October 3 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

Leviticus 26:12:

¹²And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

Devotional:

Not only personally, but also collectively you must stand in living fellowship with your God.

The personal is that which touches only the world of our own heart. The collective is everything that we go through together, go through with others with whom we are connected by fixed ties. You have a collective life in your family, in your church, in your nation and in your trade or profession. And it is not enough that you have living fellowship with your family, in the hidden places of your soul. No, also in your family, in your church and in your social life this fellowship with your God must be your strength. And this fellowship with God must find its expression in this, viz., that God walks with you and that you walk with Him.

Not only the first, but also the second.

It is not enough, by any means, that both personally and collectively you have blessed experiences of a steady outgoing of your soul after God. This can always be the practice of communion with God from afar. The walking together on the highway of life demands, on the contrary, that you go to God, that God comes to you, that the holy meeting be mutual, and that henceforth, at the hand of God, you continue the journey of your life.

If it has come to this with you personally, you are a Christian soul. If it has come to this with your family, you live in a Christian home. If such is the case with your church, you enjoy a church life which is not merely in name, but in reality Christian. And when in social or political circles you have the same experience with those with whom you are in contact by reason of like calling or conviction, then here too, not merely has the Christian banner been uplifted, but it is a truly Christian movement in which you, together with others, suffer and strive.

To Moses and Israel the Lord expressed this as follows: "I will walk among you" (Leviticus 26:12). Of Abraham it is said personally that he walked with God. But with Moses there is mention of the collective fellowship of God with His people. Hence it does not say: "I will walk with thee, who art the shepherd of my people," but quite differently: "I will walk in the midst of you" (Dutch version). The Lord going forth with His people, and the people at every step of the way being conscious of the nearness of God and of fellowship with Him.

Thus there can be a mutual fellowship, a walking together in the way of holy love. There can also be a walking together in sin on the part of man, and in anger on the part of God.

"If ye will walk contrary unto me, said the Lord, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins" (Leviticus 26:23, 24).

"Contrariness" is what we call antipathy.

You can walk by the way with someone who is antipathetic to you, whose presence disturbs you and whose company you wish were away. He who feels and observes that God walks with him by the way, and still inclines unto sin, feels himself constrained by the presence of the Lord. Just as a child who is bent upon mischief, does not dare to do wrong as long as his father or mother is close by, but takes his chance the moment his father or mother has gone, so a Christian does not dare to carry his sinful design into execution as long as he feels that God is close by.

If only he could outrun God. But this is impossible. He can close his eye so as not to see God, but even then the Lord continues to reveal His Presence in the conscience.

This gives rise to the unholy struggle of willingness to sin, and of not being able to do it because God stands in the way. And then it comes to pass, when you do not let go your sin, that contrariness against your God springs up in your heart, the deeply sinful antipathy against God's nearness. And since nothing so angers God as the inclination, the tendency of your heart not to seek Him, but to be rid of Him, His favor towards you turns likewise into holy antipathy. And so you walk with your God on the pathway of your life in enmity and in bitternesses, grieving the Holy Spirit.

This does not happen with a child of the world.

The child of the world does not walk with God. He travels his pathway of life alone. He perceives nothing, feels nothing, sees nothing of the nearness of God. And therefore the child of the world cannot fall into sin in this way. His sin bears an altogether different character.

But if you belong to the redeemed of the Lord, if you walk with the people in whose midst the Lord walks, then either that which is sinful in your life must be resisted, or, if you yet continue in it, the dreadful sin of contrariness, of antipathy against God, germinates, you injure your own inner life and presently your very lot in life.

And that which here misleads with so great menace is, that this contrariness, this antipathy only shows itself at the point of your particular sin. Thus arise these distorted conditions, that in all other ways you seek your God, that you are zealous in his service, and devoutly practice the habit of prayer, but as often as this particular sin wakes up again in you, the balance at once is lost, and you, perceiving that God continues to walk with you, find no more comfort in that blessed nearness, but merely a hindrance to your sin. And if then you still persist in your sin the most dreadful contrariness follows, even the ominous contrariness of your God.

Such is not the case with sin that is committed because your strength fails. For then, when sin crouches at the door of your heart, the heart will take refuge with God. Then you feel that Satan aims to undo you, and you hold yourself the more fast to God that He may protect you against Satan.

And though you may fall even then, in the very act of it you will take refuge with the unseen Companion Who walks by your side. You will call upon Him for forgiveness and help. And He Who knoweth whereof you are made will take compassion on you and will keep you from self-destruction.

But, then, on your part must be the earnest endeavor, when you walk the way with your God, to follow Him, and not choose a path of your own in the expectation that God will follow you.

The goings of God, both in history and now, are altogether such as lead to the kingdom of heaven and result in making great His Name.

What now is the "way" of your life? What is your purpose in life? Whither does your path lead?

A child of God prays every day: "Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done." And if this threefold prayer is not a mere form of words, but the compass of his life, the way of his life will coincide with the way of God. Then you walk with God in the selfsame direction, with the same end in view. Your God in His infinite greatness, and you in the vain littleness of your quickly-passing life. But nevertheless as one of the drops you move along in the wave-beat of the ocean of God.

Your whole life and existence then moves itself in the direction of God's mighty plan, and so you can walk with Him, the whiles He walks with you, in the bond of a mutually holy love.

But this is usually only possible when it takes place in collective fellowship. There is only One who has trodden the wine-press alone. All other wrestlers have been carried by the example, by the sympathy, by the companionship, by the fellowship of what is called the people of the Lord. This is a holy appellation which no single group may arbitrarily appropriate to itself, and which is only real where God Himself walks in the midst of those who share His favor.

You feel, therefore, at once, in your family, in your church, in your social intercourse, whether the purposes and endeavors coincide with the goings of God, or whether they are mere exhibits of outward forms of piety.

This semblance does not satisfy you, it gives you no support, it does not bear you up. You are at rest only when you perceive that the Presence of the Lord in your family, in your church, in your social circle, is a spiritual reality, and that God Himself walks in the midst of them.

Then it does not suffice you that God walks with you, and you with Him, but then you feel this in equal measure of your wife, of your husband, of your children, of your pastor, of your church officials, of your societies and associations. You know it then one of another. Then you make the nearness of your God clearer and more vital to one another. You are not silent about it. You enjoy it together. And together you receive from Him the sacred impulse with united forces to go forward in His way, and to hold up the honor of His Name.

The Lord is then not only close to your heart, but He is in the midst of you. He is the common center of all your interests and the tie that binds you together.

There is then not merely a pious frame of mind, but a godly life, a consecrated purpose, a godly co-operation, and from this, that holy activity is born which in every department of life overcomes the world and makes virtues shine out which are not of us, but which flame out in us from Him Who walks in our midst, because He is the Source of our light, of our strength, and of the inspiration of our life.

This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."

The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit

Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.