October 29 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Revelation 22:12–17

Devotional

Jesus says, “take … as a free gift.” He wants no payment or preparation. He seeks no recommendation from our upright emotions. Whether or not you have good feelings, if only you are willing, you are invited; therefore come! Even if you have no belief and no repentance, come to him and he will give them to you. Come just as you are, and “take the water of life as a free gift,” without money and without price. He freely gives himself to needy ones.

Drinking fountains are valuable commodities. We can hardly imagine anyone so foolish as to reach into his pocket when he stands before one of them and to cry, “I cannot drink because I don’t five dollars with me.” However poor the man is, there is the fountain, and he may drink of it just as he is. Thirsty people, as they go by, whether they are dressed in high fashion or in rags, do not look for any warrant for drinking. Its very being there is their warrant for taking its water freely. The generosity of some put the refreshing water there and we take it without asking questions.

Maybe the only people who need go thirsty through the street where there is a drinking fountain, are the refined and cultured. They too are very thirsty, but they cannot think of being so unsophisticated as to stoop down to drink. They think it would demean them to drink at a public drinking fountain. So they pass by with parched lips.

Oh, how many there are who imagine themselves rich in their own good works and therefore cannot come to Christ! “I won’t come to God,” they say, “in the same way as a prostitute or a vagrant. What! go to heaven the same way as a janitor? Is there no way to glory except the path that led the thief there? I won’t be saved that way.” Such proud boasters must remain without the living water; but, “Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a free gift.”

[June 13, morning meditation]

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