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September 23 Daily Devotional

Morning and Evening

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1–2).

Bible Reading

1 John 2:28–3:3

Devotional

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us.” Consider who you were, and what you feel yourself to be even now when corruption is still powerful in you, and you will wonder at your adoption. Yet we are called “children of God.” What a high relationship is that of a child! What privileges it brings! What care and tenderness the child expects from his father! And what love the father feels towards the child! But all that, and more than that, we now have through Christ.

As for the temporary drawback of suffering with the elder brother, this we accept as an honour: “The reason the world does not know us is that it did know him.” We are content to be unknown with him in his humiliation, for we are to be exalted with him.

“Dear friends, now we are children of God.” That is easy to read, but it is not so easy to feel. How is it with your heart this morning? Are you in the lowest depths of sorrow? Does corruption rise within your spirit, and grace seem like a poor spark trampled underfoot? Does your faith almost fail you? Fear not, it is neither your graces nor feelings on which you are to live: you must live simply by faith on Christ.

With all these things against us, now—in the very depths of our sorrow, wherever we may be—now, as much in the valley as on the mountain, “Dear friends, now we are children of God.” “Ah, but,” you say, “look at me! My graces are not bright, and my righteousness does not shine with apparent glory.” But read the next: “what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him.” The Holy Spirit shall purify our minds and refine our bodies; then “we shall see him as he is”.

[February 13, morning]

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

 

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