Daily Bible Notes: January, 23rd
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
I have exalted one chosen out of the people.
Psalm 89:19
Why was Christ chosen out of the people? Speak, my heart, for heart-thoughts are best. Was it not that He might be able to be our brother, in the blest tie of kindred blood? Oh, what relationship there is between Christ and the believer! The believer can say, "I have a Brother in heaven; I may be poor, but I have a Brother who is rich, and is a King, and will He suffer me to want while He is on His throne? Oh, no! He loves me; He is my Brother." Believer, wear this blessed thought, like a necklace of diamonds, around the neck of thy memory; put it, as a golden ring, on the finger of recollection, and use it as the King’s own seal, stamping the petitions of thy faith with confidence of success. He is a brother born for adversity, treat Him as such.
Christ was also chosen out of the people that He might know our wants and sympathize with us. "He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." In all our sorrows we have His sympathy. Temptation, pain, disappointment, weakness, weariness, poverty - He knows them all, for He has felt all. Remember this, Christian, and let it comfort thee. However difficult and painful thy road, it is marked by the footsteps of thy Saviour; and even when thou reachest the dark valley of the shadow of death, and the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, thou wilt find His footprints there.
In all places whithersoever we go, He has been our forerunner; each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel. "His way was much rougher and darker than mine Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?"
Take courage! Royal feet have left a blood-red track upon the road, and consecrated the thorny path for ever.
Evening
We will remember Thy love more than wine.
Song of Solomon 1:4
Jesus will not let His people forget His love. If all the love they have enjoyed should be forgotten, He will visit them with fresh love. "Do you forget my cross?" says He, "I will cause you to remember it; for at My table I will manifest Myself anew to you. Do you forget at I did for you in the council-chamber of eternity? I will remind you of it, for you shall need a counsellor, and shall find Me ready at your call." Mothers do not let their children forget them. If the boy has gone to Australia, and does not write home, his mother writes -"Has John forgotten his mother?" Then there comes back a sweet epistle, which proves that the gentle reminder was not in vain. So is it with Jesus, He says to us, "Remember Me," and our response is, "We will remember Thy love." We will remember Thy love and its matchless history. It is ancient as the glory which Thou hadst with the Father before the world was. We remember, O Jesus, Thine eternal love when Thou didst become our Surety, and espouse us as Thy betrothed. We remember the love which suggested the sacrifice of Thyself, the love which, until the fulness of time, mused over that sacrifice, and long for the hour whereof in the volume of the book it was written of Thee, "Lo, I come." We remember Thy love, O Jesus as it was manifest to us in Thy holy life, from the manger of Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemane. We track Thee from the cradle to the grave - for every word and deed of Thine was love - and we rejoice in Thy love, which death did not exhaust; Thy love which shone resplendent in Thy resurrection. We remember that burning fire of love which will never let Thee hold Thy peace until Thy chosen ones be all safely housed, until Zion be glorified, and Jerusalem settled on her everlasting foundations of light and love in heaven.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Genesis 4:3-15
3 As time passed, Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground.
4 Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his flock and of its fat. The LORD respected Abel and his offering,
5 but he didn't respect Cain and his offering. Cain was very angry, and the expression on his face fell.
6 The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why has the expression of your face fallen?
7 If you do well, won't it be lifted up? If you don't do well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it."
8 Cain said to Abel, his brother, "Let's go into the field." While they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.
9 The LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?" He said, "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
10 The LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground.
11 Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
12 From now on, when you till the ground, it won't yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth."
13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.
14 Behold, you have driven me out today from the surface of the ground. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth. Whoever finds me will kill me."
15 The LORD said to him, "Therefore whoever slays Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold." The LORD appointed a sign for Cain, so that anyone finding him would not strike him.
THE GIVER'S HAND
Cain and Abel both brought an offering unto the Lord, but one was accepted and the other rejected. It is the giver who determines the worth or the worthlessness of the gift. God looks not at the gift, but at the hand that brings it. "Your hands are full of blood!" "Your hands are unclean!" The Lord demands "clean hands." He will not have our compliments if there is defilement behind them. Our courtesies are rejected if iniquity attends them. The shining gloss on the linen is an offence if the dirt looks through! Who cares for food if presented by unclean hands? "Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord!"
Every gift is welcome to the Lord if offered with clean hands. A mite, or a cup of cold water, or our daily labour, or the first-fruits of garden or field - all receive the blessing of our God if the hands that bring them are free from defilement. So is it with everything we offer to the Lord. A song of praise makes sweet music in the hearing of our God if it come from pure lips! Purity, as Thomas a' Kempis says, gives the wings which carry everything into the Father's presence.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
January 23rd.
O Lord my God, I would hunger for Thee as for the bread of life! Create within me a keen appetite for the things of God. If I
am reluctant about the matters of the kingdom, intensify my desire. Kindle my zeal. May I awake to righteousness, and sin not!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
Leviticus 1:4
If by that laying on of his hand the bullock became the offerer's sacrifice, how much more shall Jesus become ours by the laying on of the hand of faith?
- "My faith doth lay her hand
On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin."
If a bullock could be accepted for him to make atonement for him, how much more shall the Lord Jesus be our full and all-sufficient propitiation? Some quarrel with the great truth of substitution; but as for us, it is our hope, our joy, our boast, our all. Jesus is accepted for us to make atonement for us, and we are "accepted in the Beloved."
Let the reader take care at once to lay his hand on the Lord's completed sacrifice, that by accepting it he may obtain the benefit of it. If he has done so once, let him do it again. If he has never done so, let him put out his hand without a moment's delay. Jesus is yours now if you will have him. Lean on him; lean hard on him; and he is yours beyond all question; you are reconciled to God, your sins are blotted out, and you are the Lord's.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Romans 6:14
If you cannot be a Christian where you are, you cannot be a Christian anywhere. It is not place, but grace.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Woe unto you.
Matthew 23:13
These are strangely solemn words, and the more so when we remember that they were the words of One Whose heart is full of all tenderness, and Whose love for men is unfathomable. Yet here they are, and seven times repeated. In six cases the reason for the woe is revealed by the use of the word "hypocrites," and once by the words "blind guides." No amount of argument can rob these words of their terrible import. They stand upon the page for evermore speaking to us of "the wrath of the Lamb." The full context clearly discloses to us the reason of that wrath. It proceeds against those who are wronging men by misrepresenting God. In their teaching these Scribes and Pharisees had removed the emphasis from all the essential things of the soul, and had placed it upon trivialities. They had made the religious life a burden with no moral or spiritual value, when it should be the strength of all these things. For wrong done to men, and so to God, these men were denounced. Thus the very heat of the anger of the Lord is that of His perfect love. How little men know of the depth of that love who imagine that wrath has no place in the mind or will of God. These woes stand over against the beatitudes at the opening of the Manifesto of the King, which reveal His purpose for man. They declare the result of preventing the realization of that purpose; and they were uttered against men who, by virtue of the office they held, were responsible for interpreting to men the Kingdom of God, and who by their hypocrisy were hiding that Kingdom.
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.