December 5 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving" (Col. 2:6–7).

Devotional

How does the Spirit most effectually sanctify the believer? He uses simple, close, and crucifying views of the cross of Christ. This is the true and great method of gospel sanctification.

Here lies the secret of all real holiness, and, may I not add, of all real happiness. For, if you separate happiness from holiness, you separate that which, in the covenant of grace, God has wisely and indissolubly united.

The experience of the true believer must testify to this. You are only happy as you are holy—as the body of sin is daily crucified, the power of the indwelling principle weakened, and the outward deportment more beautifully and closely corresponding to the example of Jesus.

Do not look for a happy walk, then, apart from a holy one. You may have trials. Yes, if you are the Lord's redeemed child, you will have them, for he himself has said, "in the world you will have tribulation" (John 16:33). You may meet with disappointments—broken cisterns, thorny roads, wintry skies. But if you are walking in fellowship with God, dwelling in the light, growing up into Christ in all things, the Spirit of adoption witnessing within you, and leading you to a filial and unreserved surrender, then—oh!—there is happiness unspeakable, even though in the very depth of outward trial. A holy walk is a happy walk. This is God's order; it is his appointment, and therefore it must be wise and good.

Seek high attainments in holiness. Do not be satisfied with a low measure of grace, with a dwarfish religion, with just enough Christianity to admit you into heaven.

Oh, how many are thus content? How many are satisfied to leave the great question of their acceptance to be decided in another world, and not in this. How many are resting on some slight evidence, in itself faint and equivocal, perhaps a former experience, some impressions, or sensations, or transient joys, long since passed away? And thus they are content to live, and thus content to die.

Dear reader, do not be satisfied with anything short of a present Christ, received, enjoyed, and lived upon. Forget the things that are behind. Reach forth unto higher attainments in sanctification. Seek to have the daily witness, daily communion with God. For your own sake, for the sake of others, and for Christ's sake, "be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure" (2 Pet. 1:10).

Jesus, keep me near the cross;
there a precious fountain,
free to all—a healing stream—
flows from Calvary's mountain.

(Fanny J. Crosby, 1869 [st. 2 alt., LEW, 1984])

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.