires, and only be hardened thereby into worldliness and ungodliness. But to be brought down in body and soul, to be weaned and separated from an ungodly world by affliction sanctified and made spiritually profitable—to be brought to feel our need of Christ, and that without a saving interest in his precious blood our soul must be forever lost—how much better it is really and truly, to be laid on a bed of affliction, with a hope in God's mercy, than to be left to our own carnality and thoughtlessness.
Affliction of any kind is very hard to bear, and especially so when we begin to murmur and fret under the weight of the cross; but when the Lord afflicts it is in good earnest; he means to make us feel. Strong measures are required to bring us down; and affliction would not be affliction, unless it were full of grief and sorrow. But when affliction makes us seek the Lord with a deep feeling in the soul that none but himself can save or bless, and we are enabled to look up unto him, with sincerity and earnestness, that he would manifest his love and mercy to our heart, he will appear sooner or later.
The Lord, who searches the heart, knows all the real desire of the soul, and can and does listen to a sigh, a desire, a breath of supplication within. He knows our state, both of body and soul, and is not a hard taskmaster to require what we cannot give, or lay upon us more than we can bear. But very often he delays to appear, that he may teach us thereby we have no claim upon him, and that anything granted is of his pure compassion and grace.
My Utmost for His Highest
Oswald Chambers
December 24th.
THE HIDDEN LIFE
"Your life is hid with Christ in God." Colossians 3:3
The Spirit of God witnesses to the simple almighty security of the life hid with Christ in God and this is continually brought out in the Epistles. We talk as if it were the most precarious thing to live the sanctified life; it is the most secure thing, because it has Almighty God in and behind it. The most precarious thing is to try and live without God. If we are born again it is the easiest thing to live in right relationship to God and the most difficult thing to go wrong, if only we will heed God's warnings and keep in the light.
When we think of being delivered from sin, of being filled with the Spirit, and of walking in the light, we picture the peak of a great mountain, very high and wonderful, and we say - "Oh, but I could never live up there!" But when we do get there by God's grace, we find it is not a mountain peak, but a plateau where there is ample room to live and to grow. "Thou hast enlarged my steps under me."
When you really see Jesus, I defy you to doubt Him. When He says - "Let not your heart be troubled," if you see Him I defy you to trouble your mind, it is a moral impossibility to doubt when He is there. Every time you get into personal contact with Jesus, His words are real. "My peace I give unto you," it is a peace all over from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet, an irrepressible confidence. "Your life is hid with Christ in God," and the imperturbable peace of Jesus Christ is imparted to you.
Evening Devotional
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
December 24
"The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." —Isaiah 40:5
We anticipate the happy day when the whole world shall be converted to Christ; when the gods of the heathen shall be cast to the moles and the bats; when Romanism shall be exploded, and the crescent of Mohammed shall wane, never again to cast its baleful rays upon the nations; when kings shall bow down before the Prince of Peace, and all nations shall call their Redeemer blessed. Some despair of this. They look upon the world as a vessel breaking up and going to pieces, never to float again. We know that the world and all that is therein is one day to be burnt up, and afterwards we look for new heavens and for a new earth; but we cannot read our Bibles without the conviction that—
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run."
We are not discouraged by the length of His delays; we are not disheartened by the long period which He allots to the church in which to struggle with little success and much defeat. We believe that God will never suffer this world, which has once seen Christ's blood shed upon it, to be always the devil's stronghold. Christ came hither to deliver this world from the detested sway of the powers of darkness. What a shout shall that be when men and angels shall unite to cry "Hallelujah, hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!" What a satisfaction will it be in that day to have had a share in the fight, to have helped to break the arrows of the bow, and to have aided in winning the victory for our Lord! Happy are they who trust themselves with this conquering Lord, and who fight side by side with Him, doing their little in His name and by His strength! How unhappy are those on the side of evil! It is a losing side, and it is a matter wherein to lose is to lose and to be lost for ever. On whose side are you?
EVENING THOUGHTS
DAILY WALKING WITH GOD
Octavius Winslow
DECEMBER 24.
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness." 1 Timothy 3:16
The doctrine of the Incarnation presents a gospel mystery, if possible, more astonishing than that of the Trinity. We can more easily understand that there should be three people in a unity of subsistence, than that God should be manifested in the flesh. The analogy of the one meets us everywhere; turn we the eye within ourselves, or turn we it without upon the broad expanse of God's creation—from every point of observation, a trinity of existence bursts upon our view. But, of the other, in vain we search for anything approaching to resemblance. It was a thing so unheard of and so strange, so marvelous and so unique—that there was nothing in the sublime or the rude, in the bold or the tender, of nature's varied works, to prepare the mind for, or awaken the expectation of, a phenomenon so strange, so stupendous, and so mysterious. Not that the possibility of such an event astonishes us. With Jehovah all things are possible. "Is anything too hard for me?" is a question that would seem to rebuke the first rising of such an emotion—
"A God allowed, all other wonders cease."
But we marvel at the fact itself. Its stupendousness amazes us—its condescension humbles us—its glory dazzles us—its tenderness subdues us—its love overpowers us. That the uncreated Son of God should become the created Son of man—that the Eternal Word should be made flesh and dwell with men—that He should assume a new title, entwining in the awful letters that compose His divine name, others denoting His inferior nature as man, so revealing Himself as Jehovah-Jesus! Oh wonder, surpassing thought! Before this, how are all others infinitely outshone; their luster fading away and disappearing, as stars before the advancing light.
The mystical union of Christ and His church is also declared to be one of the mysteries of the gospel. "This is a great mystery;" says the apostle, "but I speak concerning Christ and His church." That Christ and His people should be one—one as the head and the body—the vine and the branch—the foundation and the house—is indeed a wondrous truth. We cannot understand how it is; and yet so many, palpable, and gracious are the blessings flowing from it, we dare not reject it. All that a believer is, as a living soul, he is from a vital union with Christ. As the body without the soul is dead, so is a sinner morally dead without union to Jesus. Not only His life, but his fruitfulness is derived from this source. All the "beauties of holiness" that adorn his character, spring from the vital principle which his engrafting into Christ produces. He is skillful to fight, strong to overcome, patient to endure, meek to suffer, and wise to walk, as he lives on Christ for the grace of sanctification. "Without me you can do nothing." Is it not indeed a mystery that I should so be one with Christ, that all that He is becomes mine, and all that I am becomes His. His glory mine, my humiliation His; His righteousness mine, my guilt His; His joy mine, my sorrow His. Mine His riches, His my poverty; mine His life, His my death; mine His heaven, His my hell? The daily walk of faith is a continuous development of the wonders of this wondrous truth. That in traveling to Him empty, I should return from Him full. That in going to him weak, I should come away from Him strong. That in bending my steps to Him, in all darkness, perplexity, and grief, I should retrace them all light, and joy, and gladness. Why marvel at this mystery of the life of faith? My oneness with Jesus explains it.
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