the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Isaiah 49:14-16. The Lord hath been mindful of us; he will bless us. Psalms 115:12. Who remembered us in our low estate. Psalms 136:23.
Who has ever assured us thus of his love and faithfulness? Who has ever reprimanded us thus for our mistrust? Where is there a love like unto His love? Motherly love is but a shadow as compared with His love. His wounded hands and feet; His pierced heart in which our names are written, are proofs thereof, proofs that never could be more convincing. If we would only heed them more as He urges us to do, it would be impossible for us a single moment, even in the greatest heart-sorrow, to doubt His love. But our intent gaze at the visible, at the shell of things, at the outward appearance, hides the flaming writing of His love from us. Look up to the “hills"! Up to Golgotha! There you see how deeply you are written on His heart, who does not forget the sparrow on the roof or the young ravens in the nest. How should He be able to forget you, O ye of little faith? God does not send you tribulations in order to smite you to the ground, but to raise you up; not that you should bow the head, but that you should look up to Him from whom such trials come. When anything falls upon your head you look up quickly, to see where it came from, to ascertain who threw it upon your head. Why do you not do the same when the Lord sends a cross down to you from heaven? How wrongly you act in regard to visitations and afflictions that God sends you, thinking that the Lord has now forgotten you! Quite the contrary. It should be to you a proof that God is mindful of you, that He has visited you, that He has entered in to you, that He loves you, and that He chooses you in the furnace of affliction in order that you may look up to Him.
Abide with us, our Savior,
Sustain us by Thy word;
That we with all Thy people
To life may be restored.
