the Third Week after Easter
Click to donate today!
Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
THE SIN OF SINS
And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. - Matthew 13:58
There is but one sin in the world, properly speaking, and that is the sin of not loving God. The sins we commonly speak of are but different manifestations of this one sin - different in degree, diverse in various respects, diverse in enormity, but the enormity is chiefly to be determined by the measure of the revelation made of the character of God unto us. God becomes manifest in Christ; and lo! this unknown God is found to be a Being of most amazing love, humbling Himself to the meanest of mankind, bearing all things, suffering long, seeking not His own, answering the insults and contradictions of sinners with words and acts of incredible blessing.
Thus does the glorious Being, who upholdeth all things by the word of His power, draw near to you with papers of manumission, whereby you may escape the captivity of sin and Satan, the liability to death and hell; with hands pierced in the conflict with him who has the power of death, winning for you a path to life and glory; and now the universe looks on to see how you will receive the words of this Redeemer. It is possible for you to commit a sin of greater magnitude than you conceive of by simply neglecting the words of Christ. How fearful the alienation of the heart from God when such a surpassing embodiment of Divine love fails to overcome the indifference of that heart!
The terrible thing about the sin of unbelief is that its life is a life of slumber. It makes no noise in the heart. It has no visible shape. An angry word that falls from your lips has a reverberation in the depth of your heart; but unbelief is simply a state, and does not ordinarily reveal itself by any overt symptom. It is the atmosphere in which you move; and, as you never moved in any other, it does not shock you. But it is the sin of sins, and until you learn to hate it above all sins, there is little hope of your deliverance from sin.
A warmer tone of spiritual life would change the atmosphere which unbelief needs for its growth. It belongs to the fauna of the glacial epoch; and when the rigors of that wintry time begin to melt, and warmer days to set in, the creatures of the ice have to retreat to arctic wildernesses, and leave a land no longer suited for their life. Dig down to the living Rock, Christ and His infinite love to you, and let it be the strong foundation, built into which you and your love may become living stones, a holy temple, partaking of the firmness and nature of that on which it rests.
'Music For The Soul' daily readings for a year from the writings of the Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D., selected and arranged by the Rev. Geo. Coates, published by A.C. Armstrong and Son, 51 East Tenth Street, (1897). The original text is in the Public Domain and this electronic version is free for anyone without cost or obligation. This a year long daily devotional was written by the Rev. Alexander Maclaren over 100 years ago. This Scottish pastor had a heart to follow Jesus and a love for souls.
