November 19 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:4–7).

Devotional

True Christian love will excite a holy jealousy for the Christian reputation of other believers.

How sadly is this so overlooked by so many professing believers! What sporting with reputation, what trifling with character, what unveiling to the eyes of others the weaknesses, the infirmities, and the stumblings of which they have become aware, marks many in our day.

Oh! If our Lord dealt with us the way we thoughtlessly and uncharitably deal with our fellow-servants, what shame and confusion would cover us! We should blush to lift up our faces before men.

But the exercise of this divine love in the heart will constrain us to abstain from all envious, suspicious feelings, from all evil speculations, from all wrong construing of motives, from all tale-bearing—that fruitful cause of so much evil in the Christian church—from slander, from unkind insinuations, and from going from house to house selling evil, and making the imperfections, the errors, or the doings of others the theme of idle, sinful gossip—"busybodies" and "meddlers" (2 Thess. 3:11, 1 Pet. 4:15).

All this is utterly inconsistent with our high and holy calling. It is degrading, dishonoring, lowering to our character as the children of God. It dims the luster of our piety. It impairs our moral influence in the world.

Ought not the character of another professor of Christ to be as dear to you as your own? And ought you not as vigilantly to watch over it, and as zealously to promote it, and as indignantly to vindicate it, when unjustly aspersed or maliciously assailed, as if you, and not he, were the sufferer? How can the reputation of a believer in Jesus be affected, and you not be affected? It is your common Lord who is wounded; it is your common salvation that is injured; it is your own family that is maligned. And your love to Jesus, to his truth, and to his people, should caution you to be as jealous of the honor, as tender of the feelings, and as watchful of the character and reputation of each member of the Lord's family, be his denomination what it may, as of your own.

"Who is weak," said the inspired apostle, "and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?"(2 Cor. 11:29).

Oh how graciously, how kindly does our God deal with his people! Laying his hand upon our many spots, he seems to say, "No eye but mine shall see them."

Oh! Let us in this particular be "imitators of God, as beloved children" (Eph. 5:1). In this way, we will more clearly evidence to others, and be assured ourselves, that we "have passed out of death unto life" (1 John 3:14).

O God of mercy, God of might,
in love and pity infinite,
teach us, as ever in thy sight,
to live our life to thee.

(Godfrey Thring, 1877)

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.