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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING http://www.heartlight.org/
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
MORNING:
"The precious blood of Christ."
-- 1 Peter 1:19
Standing at the foot of the cross, we see hands, and feet, and side,
all distilling crimson streams of precious blood. It is "precious"
because of its redeeming and atoning efficacy. By it the sins of
Christ's people are atoned for; they are redeemed from under the law;
they are reconciled to God, made one with him. Christ's blood is also
"precious" in its cleansing power; it "cleanseth from all sin." "Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Through
Jesus' blood there is not a spot left upon any believer, no wrinkle nor
any such thing remains. O precious blood, which makes us clean,
removing the stains of abundant iniquity, and permitting us to stand
accepted in the Beloved, notwithstanding the many ways in which we have
rebelled against our God. The blood of Christ is likewise "precious" in
its preserving power. We are safe from the destroying angel under the
sprinkled blood. Remember it is God's seeing the blood which is the
true reason for our being spared. Here is comfort for us when the eye
of faith is dim, for God's eye is still the same. The blood of Christ
is "precious" also in its sanctifying influence. The same blood which
justifies by taking away sin, does in its after-action, quicken the new
nature and lead it onward to subdue sin and to follow out the commands
of God. There is no motive for holiness so great as that which streams
from the veins of Jesus. And "precious," unspeakably precious, is this
blood, because it has an overcoming power. It is written, "They
overcame through the blood of the Lamb." How could they do otherwise?
He who fights with the precious blood of Jesus, fights with a weapon
which cannot know defeat. The blood of Jesus! sin dies at its presence,
death ceases to be death: heaven's gates are opened. The blood of
Jesus! we shall march on, conquering and to conquer, so long as we can
trust its power!
EVENING:
"And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun."
-- Exodus 17:12
So mighty was the prayer of Moses, that all depended upon it. The
petitions of Moses discomfited the enemy more than the fighting of
Joshua. Yet both were needed. No, in the soul's conflict, force and
fervour, decision and devotion, valour and vehemence, must join their
forces, and all will be well. You must wrestle with your sin, but the
major part of the wrestling must be done alone in private with God.
Prayer, like Moses', holds up the token of the covenant before the
Lord. The rod was the emblem of God's working with Moses, the symbol of
God's government in Israel. Learn, O pleading saint, to hold up the
promise and the oath of God before him. The Lord cannot deny his own
declarations. Hold up the rod of promise, and have what you will.
Moses grew weary, and then his friends assisted him. When at any time
your prayer flags, let faith support one hand, and let holy hope uplift
the other, and prayer seating itself upon the stone of Israel, the rock
of our salvation, will persevere and prevail. Beware of faintness in
devotion; if Moses felt it, who can escape? It is far easier to fight
with sin in public, than to pray against it in private. It is remarked
that Joshua never grew weary in the fighting, but Moses did grow weary
in the praying; the more spiritual an exercise, the more difficult it
is for flesh and blood to maintain it. Let us cry, then, for special
strength, and may the Spirit of God, who helpeth our infirmities, as he
allowed help to Moses, enable us like him to continue with our hands
steady "until the going down of the sun;" till the evening of life is
over; till we shall come to the rising of a better sun in the land
where prayer is swallowed up in praise.
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=========================== FEATURED PRODUCT =========================
THE END OF REASON: A RESPONSE TO THE NEW ATHEISTS, by Ravi Zacharias
Zacharias cuts to the core of the atheist problem and presents a case
for truth resolving itself in a presentation of God in the person of
Jesus Christ as the intelligence behind the universe, and the end (the
culmination, not the cessation) of reason.
http://shopping.heartlight.org/cgi-shl/link?254
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MORNING & EVENING from HEARTLIGHT /\/\
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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