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April 13 Daily Devotional

A First Book of Daily Readings

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)

Don't mortgage the future

[Jesus] asks ... Why do you allow yourself to be worried thus about the future? "The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." If the present is bad enough as it is, why go to meet the future? To go on from day to day is enough in and of itself; be content with that....

Worry about the future is so utterly futile and useless; it achieves nothing at all ; ... worry is never of any value at all. This is seen with particular clarity as you come to face the future. Apart from anything else, it is a pure waste of energy because however much you worry, you cannot do any­thing about it. In any case its threatened catastrophes are imaginary; they are not certain, they may never happen at all....

But above all that, says our Lord, can you not see that ... you are mortgaging the future by worrying about it in the present? Indeed, the result of worrying about the future is that you are crippling yourself in the present; you are lessening your efficiency with regard to today; ... worry is something that is due to an entire failure to understand the nature of life in this world.... Man has to labor and must meet trials and troubles....

The great question is, how are we to face them? According to our Lord, the vital thing is not to spend every day of your life in adding up the grand total of everything that is ever likely to happen to you in the whole of your life in this world. If you do that, it will crush you. That is not the way.

Rather, you must think of it like this. There is, as it were, a daily quota of problems and difficulties in life. Every day has its problems; some of them are constant from day to day; some of them vary. But the great thing to do is to realize that every day must be lived in and of itself.... Here is the quota for today. Very well; we must face that and meet it, and He has already told us how to do so.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, pp. 149-50



“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

"These gems of evangelical truth, biblically based, help the reader to understand this world in the light of the Word." —Church Herald

"Christ-honoring, thought-provoking discussions" —Presbyterian Journal

"Few daily devotional books offer as much substantial insight as this one." —Christian Bookseller

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