November 13 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:29–30).

Devotional

"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3). What will set out, in their strongest light, the motives that urge you to cultivate this poverty of spirit? Is it not enough that this is the spiritual state on which the LORD God himself looks with an eye of exclusive, holy, and ineffable delight? "But this is the one to whom I will look"—splendid gifts, brilliant attainments, costly sacrifices, are nothing to me—"but this is the one to whom I will look: he who is poor and contrite in spirit and trembles at my Word" (Isa. 66:2).

To this I would add, if you value your safe, happy, and holy walk, then seek poverty of spirit. If you prize the manifestations of God's presence—the "kisses of his mouth," whose "love is better than wine" (Song 1:2) , then seek it. If you yearn for the teaching, guiding, and comforting influence of the Holy Spirit, then seek it. If you would be "the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ to God everywhere" (2 Cor. 4:14–16), then seek it. If you long to pray with more fervor, unction, and power, then seek it. If you want to labor with more zeal, devotedness, and success, then seek it. By all that is dear, by all that is precious, by all that is holy, by your own happiness, by the honor of Christ, by the glory of God, by the hope of heaven, seek to be found among those who are poor and contrite in spirit, who, with filial, holy love, tremble at God's Word, whom Jesus has pronounced blessed here, and fitted for glory hereafter.

And though in approaching the Great High Priest, you have no splendid and costly intellectual offerings to present, yet with the royal penitent you can say, " 'For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise' (Ps. 51:16–17). This, Lord, is all that I have to bring you."

Avoid an imitation humility. True humility does not consist in denying the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart, in under-rating the grace of God in your soul, in standing afar off from your heavenly Father, and in walking at a distance from Christ, always doubting the efficacy of his blood, the freeness of his salvation, the willingness of his heart, and the greatness of his power to save. Oh no! That is not the humility that God delights to look at, but is a false, a counterfeit humility, obnoxious in his sight.

But to "draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:22), in lowly dependence upon his blood and righteousness—to accept salvation as the gift of his grace; to believe the promise because he has spoken it; gratefully and humbly to acknowledge your calling, your adoption, and your acceptance; and to live in the holy, transforming influence of this exalted state, giving to the Triune God all the praise and glory—this is the humility which is most pleasing to God, and this is the true product of the Holy Spirit.

Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,
weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity joined with pow'r:
he is able,
he is able,
he is able,
he is willing; doubt no more.

(Joseph Hart, 1759, 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.