Charles Spurgeon Morning and Evening Daily Devotional 4 May 2024
Morning & Evening: Morning Devo, May 4
Saturday, May 4, 2024
SCRIPTURE: Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods. — Jer 16:20
MORNING THOUGHT: One great besetting sin of ancient Israel was idolatry, and we who are the spiritual Israel are vexed with a tendency to the same folly! We no longer bow down to sticks and stones but Mammon still intrudes his golden calf, and the shrines of pride are not forsaken. SELF in various forms, struggles to subdue the chosen ones under its dominion, and the flesh sets up its altars wherever it can find space for them.
Children are often the cause of much sin in believers; the Lord is grieved when He sees us doting upon them above measure; they will live to be as great a curse to us—as Absalom was to David, or they will be taken from us to leave our homes desolate. If Christians desire to grow thorns to stuff their sleepless pillows—let them dote on their children!
It is truly said that “they are not gods,” for the objects of our foolish devotion are very doubtful blessings, the solace which they yield us now is dangerous, and the help which they can give us in the hour of trouble is little indeed.
Why, then, are we so bewitched with vanities? We pity the poor heathen who adore a god of stone and yet worship a god of gold! Where is the vast superiority between a god of flesh and one of wood? The principle, the sin, the folly is the same in either case, only that in our case—the crime is more aggravated because we have more light and sin in the face of it. The heathen bows to a false deity but the true God he has never known; we commit two evils, inasmuch as we forsake the living God and turn unto idols. May the Lord purge us all from this grievous iniquity!
“The dearest idol I have known, Whatever that idol be; Help me to tear it from Thy throne, And worship only Thee!”
READ EVENING THOUGHT BELOW:
Saturday, May 4, 2024
SCRIPTURE: For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. — 1 Pet 1:23,NIV
EVENING THOUGHT: Peter most earnestly exhorted the scattered saints to love each other “with a pure heart fervently” and he wisely fetched his argument, not from the law, from nature, or from philosophy but from that high and divine nature which God has implanted in His people. Just as some judicious tutor of princes might labor to beget and foster in them a kingly spirit and dignified behavior, finding arguments in their position and descent—so, looking upon God’s people as heirs of glory, princes of the blood royal, descendants of the King of kings, earth’s truest and oldest aristocracy, Peter says to them, “See that you love one another, because of your noble birth, being born of incorruptible seed; because of your pedigree, being descended from God, the Creator of all things; and because of your immortal destiny, for you shall never pass away, though the glory of the flesh shall fade, and even its existence shall cease.”
It would be well if, in the spirit of humility, we recognized the true dignity of our regenerated nature, and lived up to it. What is a Christian? If you compare him with a king, he adds priestly sanctity to royal dignity. The king’s royalty often lies only in his crown but with a Christian it is infused into his inmost nature. He is as much above his fellows through his new birth, as a man is above the beast that perishes.
Surely he ought to carry himself, in all his dealings, as one who is not of the multitude but chosen out of the world, distinguished by sovereign grace, written among “a people belonging to God” and who therefore cannot grovel in the dust as others, nor live after the manner of the world’s citizens. Let the dignity of your nature, and the brightness of your prospects, O believers in Christ, constrain you to cleave unto holiness, and to avoid the very appearance of evil.
Morning and Evening’ is the classic daily devotional from Charles H. Spurgeon.
Charles Spurgeon Morning and Evening Daily Devotional 4 May 2024 written by Charles H. Spurgeon