JANUARY 12 I have yet something to say on God’s behalf.(Job 36:2) We ought not to court publicity for our virtue or notoriety for our zeal, but at the same time, it is a sin to always seek to hide what God has bestowed upon us for the good of others. A Christian is not…

JANUARY 10 In my flesh I shall see God.(Job 19:26) Consider the subject of Job’s devout anticipation: “I shall see God.” He does not say, “I shall see the saints”—though doubtless that will be untold happiness—but “I shall see God.” It is not “I shall see the pearly gates, I shall behold the walls of…

JANUARY 9 Serve the Lord with gladness.(Psalm 100:2) Delight in divine service is a token of acceptance. Those who serve God with a sad countenance because they do what is unpleasant to them are not serving Him at all; they bring the form of loyalty, but life is absent. Our God requires no slaves to…

JANUARY 7 My sister, my bride.(Song of Songs 4:12) Observe the sweet titles with which the heavenly Solomon, with intense affection, addresses His bride, the church. “My sister, one near to Me by ties of nature, partaker of the same sympathies. My bride, nearest and dearest, united to Me by the tenderest bands of love;…

JANUARY 6 Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before …(Ezekiel 33:22) In the matter of judgment, this may be the case, and if so, let me consider the reason for such a visitation and accept it from His hand. I am not the only one chastened in the night…

JANUARY 5 And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.(Genesis 42:8) This morning, we’re considering our heavenly Jesus’s knowledge of us. This was most blessedly perfect long before we had the slightest knowledge of Him. “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days…

JANUARY 4And God saw that the light was good. (Genesis 1:4) This morning, we noticed the goodness of the light and the Lord’s dividing it from the darkness. We now note the special eye that the Lord had for the light. “God saw the light”—He looked at it with complacency, gazed upon it with pleasure,…

January 2 Let the peoples renew their strength. (Isaiah 41:1) All things on earth need to be renewed. No created thing continues by itself. “You renew the face of the ground,”1 was the psalmist’s utterance. Even the trees, which wear not themselves with care, nor shorten their lives with labor, must drink of the rain of heaven…

DECEMBER 28 And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God.(Galatians 2:20) When the Lord in mercy drew near and saw us in our deadness, He, first of all, said, “Live”,; and He did this, first, because life is absolutely essential in spiritual matters, and until…

December 23 Friend, move up higher.(Luke 14:10) When the life of grace first begins in the soul, we instinctively draw near to God, but it is with great fear and trembling. The soul, conscious of guilt and humbled by it, is overawed with the solemnity of its position; it is prostrated by a sense of…