Daily Devotionals

Spiritual Treasury For The Children of God

Devotional: January 10th

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.- Ephesians 1:6.

When Jacob was about to meet his offended brother Esau, he was greatly afraid and distressed. He sends a present to appease his wrath before he durst venture into his presence. "Peradventure he will accept of me," says he- Genesis 32:20. Now his hope was not founded on the affection of his brother, but upon the favor which his present should procure. He was not influenced by love, but fear and terror; hence his expectation arose only to a peradventure. So it is natural for sinners to conceive of and act to an offended God. Instead of believing his gospel of free grace, and confiding in his messages of rich mercy in Christ, we are prone to think of sending presents, of doing something to pacify God’s wrath, and conciliate his love to us. Some terms of accommodation, some conditions of peace, we naturally think, and we hear many contend for, must be fulfilled by us. This notion keeps the soul always in suspense. It may flatter it with a peradventure, God will accept me; but there is not the least ground for hope of acceptance upon such a human system. It springs from the corrupt reasonings of man, is founded in the pride of nature, which ever rejects the faith of the gospel. Happy for us, to "hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace to his people, and to his saints,"- Psalms 85:8,-not because of their prayers, tears, repentance, faith or obedience; but, for an infinitely higher cause than all these, even because he loved them, and hath made them accepted in his beloved Son, Jesus.

Here are no legal Ifs and Peradventures; but the certainty and assurance of free love anchor-hold of faith. Its language is not, What shall I do to be accepted? but, How shall I please my God, who hath made me accepted in the beloved? In this way only, God secures all the praise and glory of his own grace to himself. The belief of this expands the heart with love, fires the soul with gratitude, excites to praise, and influences to all true holiness. Hell may terrify with horror, the law work wrath in the conscience, a sight of sin cause us to tremble before God; but grace, the free unmerited favor of God in Christ Jesus, that alone changes rebels to saints, subdues sin, mortifies lusts, triumphs over all the curse and ruin of the fall, and raises its happy subjects to the exalted heights of salvation and glory. Happy those, who know and believe "Grace reigns through the righteousness of Christ unto eternal life."- Romans 5:21.

Content to be in Jesu’s debt for all;

At sov’reign grace’s feet we prostrate fall,

All glory to the Lord that grace is free,

Else never would it light on guilty me.

Freed from law-debt, and blest with gospel ease,

Our work is now our dearest Lord to please,

By living on him, as our ample stock,

And leaning on him as our potent rock.

Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God. 1 John 4:2.

“ You study too much, it will kill you,” says one and another. What! the study of Christ, who is the life, health, and joy of the soul, kill one? Precious death, to die in such sweet exercise. It is only to fall asleep in Jesus, and awake with him in glory. I am sure, (through grace) this delightful study will kill the life of sense, the power of sin, and the delusion of Satan. Christ help us to study him more and more. The apostle here warns us against false spirits, which are not of God. He bids us believe not every spirit, but try them. For many false prophets are gone out under a spirit of delusion. We are in danger of being deceived by them. Here is a fixed rule to know whether they are of God or not. (1st.) Know ye the Spirit of God. Many pretend to have received him: to preach by his inspiration: to glory in ecstasies of comfort and revelations from the Spirit. Look at them with a godly jealousy. Be not hastily carried away by them. Do not condemn your own state, because you feel yourself a burdened sinner, groan under your burden, and though from day to day you are looking unto Jesus, yet have not these ecstasies and transports they pretend to. (2d.) Know the Spirit of God hereby, “every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God.” This is the true testimony of the Spirit of God. Keep your eye steadily on this. What is implied in it? 1. That God and man in one Christ, is come to save us. 2. The end of his so coming was “to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.” (Daniel 9:24.) Christ hath perfectly and everlastingly done all this in human flesh, for our souls. Therefore, (3d.) If the whole of this is not confessed, if any part of this is denied, then the “vision and prophecy is not allowed to be sealed up and finished.” And if comforts and joys arise not from the firm belief of Christ’s finished work for us, but from what we have done, or can do towards our own salvation, such comfort and joy flow not from the Spirit of God, but from another spirit the spirit of pride, delusion, and Antichrist. For it is against confessing that Christ is the Alpha and Omega-the first and the last-the all in all of a sinner’s salvation. O beware of that spirit, which bears witness of any thing in you for righteousness to justify you before God, or as the ground of your acceptance in his sight. Away with it all as filth and dung. Reject such spirit and his testimony. Know ye the Spirit of God beareth witness, because the Spirit is Truth. (; 1 John 5:6.)