January 9 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord" (Luke 22:61).

Devotional

Peter seemed quite to have forgotten his Lord's solemn prediction of his sin. But when that look met his eye, it suddenly recalled the faded memory of the faithful and tender admonitions that had forewarned him of his fall.

There is a tendency in our fallen minds to forget our sinful departures from God. David's threefold backsliding seemed to have been lost in deep oblivion until the Lord sent his prophet to recall it to his memory.

Christ will bring our forgotten departures to view, not to upbraid or to condemn, but to humble us, and to bring us afresh to the blood of sprinkling. The heart searching look from Christ turns each page in the book of memory; and sins and follies, inconsistencies and departures, there inscribed but long forgotten, are read and re-read, to the deep sin-loathing and self-abasement of our souls.

Ah! let a look of forgiving love penetrate your soul, illuminating memory's dark cell, and how many things, and circumstances, and steps in your past life will you recollect to your deepest humiliation before God.

And oh! how much do we need thus to be reminded of our admonitions, our warnings, and our falls, that we may in all our future spirit and conduct "walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).

No, not despairingly come I to thee;
no, not distrustingly bend I the knee:
sin hath gone over me,
yet is this still my plea,
Jesus hath died.

Lord, I confess to thee sadly my sin;
all I am tell I thee, all I have been:
purge thou my sin away,
wash thou my soul this day;
Lord, make me clean.

Faithful and just art thou, forgiving all;
loving and kind art thou when poor ones call:
Lord, let the cleansing blood,
blood of the Lamb of God,
pass o'er my soul.

Then all is peace and light this soul within;
thus shall I walk with thee, the loved Unseen;
leaning on thee, my God,
guided along the road,
nothing between.

(Horatius Bonar, 1866)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.