the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
" Trust in the Lord and do good; and verily shalt thou be fed." - Psalms 37:3.
In many ways faith leads to beneficence. Faith discovers to us the infinite mercy shown by God in providing a ransom for us; and the contemplation of this sacrifice prompts us to engage in enterprises for the good of our fellow-men. It shows us God delighting in the reciprocal love of his creatures one to another, and seeking to make them mutually exponents of his love. It reveals to us the Lord Jesus who pleased not himself, and went about doing good; and teaches us, that we are his disciples only while we follow him. It keeps fresh in our memory the promises; such as, " he that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord;" " inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." It shows us that we have nothing which we can properly call our own, since we are one and all stewards of God, and must here after give an account of our stewardship. And it enables us to rest in full assurance upon the declarations of God and of Christ, that we shall be fed, that no good thing shall be withheld from us, that we are of more account than many sparrows.
We need faith in order to know how to do good. To be charitable, we have not merely to overcome our own reluctance to give, but we must learn from God how to relieve the wants of men. It is not enough to stretch forth the hand; it must be stretched forth in wisdom, wisdom obtained by faith. Again, if a man whose character is not what it should be, who does not honor God, or the word of God, if such an one engages from some motive or other in works of beneficence, there is reason to believe that he will indirectly do more evil than he will directly do good. For his kind acts will tend to propitiate men with his defective religion, and will go far to make them believe that the fear of God is not after all of very great importance.
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