July 20 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:5).

Devotional

Our Lord preached repentance. And so did his apostles when they declared, "God now commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). No command or duty can be more distinctly, intelligently, and solemnly defined and urged than repentance.

But you ask, "What is repentance?" We reply that it is that secret grace that lays the soul low before God so that self is loathed and sin is abhorred, confessed, and forsaken. It is one's abasement and humiliation before the holy, heart-searching Lord God because of the sinfulness of his nature and the sins of his life.

The more mature believer looks upon a broken and contrite spirit, flowing from a sight of the cross, as the most precious fruit found in his soul. To him, no moments are so hallowed, so solemn, or so sweet, as those spent in bathing the Savior's feet with tears.

There is indeed a bitterness in the grief which a sense of sin produces. And of all other bitterness, this is the greatest. He knows, from experience, that "it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God" (Jer. 2:19). Nevertheless, there is a sweetness blended with the bitterness of a heart broken for sin from a sight of the cross of the incarnate God—an indescribable sweetness which must be experienced to be understood. Oh, precious tears wept beneath that cross!

"For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite'" (Isa. 57:15).

But how shall you know when you are of a contrite and humble spirit? You are one who truly knows the evil of sin, for you have felt it. You apprehend, in some degree, the holiness of God's character, and the spirituality of his law, for you have seen it. Your views of yourself have undergone a radical change. You no longer judge yourself as others judge you. They exalt you, but you abase yourself. They approve, but you condemn. And in that very thing for which they most extol you, you are humbling yourself in secret. While others are applauding actions, you are searching into motives. While they are extolling virtues, you are sifting principles. While they are weaving the garland for your brow, you, shut in alone with God, are covering yourself with sackcloth and with ashes.

Oh precious fruit of a living branch of the true vine! Is it any wonder, then, that God should come and dwell with such a one, in whom is found something so good towards him? Oh, no! He delights to see you in this posture—to mark a soul walking before him in a conscious sense of its poverty; the eye drawing from the cross its most persuasive motives to a deep prostration of soul at his feet.

Dear reader, to know what a sense of God's reconciling love is—to know how skillfully, tenderly, and effectually Jesus binds up and heals—your spirit must be wounded, and your heart must be broken for sin. Oh, it were worth an ocean of tears to experience the loving gentleness of Christ's hand in drying them. Has God ever said of you, as he said of Ahab, "Have you seen how [he] has humbled himself before me?" (1 Kings. 21:29).

Search to make certain if this good fruit is found in your soul.

Come, O come, thou quick'ning Spirit,
God from all eternity!
May thy power never fail us;
dwell within us constantly.
Then shall truth and life and light
banish all the gloom of night.

(Heinrich Held, circa 1664; tr. by Charles W Schaeffer, 1866, alt.)

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 2011.