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November 26 Daily Devotional

Morning and Evening

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“Now the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little” (1 Peter 5:10).

Bible Reading

1 Peter 5:8–11

Devotional

You’ve seen the rainbow as it spans the sky. Its colours are glorious and its hues are rare. It’s beautiful, but, alas, it passes away, and behold, it’s gone. The beautiful colours give way to the fleecy clouds, and the sky is no longer brilliant with the tints of heaven. It’s not established. How can it be? A glorious show made up of passing sun-beams and rain-drops—how can that abide?

The graces of the Christian’s character must not resemble the rainbow in its fleeting beauty, but, on the contrary, be established, settled, abiding. O believer, seek that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing. May your character not be like writing on the sand, but like engraving on the rock! May your faith be no “baseless fabric of a vision” [1], but may it be built of material able to endure that awful fire that will consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite. May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desires earnest. May your whole life be so settled and established, that neither all the blasts of hell nor all the storms of earth will ever be able to remove you.

But notice how you gain this blessing of being “established in the faith” (Col. 2:7). The apostle’s words point us to suffering as the means employed—“After you have suffered a little.” It’s no use to hope that we will be well rooted if no rough winds ever pass over us. Not only do those old knots on the root of the oak tree and those strange twistings of the branches all tell of the many storms that have swept over it, but also they indicate the depth into which the roots have forced their way. So the Christian is made strong and firmly rooted by all the trials and storms of life. Do not shrink, then, from the tempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort, believing that by their rough discipline God is fulfilling this benediction to you.

[1] Prospero, in William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1, 148–158

[July 11]

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

 

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