the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Acts 16:34
‘Believing in God with all his house’
Read Philemon 1:1-25
In the first part of his book The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes Christian as a lonely pilgrim, traveling his road to the Celestial City all alone. Along the way, he met some friends, like Faithful and Hopeful, and he was happy to have their company. But he was still a lonely pilgrim. Neither his wife nor his children walked in the path of faith. In the second part of the book, Bunyan gives us a happier portrait of the pilgrim. Christiana joins her husband, Christian, and their children are also walking in the way. Pilgrim, with his family by his side, along with a great many friends, all are traveling as a convoy to the heavenly kingdom.
What a delightful picture! Sometimes godly men and women have to go to heaven alone. Grace does not run in blood lines. Election separates many from their nearest kinsmen. Often the example, the prayers and the admonitions of a believer have no influence over those who are dearest to him. And the believer has to walk in the path of faith, leaving his family behind. Many a Lot has had to flee from his perishing wife. Many a David has been required to mourn over his doomed Absalom. And many an Abraham has prayed without success for his beloved Ishmael. Grace does not run in blood lines. Faith is not an heirloom, passed on from father to son by the will of the father. Salvation is not a birthright. Yet, it is often true, thank God, it is very often true, that the God of Abraham becomes the God of Sarah, then the God of Isaac and then the God of Jacob. God very often saves one and then uses him as an instrument to draw the rest to himself. As Spurgeon put it, ‘He calls an individual and then uses him to be a sort of spiritual decoy to bring the rest of the family into the gospel net.’ Sometimes God passes by entire families and none are saved. Sometimes God is gracious to one or two in the household. And sometimes whole families are enclosed within the circle of electing love, redeemed by the blood of Christ and called by the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit. Nothing could be more blessed to a man than to be the father of a family devoted to Christ.
