February 12 Daily Devotional

You will find your marching orders here

Why should we study [the Sermon on the Mount]? Why should we try to live it? ... The Lord Jesus Christ died to enable us to live the Sermon on the Mount...; He has made this possible for me.

The second reason for studying it is that nothing shows me the absolute need of the new birth, and of the Holy Spirit and His work within, so much.... These Beatitudes crush me to the ground. They show me my utter helplessness. Were it not for the new birth, I am undone. Read and study it; face yourself in the light of it. It will drive you to see your ultimate need of the rebirth and the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit....

Another reason is this. The more we live and try to practice this Sermon on the Mount, the more shall we experience blessing. Look at the blessings that are promised to those who do practice it. The trouble with much holiness teaching is that it leaves out the Sermon on the Mount and asks us to experience sanctification. That is not the biblical method.

If you want to have power in your life and to be blessed, go straight to the Sermon on the Mount. Live and practice it and give yourself to it, and as you do so the promised blessings will come. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."

If you want to be filled, don't seek some mystic blessing; don't rush to meetings hoping you will get it. Face the Sermon on the Mount and its implications and demands, see your utter need, and then you will get it. It is the direct road to blessing.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, p. 18

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”

Comments on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, A First Book of Daily Readings

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