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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING http://www.heartlight.org/
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Sunday, July 27, 2008
MORNING:
"Exceeding great and precious promises."
-- 2 Peter 1:4
If you would know experimentally the preciousness of the promises, and
enjoy them in your own heart, meditate much upon them. There are
promises which are like grapes in the wine-press; if you will tread
them the juice will flow. Thinking over the hallowed words will often
be the prelude to their fulfilment. While you are musing upon them, the
boon which you are seeking will insensibly come to you. Many a
Christian who has thirsted for the promise has found the favour which
it ensured gently distilling into his soul even while he has been
considering the divine record; and he has rejoiced that ever he was led
to lay the promise near his heart.
But besides meditating upon the promises, seek in thy soul to receive
them as being the very words of God. Speak to thy soul thus, "If I were
dealing with a man's promise, I should carefully consider the ability
and the character of the man who had covenanted with me. So with the
promise of God; my eye must not be so much fixed upon the greatness of
the mercy-that may stagger me; as upon the greatness of the
promiser-that will cheer me. My soul, it is God, even thy God, God that
cannot lie, who speaks to thee. This word of his which thou art now
considering is as true as his own existence. He is a God unchangeable.
He has not altered the thing which has gone out of his mouth, nor
called back one single consolatory sentence. Nor doth he lack any
power; it is the God that made the heavens and the earth who has spoken
thus. Nor can he fail in wisdom as to the time when he will bestow the
favours, for he knoweth when it is best to give and when better to
withhold. Therefore, seeing that it is the word of a God so true, so
immutable, so powerful, so wise, I will and must believe the promise."
If we thus meditate upon the promises, and consider the Promiser, we
shall experience their sweetness, and obtain their fulfilment.
EVENING:
"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"
-- Romans 8:33
Most blessed challenge! How unanswerable it is! Every sin of the elect
was laid upon the great Champion of our salvation, and by the atonement
carried away. There is no sin in God's book against his people: he
seeth no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity in Israel; they are justified
in Christ for ever. When the guilt of sin was taken away, the
punishment of sin was removed. For the Christian there is no stroke
from God's angry hand-nay, not so much as a single frown of punitive
justice. The believer may be chastised by his Father, but God the Judge
has nothing to say to the Christian, except "I have absolved thee: thou
art acquitted." For the Christian there is no penal death in this
world, much less any second death. He is completely freed from all the
punishment as well as the guilt of sin, and the power of sin is removed
too. It may stand in our way, and agitate us with perpetual warfare;
but sin is a conquered foe to every soul in union with Jesus. There is
no sin which a Christian cannot overcome if he will only rely upon his
God to do it. They who wear the white robe in heaven overcame through
the blood of the Lamb, and we may do the same. No lust is too mighty,
no besetting sin too strongly entrenched; we can overcome through the
power of Christ. Do believe it, Christian, that thy sin is a condemned
thing. It may kick and struggle, but it is doomed to die. God has
written condemnation across its brow. Christ has crucified it, "nailing
it to his cross." Go now and mortify it, and the Lord help you to live
to his praise, for sin with all its guilt, shame, and fear, is gone.
"Here's pardon for transgressions past,
It matters not how black their cast;
And, O my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come here's pardon too."
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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