Daily Bible Notes: March, 28th
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
The love of Christ which passeth knowledge.
Ephesians 3:19
The love of Christ in its sweetness, its fulness, its greatness, its faithfulness, passeth all human comprehension. Where shall language be found which shall describe His matchless, His unparalleled love towards the children of men? It is so vast and boundless that, as the swallow but skimmeth the water, and diveth not into its depths, so all descriptive words but touch the surface, while depths immeasurable lie beneath. Well might the poet say, "O love, thou fathomless abyss!" for this love of Christ is indeed measureless and fathomless; none can attain unto it. Before we can have any right idea of the love of Jesus, we must understand His previous glory in its height of majesty, and His incarnation upon the earth in all its depths of shame. But who can tell us the majesty of Christ? When He was enthroned in the highest heavens He was very God of very God; by Him were the heavens made, and all the hosts thereof. His own almighty arm upheld the spheres; the praises of cherubim and seraphim perpetually surrounded Him; the full chorus of the hallelujahs of the universe unceasingly flowed to the foot of his throne: He reigned supreme above all His creatures, God over all, blessed for ever.
Who can tell His height of glory then? And who, on the other hand, can tell how low He descended? To be a man was something, to be a man of sorrows was far more; to bleed, and die, and suffer, these were much for Him who was the Son of God; but to suffer such unparalleled agony - to endure a death of shame and desertion by His Father, this is a depth of condescending love which the most inspired mind must utterly fail to fathom. Herein is love! and truly it is love that "passeth knowledge." O let this love fill our hearts with adoring gratitude, and lead us to practical manifestations of its power.
Evening
I will accept you with your sweet savour.
Ezekiel 20:41
The merits of our great Redeemer are as sweet savour to the Most High.
Whether we speak of the active or passive righteousness of Christ, there is an equal fragrance. There was a sweet savour in His active life by which He honoured the law of God, and made every precept to glitter like a precious jewel in the pure setting of His own person. Such, too, was His passive obedience, when He endured with unmurmuring submission, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and at length sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked out the hair, and was fastened to the cruel wood, that He might suffer the wrath of God in our behalf. These two things are sweet before the Most High; and for the sake of His doing and His dying, His substitutionary sufferings and His vicarious obedience, the Lord our God accepts us. What a preciousness must there be in Him to overcome our want of preciousness! What a sweet savour to put away our ill savour!
What a cleansing power in His blood to take away sin such as ours! and what glory in His righteousness to make such unacceptable creatures to be accepted in the Beloved! Mark, believer, how sure and unchanging must be our acceptance, since it is in Him ! Take care that you never doubt your acceptance in Jesus. You cannot be accepted without Christ; but, when you have received His merit, you cannot be unaccepted. Notwithstanding all your doubts, and fears, and sins, Jehovah’s gracious eye never looks upon you in anger; though He sees sin in you, in yourself, yet when He looks at you through Christ, He sees no sin. You are always accepted in Christ, are always blessed and dear to the Father’s heart. Therefore lift up a song, and as you see the smoking incense of the merit of the Saviour coming up, this evening, before the sapphire throne, let the incense of your praise go up also.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Luke 23:13-24
13 Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people,
14 and said to them, "You brought this man to me as one that perverts the people, and behold, having examined him before you, I found no basis for a charge against this man concerning those things of which you accuse him.
15 Neither has Herod, for I sent you to him, and see, nothing worthy of death has been done by him.
16 I will therefore chastise him and release him."
17 Now he had to release one prisoner to them at the feast.
18 But they all cried out together, saying, "Away with this man! Release to us Barabbas!"-
19 one who was thrown into prison for a certain revolt in the city, and for murder.
20 Then Pilate spoke to them again, wanting to release Jesus,
21 but they shouted, saying, "Crucify! Crucify him!"
22 He said to them the third time, "Why? What evil has this man done? I have found no capital crime in him. I will therefore chastise him and release him."
23 But they were urgent with loud voices, asking that he might be crucified. Their voices and the voices of the chief priests prevailed.
24 Pilate decreed that what they asked for should be done.
THE CHOICE OF BARABBAS
Barabbas rather than Christ! The destroyer of life rather than the Giver of life! This was the choice of the people; and it is a choice which has often stained and defiled my own life.
When I choose revenge rather than forgiveness, I am preferring Barabbas to Christ. For revenge is a murderer, while forgiveness is a healer and saviour of men. But how often I have sent the sweet healer to the cross, and welcomed the murderer within my gate!
When I choose carnal passion before holiness, I am preferring Barabbas to Christ. For is there any murderer so destructive as carnality? And holiness stands waiting, ready to make me beautiful with the wondrous garments of grace. But I spurn the angel, and open my door to the beast.
The devil is always soliciting my service, and the devil "is a murderer from the beginning." Have I never preferred him, and sent my Lord to be "crucified afresh," and "put Him to an open shame"?
Again let me pray - for all my unholy and unwholesome choices, for all my preference of the murderer, forgive me, good Lord!
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
March 28th.
I would this morning remember any who are often forgotten! I pray for all the vagrants who wander about the country.
I pray for the gypsies who have no settled home. May they all find their rest in Thee!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
The Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail.
Deuteronomy 28:13
If we obey the Lord, he will compel our adversaries to see that his blessing rests upon us. Though this be a promise of the law, yet it stands good to the people of God; for Jesus has removed the curse, but he has established the blessing.
It is for saints to lead the way among men by holy influence: they are not to be the tail, to be dragged hither and thither by others. We must not yield to the spirit of the age, but compel the age to do homage to Christ. If the Lord be with us, we shall not crave toleration for religion, but we shall seek to seat it on the throne of society. Has not the Lord Jesus made his people priests? Surely they are to teach, and must not be learners from the philosophies of unbelievers. Are we not in Christ made kings to reign upon the earth? How, then, can we be the servants of custom, the slaves of human opinion?
Have you, dear friend, taken up your true position for Jesus? Too many are silent because diffident, if not cowardly. Should we allow the name of the Lord Jesus to be kept in the back-ground? Should our religion drag along as a tail? Should it not rather lead the way and be the ruling force with ourselves and others?
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Speak unto them all that I command thee.
Jeremiah 1:17
No man can be a messenger of the Master and the Church save as he is held in the right hand of Jesus and interprets, not his own idea concerning the Church's well-being, nor the Church's wish concerning its function, but the will of the Master.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
The love of Christ ... the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:19
Here are two great phrases. They occur in one of the Apostolic prayers for the saints. In that prayer the ultimate desire is that they should "know the love of Christ," in order that they "may be filled unto all the fullness of God." The idea, then, is that the knowledge of "the love of Christ" brings to the soul the experience of "the fullness of God." To be "filled unto all the fullness of God" is to find the ultimate experience of life. Where this is so, there is no true desire of the soul unsatisfied, no power of the soul undeveloped or idle. The true meaning of life is discovered, and that not as an ideal seen but unrealized, but as an actual experience. It is eternal life; it is perfection; it is satisfaction. How then can it be attained? By the knowledge of the love of Christ, for in that there is the very fullness of God; and so wonderful is it, not only as a vision, but in its power, that to know it is to be transformed by it into the likeness of itself. To the finality of this knowledge and experience we have not yet attained; but if we know anything of the love of Christ, we know something of the filling of this fullness of God. That is the story of the beginning, the process, and the consummation of true Christian experience. The love of Christ captures our hearts, and the life of God produces rest and quietness. The love of Christ is progressively interpreted to us by the Spirit, and the fullness of God brings us more and more into the joy of life. At last we shall come to full apprehension. Then we shall come to a final perfection in the final fullness of God.
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.