Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: January 28th

"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." - Colossians 3:4.

" In thy favor is life." When Adam sinned, he lost the favor of God, and thus he died. This is the worst of all deaths; for all other deaths are just the expression of God’s disfavor. Ask one of the lost in hell when he died, and he will rightly tell you that it was when he lost the divine favor. When a man comes to Christ, he finds what Adam lost and what Adam doubtless regained, - the favor of God, life in the highest sense; for all the other things called life are but the expressions of this favor.

Christ is our life. He has brought us into the region of life, the region of God’s everlasting smiles. He has put life within us - namely, the hatred of sin, the love of the Holy One, the knowledge of self. He has given us the Spirit that dwells in himself, and in the angels. He has reconciled us to the will of God. This is the beginning. But in himself exists an infinite remainder yet un-communicated. He is called our life, not merely because he became to us the source of life, but because we live only by virtue of our union to him. Apart from Him we have no existence; we are in the abyss.

We read much of the future manifestation of the Son of God; we also read of the manifestation of the sons of God. Our text declares that these two are identical. His and our manifestation in glory shall be consentaneous. And believers are taught to look forward to both these events or to this two fold event. This is the special scope of their aspirations. And not of theirs only, but the whole creation groans and travaileth, waiting for this, which will be its redemption from the indignities and burden of sin.

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