September 21 Daily Devotional

Morning and Evening

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

Bible Reading

2 Peter 3:14–18

Devotional

“Grow in grace”—not in one grace only, but in all grace. Grow in that root-grace, faith. Trust God’s promises more firmly than you have done. Let your faith increase in fullness, consistency, simplicity.

Grow also in love. Ask that your love may become more spread out, more intense, more practical, influencing every thought, word, and deed.

Grow likewise in humility. Seek to lie very low and to know more of your own nothingness.

As you grow downward in humility, seek also to grow upward in intimacy—having nearer approaches to God in prayer and more intimate fellowship with Jesus.

May God the Holy Spirit enable you to “grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour.” Anyone who will not grow in the knowledge of Jesus, refuses to be blessed. To know him is “eternal life,” and to advance in knowing him is to increase in happiness.

Anyone who does not long to know more of Christ, knows nothing of him yet. Whoever has sipped this wine will thirst for even more. Why? Because even though Christ does satisfy, yet it is such a satisfaction that never gluts the appetite, but always whets it. If you know the love of Jesus, then as the hart pants for the water-brooks, so also will you pant after deeper drinks of his love. If you do not desire to know him better, then you do not love him, for love always cries, “Nearer, nearer.” Absence from Jesus is hell; but the presence of Jesus is heaven.

Do not rest content, then, without a growing acquaintance with Jesus. Seek to know more of him in his divine nature, in his human relationship, in his finished work, in his death, in his resurrection, in his present glorious intercession, and in his future royal advent. Live close to the Cross, and search the mystery of his wounds.

An increase of love to Jesus, and a more perfect grasp of his love to us, is one of the best tests of growth in grace.

[January 4, morning]

Extracted from C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (public domain), language modernized by Larry E. Wilson.