Morning, March 19 Go To Evening Reading
“Strong in faith.”
—Romans 4:20
Christian, take good care of thy faith; for recollect, faith is the only way to obtain blessings. If we want gifts from God, nothing can fetch them down but faith. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God’s throne except the earnest prayer of the man who believes. Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and the Lord Jesus in glory. Let that angel be withdrawn; we can neither send up a prayer nor receive the answers. Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven—on which God’s messages of love fly so fast that before we call, he answers, and while we are yet speaking, he hears us. But how can we receive the promise if that telegraphic wire of faith is snapped? Am I in trouble?—I can obtain help by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy?—my soul on her dear Refuge leans by faith. But take faith away—in vain, I call to God. There is no road betwixt my soul and heaven. In the most profound wintertime, faith is a road on which the horses of prayer may travel—aye, and all the better for the biting frost; but blockade the road, and how can we communicate with the Great King? Faith links me with divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith ensures every attribute of God in my defense. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith, how can I receive anything from the Lord? Let not him that wavereth—like a wave of the Sea—expect that he will receive anything of God! O, then, Christian, watch well thy faith; with it, thou canst win all things, however poor thou art, but without it, thou canst obtain nothing. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
Go To Morning Reading Evening, March 19
“And she did eat, and was sufficed, and left.”
—Ruth 2:14
Whenever we are privileged to eat the bread Jesus gives, we are, like Ruth, satisfied with the full and sweet repast. When Jesus is the host, no guest goes empty from the table. Our head is happy with the precious truth which Christ reveals; our heart is content with Jesus, as the altogether lovely object of affection; our hope is satisfied, for whom have we in heaven but Jesus? and our desire is satiated, for what can we wish for more than “to know Christ and to be found in him?” Jesus fills our conscience till it is at perfect peace; our judgment with persuasion of the certainty of his teachings; our memory with recollections of what he has done; and our imagination with the prospects of what he is yet to do. As Ruth was “sufficed and left,” so is it with us. We have had deep draughts; we have thought that we could take in all of Christ, but when we have done our best, we have had to leave a vast remainder. We have sat at the table of the Lord’s love and said, “Nothing but the infinite can ever satisfy me; I am such a great sinner that I must have infinite merit to wash my sin away,” but we have had our sin removed, and found that there was merit to spare; we have had our hunger relieved at the feast of sacred love, and found that there was a redundancy of spiritual meat remaining. There are certain sweet things in the Word of God that we have not enjoyed yet, and which we are obliged to leave for a while; for we are like the disciples to whom Jesus said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Yes, there are graces to which we have not attained, places of fellowship nearer to Christ which we have not reached, and heights of communion which our feet have not climbed. At every banquet of love, there are many baskets of fragments left. Let us magnify the liberality of our glorious Boaz.
Spurgeon, C. H. Morning and Evening: Daily Readings. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896. Print.
March 19: A Merciful Smackdown
Numbers 22:1–41; 1 Corinthians 5:1–6:11; Psalm 19:1–14
Sometimes, we’d rather not be teachable. When taking advice from people in my church community, keeping an emotional distance is easier than listening. If I tread lightly on their sin, maybe they’ll tread lightly on mine. If we keep our problems to ourselves, we can maintain a precise understanding. This type of tolerance has deadly results.
Unrestrained sin and pride don’t just hurt the one sinning—their waves affect everyone (1 Cor 5:6). Paul takes a strong stance against it in 1 Cor 5:1–13. In Corinth, believers used their freedom to commit all sorts of sins. And instead of being broken about their sin, they were filled with pride—boasting about their independence.
Paul knew he had to do something drastic to break through such thought patterns. His statement is startling for those who might practice tolerance for sin: “I have decided to hand over such a person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5:5). This type of judging is not seen as casting someone to the depths of hell; instead, it is throwing someone out of the Christian community to help them see their sin for what it is. (For Paul, the realm of Satan was everything outside of Christ; thus, everything outside of the Church was the realm of Satan.)
We aren’t called to judge people who have no claim to following Jesus. Instead, we’re called to hold accountable those who, like us, believe the good news (1 Cor 5:11). Within the bounds of authentic Christian community and trust, we need to be ready to call each other out when sin and pride creep in—and we need to do it with loving intolerance.
How are you reaching out to others who are struggling with sin? How are you making yourself approachable and teachable?
Rebecca Van Noord
Barry, John D., and Rebecca Kruyswijk. Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan. Print. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012.
March 19th
The way of Abraham in faith
He went out, not knowing whither he went. Hebrews 11:8.
In the Old Testament, personal relationship with God showed itself in separation, symbolized in Abraham's life by his break from his country and from his kith and kin. Today the separation is more of a mental and moral separation from how those who are dearest to us look at things, that is if they do not have a personal relationship with God. Jesus Christ emphasized this (see Luke 14:26).
Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but of knowing Who makes us ‘go.’ The root of trust is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God will surely lead us to success.
The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character. There are many passing transfigurations of nature; when we pray, we feel the blessing of God enwrapping us, and for the time being, we are changed, then we get back to the ordinary days and ways, and the glory vanishes. The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings but a life of walking and not fainting. It is not a question of sanctification; but of something infinitely further on than sanctification, of faith that has been tried and proved and has stood the test. Abraham is not a type of sanctification, but a variety of the life of faith, a tried faith built on a real God. “Abraham believed God.”
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986. Print.
March 19
Their eyes were holden … Their eyes were opened
Luke 24:16, 31
There is much special significance in this. The Lord is often present in our lives in things we do not dream of possessing any importance. We are asking God about something which needs His mighty working. The very instrument by which He is to work is by our side, perhaps for weeks, months, and years, all unrecognized, until suddenly, someday, it grows luminous and glorious with the very presence of the Lord and becomes the mighty instrument of His victorious working. He loves to show His hand through the unexpected. Often he keeps us from seeing His way until just before He opens it, and then, immediately that it is unfolded, we find He was walking by our side in the very thing long before we even suspected its meaning.
A. B. Simpson
Hardman, Samuel G., and Dwight Lyman Moody. Thoughts for the Quiet Hour. Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997. Print.
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