July 24 Daily Devotional

Monthly Theme:

By God’s Word and Spirit the world was made, and he uses the same tools to rebuild the creaking cosmos. God does not save some souls from the wreckage of the planet; instead, the whole groaning creation must be delivered from bondage by the love and power of God.

Bible Reading:

Mark 7:14–23

Bible Text:

Nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him "unclean".... What comes out of a man is what makes him "unclean" (Mark 7:18–20).

Devotional:

Ceremonies and rituals can endure for centuries. But once they've lost their meaning, they are senseless. Empty religious ceremonies feed people's superstition rather than their faith.

Ceremonies are common the world over. Pagan religions have intricate rituals, dances, and incantations. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all have ceremonies and traditions. Ancient cultures have rituals. But when people fail to see the point of a ritual, the ritual becomes strange, meaningless, even silly. Kneeling, incense burning, candle lighting, baptizing, closing eyes, and folding hands are meaningless if the shell of the ritual is all that's left. When such ceremonies fail to teach people, God is not impressed.

Jesus rocked the ceremonial structure of centuries with a single sentence: It's not what comes from the outside that defiles the inside; it's what's on the inside that defiles our lives.

God wants us clean and holy. He has stooped to our smallness and taught us this ever since the "kindergarten" of the Old Covenant. We should have learned it by now. What we need, desperately need, is not a new ritual or a deeper baptismal font. We need a new heart. We need a clean spirit. We need the Holy Spirit!

The issue remains the same: How can a holy God live with unholy people? But the remedy has now been revealed.

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published in 1994. This edition is copyright by Faith Alive Christian Resources, from whom may be ordered Daylight, the predecessor of Twilight.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this edition of Twilight are from the New International Version

Be sure to read the "Preface" and the "Acknowledgments" by the author.