Daily Bible Notes: January, 26th
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
Your heavenly Father.
Matthew 6:26
God’s people are doubly His children, they are His offspring by creation, and they are His sons by adoption in Christ. Hence they are privileged to call Him, "Our Father which art in heaven." Father! Oh, what precious word is that. Here is authority : "If I be a Father, where is mine honour?" If ye be sons, where is your obedience? Here is affection mingled with authority; an authority which does not provoke rebellion; an obedience demanded which is most cheerfully rendered - which would not be withheld even if it might. The obedience which God’s children yield to Him must be loving obedience. Do not go about the service of God as slaves to their taskmaster’s toil, but run in the way of His commands because it is your Father’s way. Yield your bodies as instruments of righteousness, because righteousness is your Father’s will, and His will should be the will of His child. Father ! - Here is a kingly attribute so sweetly veiled in love, that the King’s crown is forgotten in the King’s face, and His sceptre becomes, not a rod of iron, but a silver sceptre of mercy - the sceptre indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of Him who wields it. Father! - Here is honour and love. How great is a Father’s love to his children! That which friendship cannot do, and mere benevolence will not attempt, a father’s heart and hand must do for his sons. They are his offspring, he must bless them; they are his children, he must show himself strong in their defence. If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father? Abba, Father! He who can say this, hath uttered better music than cherubim or seraphim can reach. There is heaven in the depth of that word - Father! There is all I can ask; all my necessities can demand; all my wishes can desire. I have all in all to all eternity when I can say, "Father."
Evening
All they that heard it wondered at those things.
Luke 2:18
We must not cease to wonder at the great marvels of our God. It would be very difficult to draw a line between holy wonder and real worship ; for when the soul is overwhelmed with the majesty of God’s glory, though it may not express itself in song, or even utter its voice with bowed head in humble prayer, yet it silently adores. Our incarnate God is to be worshipped as "the Wonderful." That God should consider His fallen creature, man, and instead of sweeping him away with the besom of destruction, should Himself undertake to be man’s Redeemer, and to pay his ransom price, is, indeed marvellous! But to each believer redemption is most marvellous as he views it in relation to himself. It is a miracle of grace indeed, that Jesus should forsake the thrones and royalties above, to suffer ignominiously below for you. Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder is in this way a very practical emotion. Holy wonder will lead you to grateful worship and heartfelt thanksgiving. It will cause within you godly watchfulness ; you will be afraid to sin against such a love as this.
Feeling the presence of the mighty God in the gift of His dear Son, you will put off your shoes from off your feet, because the place whereon you stand is holy ground. You will be moved at the same time to glorious hope.
If Jesus has done such marvellous things on your behalf, you will feel that heaven itself is not too great for your expectation. Who can be astonished at anything, when he has once been astonished at the manger and the cross? What is there wonderful left after one has seen the Saviour? Dear reader, it may be that from the quietness and solitariness of your life, you are scarcely able to imitate the shepherds of Bethlehem, who told what they had seen and heard, but you can, at least, fill up the circle of the worshippers before the throne, by wondering at what God has done.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
James 3:13-18
13 Who is wise and understanding amongst you? Let him show by his good conduct that his deeds are done in gentleness of wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't boast and don't lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic.
16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
THE FIRE OF ENVY
"Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work!"
In Milton's "Comus" we read of a certain potion which has the power to pervert all the senses of everyone who drinks it. Nothing is apprehended truly. Sight and hearing and taste are all disordered, and the victim is all unconscious of the confusion. The deadly draught is the minister of deceptive chaos.
And envy is like that potion when it is drunk by the spirit. It perverts every moral and spiritual sense. The envious is more fatally stricken than the blind. He gazes upon untruth and thinks it true. He looks upon confusion and thinks it order. Envy is colour-blind. It is like jealousy, of which it is a blood-relation. It never sees anything in its natural hues. It misinterprets everything.
No one can quench the unholy fire of envy but the mighty God Himself. It is like a prairie fire: once kindled it is beyond our power to stamp it out. But God's coolness is more than a match for all our feverish heat. His quenchings are transformations. He converts the perverted and changes envy into goodwill. The bitter pool is made sweet. For confusion He gives order, for ashes He gives beauty, and in the face of an old enemy we see the countenance of a friend.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
January 26th.
My Saviour, may I be one of Thy true disciples! May I not desert Thee on the dark and cloudy day! May I be willing to bear my
cross and not seek the way of ease! May Calvary not turn me aside! May I be willing to be crucified!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel." Numbers 23:23
How this should cut up root and branch all silly, superstitious fears! Even if there were any truth in witchcraft and omens, they could not affect the people of the Lord. Those whom God blesses devils cannot curse.
Ungodly men, like Balaam, may cunningly plot the overthrow of the Lord's Israel; but with all their secrecy and policy they are doomed to fail. Their powder is damp, the edge of their sword is blunted. They gather together; but as the Lord is not with them, they gather together in vain. We may sit still, and let them weave their nets, for we shall not be taken in them. Though they call in the aid of Beelzebub, and employ all his serpentine craft, it will avail them nothing: the spells will not work, the divination will deceive them. What a blessing this is! How it quiets the heart! God's Jacobs wrestle with God, but none shall wrestle with them and prevail. God's Israels have power with God and prevail, but none shall have power to prevail against them. We need not fear the fiend himself, nor any of those secret enemies whose words are full of deceit, and whose plans are deep and unfathomable. They cannot hurt those who trust in the living God. We defy the devil and all his legions.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exodus 23:3
Every man needs a god. There is no man who has not, somewhere in his heart, in his life, in the essentials of his being, a shrine in which is a deity whom he worships.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
When they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the mount of Olives.
Matthew 26:30
These words, interpreted by a reverent imagination, present one of the most wonderful pictures. Twelve men are seen singing. The company is composed of One, and eleven. The circumstances, judged by human standards, can only be described as tragic. The eleven are losing the One. He is going out to bruising, to buffeting, to a death of shame. And yet they sing, and it is impossible to doubt that He led the singing. We shall be helped in considering the wonder if we glance at Psalms 113 to 118. These constituted the Great Hallel which was always sung at the Passover. All that had been fore-shadowed in that Feast was now approaching completion, and this company of eleven were permitted to join Him, the Paschal Lamb by God appointed, in singing. If we are amazed at a song in so dark an hour, we also see its fitness and its glory. If they thought they were losing Him, it was not so in the counsel of God. He was pining them, that so they might gain Him, in a sense in which they had never possessed Him. He was going forth to bruise the head of the Serpent, to put to shame all the evil things that had destroyed men. He was passing in travail to the final triumph. No sweeter singing, no mightier music ever sounded amid the darkness of the sad world's night than the singing of Jesus and His first disciples, as He moved out to the Cross of His Passion, and their redemption. They sang the anthem of humanity's emancipation and of God's glory. And so persistently, through all the ages, those who have fellowship with His suffering march along the sorrowful way, singing the song of the final triumph!
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.