Daily Bible Notes: February, 3rd
The following daily bible notes for every day of the year, are taken from six public domain sources:
- "Morning and Evening" by Charles H.Spurgeon
- "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by John H.Jowett
- "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
- "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by Charles H.Spurgeon
- "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan
- An Evening Meditation from "Searchlights from the Word" by G. Campbell Morgan
1. "Morning and Evening" by C.H.Spurgeon
Morning
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.
Romans 8:12
As God’s creatures, we are all debtors to Him: to obey Him with all our body, and soul, and strength. Having broken His commandments, as we all have, we are debtors to His justice, and we owe to Him a vast amount which we are not able to pay. But of the Christian it can be said that he does not owe God’s justice anything, for Christ has paid the debt His people owed; for this reason the believer owes the more to love. I am a debtor to God’s grace and forgiving mercy; but I am no debtor to His justice, for He will never accuse me of a debt already paid. Christ said, "It is finished!" and by that He meant, that whatever His people owed was wiped away for ever from the book of remembrance. Christ, to the uttermost, has satisfied divine justice; the account is settled; the handwriting is nailed to the cross; the receipt is given, and we are debtors to God’s justice no longer. But then, because we are not debtors to our Lord in that sense, we become ten times more debtors to God than we should have been otherwise. Christian, pause and ponder for a moment.
What a debtor thou art to divine sovereignty! How much thou owest to His disinterested love, for He gave His own Son that He might die for thee.
Consider how much you owe to His forgiving grace, that after ten thousand affronts He loves you as infinitely as ever. Consider what you owe to His power; how He has raised you from your death in sin; how He has preserved your spiritual life; how He has kept you from falling; and how, though a thousand enemies have beset your path, you have been able to hold on your way. Consider what you owe to His immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once. Thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. To God thou owest thyself, and all thou hast - yield thyself as a living sacrifice, it is but thy reasonable service.
Evening
Tell me... where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon.
Song of Solomon 1:7
These words express the desire of the believer after Christ, and his longing for present communion with Him. Where doest Thou feed Thy flock? In Thy house? I will go, if I may find Thee there. In private prayer? Then I will pray without ceasing. In the Word? Then I will read it diligently. In Thine ordinances? Then I will walk in them with all my heart. Tell me where Thou feedest, for wherever Thou standest as the Shepherd, there will I lie down as a sheep; for none but Thyself can supply my need. I cannot be satisfied to be apart from Thee. My soul hungers and thirsts for the refreshment of Thy presence. "Where dost Thou make Thy flock to rest at noon?" for whether at dawn or at noon, my only rest must be where Thou art and Thy beloved flock. My soul’s rest must be a grace-given rest, and can only be found in Thee. Where is the shadow of that rock? Why should I not repose beneath it? "Why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?" Thou hast companions - why should I not be one? Satan tells me I am unworthy; but I always was unworthy, and yet Thou hast long loved me; and therefore my unworthiness cannot be a bar to my having fellowship with Thee now. It is true I am weak in faith, and prone to fall, but my very feebleness is the reason why I should always be where Thou feedest Thy flock, that I may be strengthened, and preserved in safety beside the still waters. Why should I turn aside? There is no reason why I should, but there are a thousand reasons why I should not, for Jesus beckons me to come. If He withdrew Himself a little, it is but to make me prize His presence more. Now that I am grieved and distressed at being away from Him, He will lead me yet again to that sheltered nook where the lambs of His fold are sheltered from the burning sun.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Psalms 114
1 When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of foreign language,
2 Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
3 The sea saw it, and fled. The Jordan was driven back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs.
5 What was it, you sea, that you fled? You Jordan, that you turned back?
6 You mountains, that you skipped like rams; you little hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, you earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of waters.
TRANSFORMING THE HARD HEART
The Lord "turned the flint into a fountain of waters."
What a violent conjunction, the flint becoming the birthplace of a spring! And yet this is happening every day. Men who are as "hard as flint," whose hearts are "like the nether millstone," become springs of gentleness and fountains of exquisite compassion. Beautiful graces, like lovely ferns, grow in the home of severities, and transform the grim, stern soul into a garden of fragrant friendships. This is what Zacchæus was like when his flint became a fountain. It is what Matthew the publican was like when the Lord changed his hard heart into a land of springs.
No one is "too far gone." No hardness is beyond the love and pity of God. The well of eternal life can gush forth even in a desert waste, and "where sin abounds grace doth much more abound." Let us bring our hardness to the Lord. Let us see what He can make of our flint. When we are dry and "feelingless," and desire is dead, let us bring this Sahara to the great Restorer, and "the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
February 3rd.
My gracious Lord, help me with my temptations. May I convert them into occasions of triumph. May every battle-field have the
banner of victory waving over it, and may I be more than conqueror!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Romans 8:32
If this is not a promise in form, it is in fact. Indeed, it is more than one promise, it is a conglomerate of promises. It is a mass of rubies, and emeralds, and diamonds, with a nugget of gold for their setting. It is a question which can never be answered so as to cause us any anxiety of heart. What can the Lord deny us after giving us Jesus? If we need all things in heaven and earth, he will grant them to us: for if there had been a limit anywhere, he would have kept back his own Son.
What do I want to-day? I have only to ask for it. I may seek earnestly, but not as if I had to use pressure, and extort an unwilling gift from the Lord's hand; for he will give freely. Of his own will, he gave us his own Son. Certainly no one would have proposed such a gift to him. No one would have ventured to ask for it. It would have been too presumptuous. He freely gave his Only begotten; and, O my soul, canst thou not trust thy heavenly Father to give thee anything, to give thee everything? Thy poor prayer would have no force with Omnipotence if force were needed; but his love, like a spring, rises of itself, and overflows for the supply of all thy needs.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
John 21:12
There are deep mysteries of life, and great and marvellous secrets, but you are not ready for their understanding.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
The Lord hath heard ... the Lord hath heard ... the Lord will receive.
Psalms 6:8,9
This is the first of the seven Psalms which are described as Penitential. (The others are 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143.) Various suggestions have been made as to the occasion of the writing of this one. None is conclusive. That it was a cry of profound penitence is patent. The first seven verses contain the cry of a soul in anguish. There was great physical suffering; but the deeper pain was that of the sense that God was absent from his consciousness, and that his sufferings were rebukes and chastenings from God. The dread of death was upon the singer, and was accentuated by the fact that in his then condition of mind there was no light in the region that lay beyond. The sudden change at verse eight is dramatic. His human enemies, who had been taking advantage of his physical sufferings to wrong him, are bidden to depart, and their downfall is predicted. The secret of this change is revealed in the words we have emphasized. We have no clue in the Psalm as to how the conviction came, but it came. It was the conviction that Jehovah heard, and that his prayer was received. Perhaps the most arresting fact in this Psalm is that there was no confession of sin. It was simply a wail of agony, and a cry for release. But it was a cry to God ; and in the very admission that his sufferings were chastisements, there was at least a tacit acknowledgment of guilt. This reveals all the more radiantly the readiness of God to pardon. When His vexing in sore displeasure has driven the soul back to Him, His answer of love and of healing is immediate.
Note: To the best of our knowledge we are of the understanding that the above material, all published before 1926 and freely available elsewhere on the internet in various formats, is in the public domain.