the Third Week after Easter
Click here to join the effort!
Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Matthew 5:11.
“THE world knoweth us not,” says the Apostle John: and this accounts for the mistaken opinions and divers misrepresentations of Christians by the men of the world. And yet they are very free in speaking of them; for we always find some ready to speak of things of which they know nothing. Hence our Lord here forewarns his disciples of being evil spoken of, assuring them that, though men will say all manner of evil of them, if it be falsely spoken they may be comforted under the slanderous imputations by the consciousness of the falsehood of the charges alleged against them. The people of the world will magnify their infirmities into faults; they will take the miscarriages of a few and impute them to the whole community; and when they cannot find any thing whereof to accuse them, they will go a motive-hunting, and, shrugging their shoulders, will say, “Ah! they are no better than others behind the scenes. If you knew them, you would find their holiness hypocrisy, and their zeal selfishness.” But we must not complain nor murmur, but remember these words of the Lord Jesus; let us learn from these to be indifferent as to the judgment of the world. “With me,” says the apostle, “it is a very small thing to be judged of by you or of man’s judgment.”
We may respect natural men for their conduct and kindness, and be willing to sit at their feet to learn other things of them; but we shall not think of being judged by them as regards those things which are peculiarly our own. But is there nothing of which the world may judge us? Yes; many things. They may judge of our talents, and may be able truly to say, You “think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.” They may judge of something with regard to our conduct, and of our convictions, as professors of religion. “What do ye more than others?” they may ask; and they have a right to ask this of Christians, because they profess more than others. They can also judge, though not of the feelings and experience of Christians, yet of their moral and practical effects. Christians should therefore seek to abound in all the fruits of righteousness, and to “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.”
Therefore, says the apostle, “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. - Job 14:4.
THE natural state of man as a sinner, as described in the Scriptures, differs very widely from the notions entertained of him by some. For while there are those who altogether deny his fall and depravity, there are others who suppose he yet possesses a very large degree of rectitude, and that the common grace which every man is supposed to bring into the world, if well managed, is sufficient for his salvation. It is easier to bring men to a confession of their guilt than of their inability. They cannot indeed very well deny that they have sinned, but as to their neglecting their duty, they mean to attend to this, and they never questioned their ability to repent and obey whenever they please. But surely such persons cannot have read the Scriptures with attention or they would have found that Paul himself acknowledges that “in him,” that is in his “flesh, dwelt no good thing.”
No stream can rise higher than its fountain. The effect cannot be better than its cause. As we cannot perform natural actions without the concurrence of nature, how can we perform Spiritual actions without the concurrence of the Spirit? If we “live and move and have our being” in God naturally, surely we must live and move and have our being in God Spiritually, especially when we consider that this life is of so much higher an order than every other.
What but pride can render a man averse to this design? for it only brings a man where he ought to be, that is, feeling himself to be “nothing at all,” and holds forth God as what he really is, “all in all.” This is not a mere speculation. It is a truth of importance. It serves to show those who are the subjects of this work what is their duty-to bless and praise God, who by his sovereign grace has not only provided for them salvation, but has “enabled them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ unto life everlasting.” So that they are not allowed to “starve rather than come,” but are graciously compelled to come in that his house may be filled.
On the other hand, if strangers to it, it shows what is their duty, namely, prayer to him who alone can accomplish this, and “who works in us to will and to do, of his good pleasure;” who is always able to do it, always willing to do it; and far more willing to save us than we are to be saved, and to make us holy than we are to be made holy. It is, therefore, infinitely better that the power should be in him than in ourselves.
