the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
The Poor Man's Morning and Evening Portions
March 18—Morning—Genesis 48:2
"And Israel strenghened himself, and sat up on the bed."—Genesis 48:2.
This was an interesting moment in the life, or rather the death, of the patriarch, and may serve, my soul, to shew what ought to be the conduct of the believer in his last expiring hours. The imagination can hardly conceive any situation equally momentous, in every point of view, both as it concerns a faithful God, a man’s own heart, and the church the dying saint is going to leave behind. What can form a more lovely sight than a dying saint, sitting up in the bed, (if the Lord permits the opportunity) and recounting, as Jacob did, the gracious dealings of the Lord, all the way along the path of pilgrimage - "The God which fed me," said Jacob," all my life long unto this day: the angel (and who was this but Jesus?) which redeemed me from all evil. "Pause, my soul. Anticipate such a day. Figure to thyself thy friends around thee, and thou thyself strengthened, just to sit up in the bed, to take an everlasting farewell. What hast thou to relate? What hast thou treasured up of God’s dealings with thee, to sweeten death in the recital, to bless God in the just acknowledgment, and to leave behind thee a testimony to others of the truth, as it is in Jesus? My soul, what canst thou speak of? What canst thou tell of thy God, thy Jesus? Hast thou known enough of him to commit thyself into his Almighty hands, with an assurance of salvation? Pause! Didst thou not in the act of faith, long since, venture thyself upon Jesus for the whole of thy everlasting welfare? Didst thou not from a perfect conviction of thy need of Jesus, and from as perfect a conviction of the power and grace of Jesus to save thee - didst thou not make a full and complete surrender of thyself, and with the most perfect approbation of this blessed plan of God’s mercy in Christ, to be saved wholly by him, and wholly in his own way, and wholly to his own glory? And as such, art thou now afraid, or art thou now shrinking back, when come within sight almost of Jesus’s arms to receive thee? Oh, no! blessed be God, this last act of committing thy soul is not as great an act of faith as the first was; for since that time thou hast had thousands of evidences, and thousands of tokens in love and faithfulness, that thy God is true. Sit up then, my soul, and do as the dying patriarch did; recount to all around thee thy confidence in the Son of God, who "hath loved thee, and given himself for thee." Cry out, as he did, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord." And as this will be the last opportunity of speaking a word for God, testify of his faithfulness, and encourage all that behold you to be seeking after an interest in Jesus, from seeing how sweetly you close a life of faith before you begin a life of glory, in blessing God, though with dying lips, that the last notes which you utter here below, may be only the momentary interruption to the same subject in the first of your everlasting song - "To him that hath loved you, and washed you, from your sins in his blood."
March 18—Evening—1 Peter 1:5
"Who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation."—1 Peter 1:5.
When I call to mind that in me, "that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing;" when I stand convinced, (as I do most fully, blessed be God the Holy Ghost, for having exercised his gracious office in my soul, to this gracious effect,) that though renewed in the spirit of my mind, yet in that unrenewed part of myself, which is hastening to the grave, every member is virtually all sin; when I know that never did sin break out in acts of open wickedness, in any son or daughter of Adam, but that the seeds of the same sin are in me and my nature; I long not only to know, but always to keep in remembrance by what means, and from what cause it is, that those seeds do not ripen in my heart, as well as in others; that while corrupt nature is the same in all, it is restrained in me, while so many of my fellow-creatures, and fellow-sinners, fall a prey to temptation. Blessed Spirit! the merciful scripture of the evening answers the important question. They who are kept, "are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation." Here is the solution of the whole subject. With what humbleness of soul, then, ought every child of God to fall down before the throne of grace, under the deepest sense of distinguishing love, in the consciousness that it is divine restraint, and not creature merit, which maketh all the difference. Help me, Lord, to go humble all my days, in this view, and let it be my morning thought, as well as my mid-day and evening meditation, that I am kept by thy power, through faith unto salvation. Almighty Father, help me to be living upon thy faithfulness in the covenant of grace, established and sealed as it is in the blood of thy dear Son, that "thou wilt not" turn away from me to do me good; and that thou wilt put thy fear in my heart, that! shall not depart from thee. - Jeremiah 32:40. Precious Lord Jesus! give me to rest also upon an union with thee, a communication of grace fromthee, and a participation in thee, in all the blessings of thy redemption. Surely! am the purchase of thy blood, and thou hast said," thy sheep shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of thine hand."- John 10:28. And Oh! thou blessed Spirit of all truth, be thou to me an indwelling security from sin, to keep me from falling, and to preserve me faultless in Jesus, until the day of his coming. Make my body thy temple, and cause me, by thy sweet constraining love, to "glorify God in my body, and in my spirit, which are his. "- 1 Corinthians 6:20.
