Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: May 1st

THE PEACE OF FORGIVENESS

I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope. My soul looketh for the Lord, more than watchmen look for the morning; yea, more than watchmen for the morning. - Psalms 130:5-6

This is what I call the permanent, peaceful attitude of the spirit that has tasted the sweet consciousness of forgiving love, a continual dependence upon God.

Like a man that has just recovered from some illness, but still leans upon the hand, and feels his need of seeing the face, of that kindly physician that had helped him through, there will be still, and always, the necessity for the continual application of that pardoning love. But they that have tasted that the Lord is gracious can sit very quietly at His feet and trust themselves to His kindly dealings, resting their souls upon His strong word, and looking for the fuller communication of light from Himself. A beautiful picture of a tranquil, continuous, ever-rewarded, and ever-fresh waiting upon Him, and reliance upon His mercy.

"More than they that watch for the morning." That is beautiful! The consciousness of sin was the dark night. The coming of His forgiving love flushed all the eastern heaven with diffused brightness that grew into the perfect day. And so the man waits quietly for the dawn, and his whole soul is one absorbing desire that God may dwell with him, and brighten and gladden him.

The thundery side of the sky makes all the more tender the sapphire blue of the other side: - "But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared." No man ever comes to that confidence that has not sprung to it, as it were, by a rebound from the other thought. It needs, first of all, that the heart should have tremblingly entertained the contrary by hypothesis, in order that the heart should spring into the relief and the gladness of the counter truth. It must first have felt the shudder of the thought, " If Thou, Lord, shouldst," in order to come to the gladness of the thought, " But there is forgiveness with Thee! "

Do you know what Bethesda means? " House of Mercy"; perhaps so named to commemorate some benefactor that had built the portico; more probably to suggest to the poor sick creatures a gleam of hope from the thought that God had love and care for them. There seemed a sharp contradiction between the condition of the people and the name. But we are gathered, as they were, in the House of Mercy. That is to say, though we have all departed from the right way, God’s love encompasses us still, and this earth, seamed and stained as it has been by man’s sin, is, notwithstanding, the chosen field in which He will manifest the tenderness of His compassion and the love of His heart. If any of you ever saw St. Peter’s in Rome, you will remember the great sweeping colonnades which extend from its front and reach out their arms as though they would embrace the city and the world; and in the midst there springs and sparkles a pure fountain. So God’s love compasses all us sick folk, and in the midst there rises the fountain which will heal. We are in the House of Mercy. The world is gathered round the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. It is not intermittent, but evermore His blood avails for us. It is not exhausted by one cure, or by two or three; but there is enough for each and enough for all; enough for thee and me and all our fellows. Christ is coming to you by my poor unworthy words, and saying, " Wilt thou be made whole? " Take Christ for your Healer, for your healing, for your health.