September 28 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

2 Corinthians 5:17–21

Devotional

O mourning Christian, why do you weep? Are you mourning over your own sinful deeds and desires? Keep looking to your perfect Lord, and keep remembering that you are complete through your union with Christ (Col. 2:10). With Jesus as your Saviour, then in God’s sight you are just as perfect as if you had never sinned! No, even more than that, the Lord our Righteousness has counted Jesus Christ’s perfect deeds and desires to be yours, so that you have even more than the righteousness of man—you have the righteousness of God!

O you who are mourning on account of inbred sin and depravity—remember, not a single one of your sins can condemn you. You have learned to hate sin, yes. But you have also learned to know that sin is no longer yours—God laid it upon Christ’s head. Your standing is not in yourself—it is in Christ. Your acceptance is not in yourself—it is in your Lord. You are just as much accepted by God today, with all your sinfulness, as you will be when you stand before his throne, free from all corruption.

Please, oh please, take hold of this precious thought—perfection in Christ! For you are complete through your union with Christ (Col. 2:10). With the robe of your Saviour’s righteousness that God has put on you, you are just as holy as the Holy One. “Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34).

O Christian, let your heart rejoice, for you are accepted “in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6)—what do you have to fear? Let your face ever wear a smile! Live near your Master, in the suburbs of the Celestial City! For soon, when your time has come, you shall rise up to where your Jesus sits, and reign at his right hand; and all this because God made Jesus Christ, the divine-human Lord “who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

[April 4, morning]

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