Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: May 17th

For it pleased the father that in him should all fulness dwell. - Colossians 1:19.

LET us consider the reasonableness of this appointment. “It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.” And what pleases him should always please us. We should always remember, though he acts as a Sovereign, and the reason of his proceedings may be “far above, out of our sight,” that he has reasons which are all satisfactory to him, and will be satisfactory to us when they are developed. Our Lord therefore says, in his intercessory prayer, “I thank thee, O Father,”-not because thou wilt, but-“because it seemed good in thy sight.” What seems good to us may be evil; but what seems good to God must be good, for “his understanding is infinite.” With regard to his dispensations, therefore, when we cannot walk by sight we should seek to walk by faith, knowing that he cannot do any thing but what is right. There are three reasons which may be assigned why it “hath pleased the Father that in Christ should all fulness dwell.”

First, To render it most secure. God trusted one man, but he will never trust another. He left Adam to his own standing; but he soon fell a victim to temptation, became a bankrupt, and ruined all his posterity. But the everlasting covenant made between himself and his Son is “ordered in all things and sure;” and we are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Thus all true believers in him are safe and secure:-“they shall never perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of his hand.”

Secondly, To render it more encouraging. “Speak thou to us, and we will hear; let not God speak to us, lest we die,” said the Jews to Moses, when they were filled with terror at the display of God’s majesty. When we consider God’s greatness and his purity, we feel our need of a mediator between us and him; but we do not need a mediator between us and Christ; and it is well we do not. “We may come with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We may come to him just as we are,-ungodly to be justified, unholy to be sanctified, and impoverished to be enriched. And what a pleasing consideration is it that in all the concerns of religion we have immediately to do with Him

“Whose heart is made of tenderness,

Whose bowels melt with love”!

Then, thirdly, “It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell,” to render it most beneficial. Thus is established an important intercourse between him and us. This state of things brings us continually to him. If we have any trial to bear, any duty to discharge, or any enemy to conquer, we must always away to him. Now, of what importance is this! Take a child that cannot sustain itself: is he then abandoned? No; he is provided for, and provision is made for him in the bosom of one who will always give him a welcome and frequently invite his access; and so the mutual action of giving and receiving endears the mother to the child, and the child to the mother. Just so, in consequence of this economy, there is communion between Christ and his people; and this communion is infinitely honourable to him and beneficial to them.

MAY !7

The common salvation. - Judges 1:3.

IN eulogizing the gospel the finest epithet the Apostle could attach to it was its commonness. Common to all ages, all countries, all conditions, all characters; for “the grace of God,” saith another Apostle, “hath appeared unto all men.” Christianity was designed to be a “light to lighten the Gentiles,” as well as “the glory of the people Israel.” Hence Christ is not compared to a lamp, which can shed but a partial and confined illumination, but to the orb of day, which irradiates the valley and the hill. “I am come a light into the world.” This will be the final result of Christianity. Down to this time it has had to do with individuals and families; by and by there will be the “nations of those who are saved.” “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” And to this universal extension it is every way adapted; there is nothing in Christianity restrictive. The Jewish religion, though divine in its origin, was confined, and necessarily confined, to one people.

But Christianity has no locality; “The hour cometh,” said our Saviour to the woman of Sychar, “when neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem shall men exclusively or superstitiously worship the Father.” By revealing pardon, mercy, sanctifying grace, and eternal life, it is easy to see that the gospel addresses man only as man, regardless of any adventitious circumstances. It regards all men, wherever they are, first, as guilty; secondly, as depraved; and thirdly, however guilty and. depraved, as destined to immortality. It passes by all the little distinctions that exist for a few moments here between the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the learned and the illiterate, and verifies the language of the Apostle, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” And surely this will much more strongly apply to those minor differences, that subsist among those who equally “worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” It teaches us to say, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.” It rebukes all persons who would confine salvation to their own party, and who anathematise those who are walking without the line drawn by their prejudice, ignorance, and pride.

The gospel teaches us to say of every disciple of Jesus, “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.”