Daily Bible Notes: November, 8th
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
As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord.
Colossians 2:6
The life of faith is represented as receiving - an act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit . It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells, or streams, they are but cisterns into which the living water flows; they are empty vessels into which God pours His salvation. The idea of receiving implies a sense of realization , making the matter a reality . One cannot very well receive a shadow; we receive that which is substantial: so is it in the life of faith, Christ becomes real to us. While we are without faith, Jesus is a mere name to us - a person who lived a long while ago, so long ago that His life is only a history to us now! By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. But receiving also means grasping or getting possession of . The thing which I receive becomes my own: I appropriate to myself that which is given. When I receive Jesus, He becomes my Saviour, so mine that neither life nor death shall be able to rob me of Him.
All this is to receive Christ - to take Him as God’s free gift; to realize Him in my heart, and to appropriate Him as mine.
Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received CHRIST JESUS Himself. It is true that He gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; He gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ Himself . The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received Him, and appropriated Him. What a heartful Jesus must be, for heaven itself cannot contain Him!
Evening
The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with My disciples?
Mark 14:14
Jerusalem at the time of the passover was one great inn; each householder had invited his own friends, but no one had invited the Saviour, and He had no dwelling of His own. It was by His own supernatural power that He found Himself an upper room in which to keep the feast. It is so even to this day - Jesus is not received among the sons of men save only where by His supernatural power and grace He makes the heart anew. All doors are open enough to the prince of darkness, but Jesus must clear a way for Himself or lodge in the streets. It was through the mysterious power exerted by our Lord that the householder raised no question, but at once cheerfully and joyfully opened his guestchamber. Who he was, and what he was, we do not know, but he readily accepted the honour which the Redeemer proposed to confer upon him. In like manner it is still discovered who are the Lord’s chosen, and who are not; for when the gospel comes to some, they fight against it, and will not have it, but where men receive it, welcoming it, this is a sure indication that there is a secret work going on in the soul, and that God has chosen them unto eternal life.
Are you willing, dear reader, to receive Christ? then there is no difficulty in the way; Christ will be your guest; His own power is working with you, making you willing. What an honour to entertain the Son of God! The heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, and yet He condescends to find a house within our hearts! We are not worthy that He should come under our roof, but what an unutterable privilege when He condescends to enter! for then He makes a feast, and causes us to feast with Him upon royal dainties, we sit at a banquet where the viands are immortal, and give immortality to those who feed thereon. Blessed among the sons of Adam is he who entertains the angels’ Lord.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
1 Corinthians 2:9-16
9 But as it is written, "Things which an eye didn't see, and an ear didn't hear, which didn't enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him."
10 But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
11 For who amongst men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God's Spirit.
12 But we received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
13 We also speak these things, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
14 Now the natural man doesn't receive the things of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can't know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.
16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?" But we have Christ's mind.
THE ORGAN OF SPIRITUAL VISION
Our finest human instruments fail to obtain for us "the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him."
Art fails! "Eye hath not seen." The merely artistic vision is blind to the hidden glories of grace. Philosophy fails! "Neither hath ear heard." We may listen to the philosopher as he spins his subtle theories and weaves his systematic webs, but the meshes he has woven are not fine enough to catch "the deep things of God." Poetry fails! "Neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." Poetic imagination may stretch her wings, and soar, but she fails to enter the guest-chamber of the Lord, and take an inventory of "the things prepared." All these gracious ministries fail to reach life's glorious and purposed end.
"But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." When art, and poetry, and philosophy all pitiably fail, the Spirit unveils to us the bewildering feast. And so the unlearned has the same ultimate advantage as the learned, and the cottager has equal privilege with the monarch. The greatest things are not the perquisites of culture, but the endowments of humility and holy faith. The poor man has access to the "many mansions," and finds a place at the King's feast.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
November 8th.
My Father, I thank Thee for the power to think. May I not abuse the mighty gift! May my very thinking be a sacrifice!
May a sympathetic ministry begin in my mind! May my thought be an apostle of the Christ! May all my thoughts wear the white robes!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9
Our weakness should be prized as making room for divine strength. We might never have known the power of grace if we had not felt the weakness of nature. Blessed be the Lord for the thorn in the flesh, and the messenger of Satan, when they drive us to the strength of God.
This is a precious word from our Lord's own lip. It has made the writer laugh for joy. God's grace enough for me! I should think it is. Is not the sky enough for the bird, and the ocean enough for the fish? The All-sufficient is sufficient for my largest want. He who is sufficient for earth and heaven is certainly able to meet the case of one poor worm like me.
Let us, then, fall back upon our God and his grace. If he does not remove our grief he will enable us to bear it. His strength shall be poured into us till the worm shall thresh the mountains; and a nothing shall be victor over all the high and mighty ones. It is better for us to have God's strength than our own; for if we were a thousand times as strong as we are, it would all amount to nothing in the face of the enemy; and if we could be weaker than we are, which is scarcely possible, yet we could do all things through Christ.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well.
Isaiah 1:16,17
To exert a destructive influence is the most terrible sin that is possible to any man. No man has any right to perpetuate evil.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1 John 2:15
Frederick Maurice said of this text: "St. John is never afraid of an apparent contradiction, when it saves his readers from a real contradiction." The importance of remembering this, is recognized when we place these words, by the side of those with which we so constantly comfort and assure our hearts, that "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." It is always necessary to distinguish clearly what the term "the world" connotes in the particular sentence in which it is used. The world which God so loved as to give His only-begotten Son, is the whole order of His creation, at the summit of which, under Himself, is man. He gave His Son to redeem and reinstate man; and through him, thus redeemed and reinstated, to redeem and reinstate the whole creation. The world which we are not to love, is that same totality which to use a later statement of John, "lieth in the wicked one" (1 John 5:19). When that is recognized, this statement is seen to be, not a contradiction to the one we have quoted, but in strict harmony with it. To love this world as it is, alienated from God, and in rebellion against His government, is impossible to the man who loves it with the love of the Father, which is a love that seeks its highest good, and therefore can make no terms with evil, but is willing to die in order that it may live. Herein is the radical difference between the man of the world and the child 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.