Daily Bible Notes: May, 6th
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
We dwell in Him.
1 John 4:13
Do you want a house for your soul? Do you ask, "What is the purchase?"
It is something less than proud human nature will like to give. It is without money and without price. Ah! you would like to pay a respectable rent!
You would love to do something to win Christ? Then you cannot have the house, for it is "without price." Will you take my Master’s house on a lease for all eternity, with nothing to pay for it, nothing but the ground-rent of loving and serving Him for ever? Will you take Jesus and "dwell in Him?" See, this house is furnished with all you want, it is filled with riches more than you will spend as long as you live. Here you can have intimate communion with Christ and feast on His love; here are tables well-stored with food for you to live on for ever; in it, when weary, you can find rest with Jesus; and from it you can look out and see heaven itself.
Will you have the house? Ah! if you are houseless, you will say, "I should like to have the house; but may I have it?" Yes; there is the key - the key is, "Come to Jesus." "But," you say, "I am too shabby for such a house."
Never mind; there are garments inside. If you feel guilty and condemned, come; and though the house is too good for you, Christ will make you good enough for the house by-and-by. He will wash you and cleanse you, and you will yet be able to sing, "We dwell in Him." Believer: thrice happy art thou to have such a dwelling-place! Greatly privileged thou art, for thou hast a "strong habitation" in which thou art ever safe. And "dwelling in Him," thou hast not only a perfect and secure house, but an everlasting one. When this world shall have melted like a dream, our house shall live, and stand more imperishable than marble, more solid than granite, self-existent as God, for it is God Himself -"We dwell in Him."
Evening
All the days of my appointed time will I wait.
Job 14:14
A little stay on earth will make heaven more heavenly . Nothing makes rest so sweet as toil; nothing renders security so pleasant as exposure to alarms. The bitter quassia cups of earth will give a relish to the new wine which sparkles in the golden bowls of glory. Our battered armour and scarred countenances will render more illustrious our victory above, when we are welcomed to the seats of those who have overcome the world. We should not have full fellowship with Christ if we did not for awhile sojourn below, for He was baptized with a baptism of suffering among men, and we must be baptized with the same if we would share his kingdom.
Fellowship with Christ is so honourable that the sorest sorrow is a light price by which to procure it. Another reason for our lingering here is for the good of others . We would not wish to enter heaven till our work is done, and it may be that we are yet ordained to minister light to souls benighted in the wilderness of sin. Our prolonged stay here is doubtless for God’s glory . A tried saint, like a well-cut diamond, glitters much in the King’s crown. Nothing reflects so much honour on a workman as a protracted and severe trial of his work, and its triumphant endurance of the ordeal without giving way in any part. We are God’s workmanship, in whom He will be glorified by our afflictions. It is for the honour of Jesus that we endure the trial of our faith with sacred joy. Let each man surrender his own longings to the glory of Jesus, and feel, "If my lying in the dust would elevate my Lord by so much as an inch, let me still lie among the pots of earth. If to live on earth for ever would make my Lord more glorious, it should be my heaven to be shut out of heaven." Our time is fixed and settled by eternal decree. Let us not be anxious about it, but wait with patience till the gates of pearl shall open.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
1 John 4:11-21
11 Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Saviour of the world.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.
16 We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17 In this love has been made perfect amongst us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgement, because as he is, even so we are in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love him, because he first loved us.
20 If a man says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn't love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
21 This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.
THE PERFECTING OF LOVE
"Herein is our love made perfect."
How? By dwelling in God and God in us. Love is not a manufacture; it is a fruit. It is not born of certain works; it springs out of certain relations. It does not come from doing something; it comes from living with Somebody. "Abide in Me." That is how love is born, for "love is of God, and God is love."
How many people are striving who are not abiding. They live in a manufactory, they do not live in a home. They are trying to make something instead of to know Somebody. "This is life, to know Thee." When I am related to the Lord Jesus, when I dwell with Him, love is as surely born as beauty and fragrance are born when my garden and the spring-time dwell together. If we would only wisely cultivate the fellowship of Jesus, everything else would follow in its train - all that gracious succession of beautiful things which are called "the fruits of the Spirit."
And "herein is our love made perfect." It is always growing richer, because it is always drawing riches from the inexhaustible love of God. How could it be otherwise? Endless resource must mean endless growth. "Our life is hid with Christ in God," and hence our love will "grow in all wisdom and discernment."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
May 6th.
My gracious Redeemer, wilt Thou gather up the fragments of my time? Regard my bits of goodness with pity. Forgive my
broken vows. Forgive unfinished work. Let goodness and mercy follow me!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation
shall not be cut off.
Proverbs 23:17, 18
When we see the wicked prosper we are apt to envy them. When we hear the noise of their mirth, and our own spirit is heavy, we half think that they have the best of it. This is foolish and sinful. If we knew them better, and specially if we remembered their end, we should pity them.
The cure for envy lies in living under a constant sense of the divine presence, worshipping God and communing with him all the day long, however long the day may seem. True religion lifts the soul into a higher region, where the judgment becomes more clear, and the desires are more elevated. The more of heaven there is in our lives, the less of earth we shall covet. The fear of God casts out envy of men.
The death-blow of envy is a calm consideration of the future. The wealth and glory of the ungodly are a vain show. This pompous appearance flashes out for an hour, and then is extinguished. What is the prosperous sinner the better for his prosperity when judgment overtakes him? As for the godly man, his end is peace and blessedness, and none can rob him of his joy; wherefore, let him forego envy, and be filled with sweet content.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
Psalm 19:2
The Bible itself does not exhaust Him, and in every successive age He creates new records of His grace in the experiences of trusting souls. He is able to do this in you and for you ... for He is the exhaustless One.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding.
Philippians 4:7
There are three great phrases in which peace and God are brought together. They are "Peace from God,' "Peace with God," and "Peace of God." They are all the result of a truth enshrined in another, "the God of peace." The first, Paul constantly employed in the introduction to his letters. It reminds us that our peace comes to us a gift from God. The second describes the relationship into which we are brought with God, through Christ Jesus. The third refers to the peace which is the experience of God Himself, because of what He is in Himself, the God of peace. At once it admits us to a realm which this particular passage indicates. The peace of God is beyond "all mind"; that is, beyond our power of thinking. That means two things: first, that the peace of God is so wonderful that we are not able fully to apprehend it; but second, it means that the peace of God, being the result of the wisdom and might of God, is far more wonderful than any cleverness of our own. That is the main value of the whole declaration of which this phrase is a part. It is that peace which will guard, as with a garrison of defence, our hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus. If we by our own cleverness attempt to guard our hearts and thoughts, we shall fail. The forces opposed are too strong for us. They will break through upon us. They can never do so, as we are guarded in "the peace 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.