Daily Bible Notes: November, 29th
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
Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people … Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.
Leviticus 19:16,
Tale-bearing emits a threefold poison; for it injures the teller, the hearer, and the person concerning whom the tale is told. Whether the report be true or false, we are by this precept of God’s Word forbidden to spread it.
The reputations of the Lord’s people should be very precious in our sight, and we should count it shame to help the devil to dishonour the Church and the name of the Lord. Some tongues need a bridle rather than a spur.
Many glory in pulling down their brethren, as if thereby they raised themselves. Noah’s wise sons cast a mantle over their father, and he who exposed him earned a fearful curse. We may ourselves one of these dark days need forbearance and silence from our brethren, let us render it cheerfully to those who require it now. Be this our family rule, and our personal bond - SPEAK EVIL OF NO MAN.
The Holy Spirit, however, permits us to censure sin, and prescribes the way in which we are to do it. It must be done by rebuking our brother to his face, not by railing behind his back. This course is manly, brotherly, Christlike, and under God’s blessing will be useful. Does the flesh shrink from it? Then we must lay the greater stress upon our conscience, and keep ourselves to the work, lest by suffering sin upon our friend we become ourselves partakers of it. Hundreds have been saved from gross sins by the timely, wise, affectionate warnings of faithful ministers and brethren. Our Lord Jesus has set us a gracious example of how to deal with erring friends in His warning given to Peter, the prayer with which He preceded it, and the gentle way in which He bore with Peter’s boastful denial that he needed such a caution.
Evening
Spices for anointing oil.
Exodus 35:8
Much use was made of this anointing oil under the law, and that which it represents is of primary importance under the gospel. The Holy Spirit, who anoints us for all holy service, is indispensable to us if we would serve the Lord acceptably. Without His aid our religious services are but a vain oblation, and our inward experience is a dead thing. Whenever our ministry is without unction, what miserable stuff it becomes! nor are the prayers, praises, meditations, and efforts of private Christians one jot superior. A holy anointing is the soul and life of piety, its absence the most grievous of all calamities. To go before the Lord without anointing is as though some common Levite had thrust himself into the priest’s office - his ministrations would rather have been sins than services. May we never venture upon hallowed exercises without sacred anointings. They drop upon us from our glorious Head; from His anointing we who are as the skirts of His garments partake of a plenteous unction. Choice spices were compounded with rarest art of the apothecary to form the anointing oil, to show forth to us how rich are all the influences of the Holy Spirit.
All good things are found in the divine Comforter. Matchless consolation, infallible instruction, immortal quickening, spiritual energy, and divine sanctification all lie compounded with other excellencies in that sacred eye-slave, the heavenly anointing oil of the Holy Spirit. It imparts a delightful fragrance to the character and person of the man upon whom it is poured. Nothing like it can be found in all the treasuries of the rich, or the secrets of the wise. It is not to be imitated. It comes alone from God, and it is freely given, through Jesus Christ, to every waiting soul. Let us seek it, for we may have it, may have it this very evening. O Lord, anoint Thy servants.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Matthew 5:38-48
38 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'
39 But I tell you, don't resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.
41 Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.
42 Give to him who asks you, and don't turn away him who desires to borrow from you.
43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.'
44 But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you,
45 that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't even the tax collectors do the same?
47 If you only greet your friends, what more do you do than others? Don't even the tax collectors do the same?
48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
TRANSFORMING OUR FOES
"Love your enemies."
It must be the aim of a Christian to make his enemy lovely. It is not my supreme business to secure my safety, but to remove his ugliness. He may only annoy me, but he is destroying himself. He may injure my reputation; but far worse, he is blighting his own character. Therefore must I seek to remove the greater thing, the corrosive malady in his own soul. I must make it my purpose to recover his loveliness, and restore the lost likeness of the Lord.
And only love can make things lovely. Revenge can never do it. Even duty will fail in the gracious work. There is a final touch, a consummate bloom, to which duty can never attain, and which is only attainable by love. All love's ministries are creative of loveliness. Wherever her finger rests, something exquisite is born. Love is a great magician: she transforms the desert into a garden, and she makes the wilderness blossom like the rose.
But where shall we get the love wherewith to make our enemy lovely? From the great Lover Himself. "We love, because He first loved us." The great Lover will love love into us! And we, too, shall become fountains of love, for our Lord will open "rivers in the high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
November 29th.
My Father God, may I sit at Thy feet to-day, and listen with attentive ears to every sound of Thy voice!
Open mine ears that I may discern wondrous things out of Thy Word. May I hear Thy high calling in Jesus Christ Thy Son!
May I hear the voice of the Highest!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
He that believeth shall not make haste.
Isaiah 28:16
He shall make haste to keep the Lord's commandments; but he shall not make haste in any impatient or improper sense.
He shall not haste to run away, for he shall not be overcome with the fear which causes panic. When others are flying hither and thither as if their wits had failed them, the believer shall be quiet, calm, and deliberate, and so shall be able to act wisely in the hour of trial.
He shall not haste in his expectations, craving his good things at once and on the spot; but he will wait God's time. Some are in a desperate hurry to have the bird in the hand; for they regard the Lord's promise as a bird in the bush, not likely to be theirs. Believers know how to wait.
He shall not haste by plunging into wrong or questionable action. Unbelief must be doing something, and thus it works its own undoing; but faith makes no more haste than good speed, and thus it is not forced to go back sorrowfully by the way which it followed heedlessly.
How is it with me? Am I believing, and am I therefore keeping to the believer's pace, which is walking with God? Peace, fluttering spirit! Oh, rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him! Heart, see that thou do this at once!
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Without me ye can do nothing.
John 15:5
Christianity has never become, nor can it become, independent of the Person of Jesus the Christ ... It began with Christ. It has continued through Him. It must stand or fall with Him.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
If a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.
1 Peter 4:16
This is one of the very few places in the New Testament where this description of believers is employed. There are only three. In the first, we are told where it originated: "The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch" (Acts 11:26). It would seem that it was given to them by the men of Antioch, and it was not necessarily a term of reproach, but one used to mark the fact that they were followers of Christ. The second is where Agrippa said to Paul, "With but little persuasion thou wouldst fain make me a Christian" (Acts 26:28). This shows that by this time it had probably become a general term. The third and last time is here, where Peter employed it in a sense that shows that in some cases it brought suffering to be known as a Christian. The Apostle says two things in view of that fact. The first is that no shame is attached to such suffering. As he wrote this he was probably remembering the time when he and his fellow-apostles left the council of the Jews, in actual physical agony from the stripes which had been laid on them, but rejoicing "that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the Name" (Acts 5:41). The second word is an injunction: "Let him glorify God in this name." That is more than glorying in the name. It is so living worthily of all it means as to glorify God. If a man is known as a Christian, and does not live as one, he dishonours God. To bear the name is to take a responsibility, a great and glorious one, but none the less a very solemn one.
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.