Daily Bible Notes: January, 4th
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
Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 3:18
"Grow in grace" - not in one grace only, but in all grace. Grow in that root-grace, faith. Believe the promises more firmly than you have done. Let faith increase in fulness, constancy, simplicity. Grow also in love. Ask that your love may become extended, more intense, more practical, influencing every thought, word, and deed. Grow likewise in humility. Seek to lie very low, and know more of your own nothingness. As you grow downward in humility, seek also to grow upward - having nearer approaches to God in prayer and more intimate fellowship with Jesus.
May God the Holy Spirit enable you to "grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour." He who grows not in the knowledge of Jesus, refuses to be blessed. To know Him is "life eternal," and to advance in the knowledge of Him is to increase in happiness. He who does not long to know more of Christ, knows nothing of Him yet. Whoever hath sipped this wine will thirst for more, for although Christ doth satisfy, yet it is such a satisfaction, that the appetite is not cloyed, but whetted. If you know the love of Jesus - as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, so will you pant after deeper draughts of His love. If you do not desire to know Him better, then you love Him not, for love always cries, "Nearer, nearer."
Absence from Christ is hell; but the presence of Jesus is heaven. Rest not then content without an increasing acquaintance with Jesus. Seek to know more of Him in His divine nature, in His human relationship, in His finished work, in His death, in His resurrection, in His present glorious intercession, and in His future royal advent. Abide hard by the Cross, and search the mystery of His wounds. An increase of love to Jesus, and a more perfect apprehension of His love to us is one of the best tests of growth in grace.
Evening
And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him.
Genesis 42:8
This morning our desires went forth for growth in our acquaintance with the Lord Jesus; it may be well to-night to consider a kindred topic, namely, our heavenly Joseph’s knowledge of us . This was most blessedly perfect long before we had the slightest knowledge of Him. "His eyes beheld our substance, yet being imperfect, and in His book all our members were written, when as yet there was none of them." Before we had a being in the world we had a being in His heart. When we were enemies to Him, He knew us, our misery, our madness, and our wickedness. When we wept bitterly in despairing repentance, and viewed Him only as a judge and a ruler, He viewed us as His brethren well beloved, and His bowels yearned towards us. He never mistook His chosen, but always beheld them as objects of His infinite affection. "The Lord knoweth them that are His," is as true of the prodigals who are feeding swine as of the children who sit at the table.
But, alas! we knew not our royal Brother , and out of this ignorance grew a host of sins. We withheld our hearts from Him, and allowed Him no entrance to our love. We mistrusted Him, and gave no credit to His words.
We rebelled against Him, and paid Him no loving homage. The Sun of Righteousness shone forth, and we could not see Him. Heaven came down to earth, and earth perceived it not. Let God be praised, those days are over with us; yet even now it is but little that we know of Jesus compared with what He knows of us. We have but begun to study Him, but He knoweth us altogether. It is a blessed circumstance that the ignorance is not on His side, for then it would be a hopeless case for us. He will not say to us, "I never knew you," but He will confess our names in the day of His appearing, and meanwhile will manifest Himself to us as He doth not unto the world.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Exodus 6:2-8
2 God spoke to Moses, and said to him, "I am the LORD.
3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name the LORD I was not known to them.
4 I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their travels, in which they lived as aliens.
5 Moreover I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant.
6 Therefore tell the children of Israel, 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgements.
7 I will take you to myself for a people. I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
8 I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it to you for a heritage: I am the LORD.' "
THE GOD OF THEIR SUCCEEDING RACE
"I appeared unto Abraham.... I will be to you a God." The covenant made with the father was renewed to the children. The father's death did not disannul the promise of the Lord. Death has no power in the realms of grace. His moth and his rust can never destroy the ministries of Divine love. Abraham died and was laid to rest, but the river of life flowed on, and the bounties of the Lord never failed. The village well quenches the thirst of many generations: and so is it through the generations with the wells of grace and salvation. The villagers have not to dig a new well when the patriarch dies: "the river of God is full of water."
And thus I am privileged to share the spiritual resources of Abraham, and the still richer resources of the Apostle Paul. Nothing was given to him that is withheld from me. He is like a great mountaineer, and he has climbed to lofty heights; but I need not be dismayed. All the strength that was given to him, in which he reached those lofty places, is mine also. I may share his elevation and his triumph. "For the promise is unto you and your children, and to all that are afar off."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
January 4th.
My Father, if I am obliged to flee from the tempter to-day, may I find in Thee my refuge; if I am obliged to stand,
may I find in Thee my strength.
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
I will make them to lie down safely.
Hosea 2:18
Yes, the Saints are to have peace. The passage from which this gracious word is taken speaks of peace "with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground." This is peace with earthly enemies, with mysterious evils, and with little annoyances! Any of these might keep us from lying down, but none of them shall do so. The Lord will quite destroy those things which threaten his people: "I will break the bow and the sword, and the battle out of the earth." Peace will be profound indeed when all the instruments of disquiet are broken to pieces.
With this peace will come rest. "So he giveth his beloved sleep." Fully supplied and divinely quieted, believers lie down in calm repose.
This rest will be a safe one. It is one thing to lie down, but quite another "to lie down safely." We are brought to the land of promise, the house of the Father, the chamber of love, and the bosom of Christ: surely we may now "lie down safely." It is safer for a believer to lie down in peace than to sit up and worry.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." We never rest till the Comforter makes us lie down.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself.
Romans 14:7
We must all exert influence, whether we will or no ... You influence every man you touch by the way you look at him and speak to him, and all the time the influence you are exerting is welling up out of your actual self, and you cannot prevent it.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
When He heard that John was delivered up, He withdrew into Galilee.
Matthew 4:12
This is a statement revealing our Lord's courage rather than His caution. There are instances on record of how in hours of danger He moved out of the danger-zone. This is not one of them. Here He went into the danger-zone. The word "withdrew" simply means that He went. Galilee was the tetrarchy of Herod, who had imprisoned John. Into that region then, our Lord went to continue the ministry of the man thus silenced, and to begin His own more public propaganda. As another Herod had sought the young Child to destroy Him, so now this one, given over to evil courses, attempted to silence the troublesome voice which had denounced the sin of the court as sternly as the sin of the crowd. When Jesus heard it, He moved into the region of Herod's influence, and took up the message of His herald, and gave it more publicity and more power. Thus it has ever been, and still is. Evil may silence a voice, but it cannot prevent the proclamation of the Word. If John be imprisoned, Jesus takes up the message; and that means that it will be proclaimed with clarity, directness, and power, more arresting, disturbing, and prevailing. We need have no trembling of heart when evil seems for the moment to have gained an advantage, and to have triumphed over truth. It is Truth which is mighty, and God ever finds some new instrument through which it will proceed to yet greater victories.
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.