December 7 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:22–24).

Devotional

The new birth does not transform flesh into spirit. It does not eradicate and expel the deep-seated root of our degenerate nature. Rather, it imparts another and a superadded nature. It implants a new and an antagonistic principle. This new nature is divine. This new principle is holy. And thus the believer becomes the subject of two natures. His soul becomes a battle-field upon which a perpetual conflict is going on, often resulting in his temporary captivity to the law of sin which is in his members.

Thus every spiritual mind is painfully conscious of the earthly tendency of his evil nature. Every spiritual mind is aware that he can derive no sympathy or help from the flesh, but instead he finds there everything that discourages, encumbers, and retards his spirit in its breathings and strugglings after holiness.

A mournful sense of the seductive power of earthly things enters deeply into this state of mind. As we bear about with us, in every step, an earthly nature, it is not surprising that its affinities and sympathies should be earthly; that earthly objects should possess a magnetic influence, perpetually attracting to themselves whatever is congenial with their own nature in the soul of the renewed man.

Our homeward path lies through a world that is captivating and ensnaring. The world, chameleon-like, can assume any color suitable to its purpose; it can take any shape answerable to its end. There is not a mind, a conscience, or a taste, to which it cannot accommodate itself. For the gross, it has sensual pleasures. For the refined, it has polished enjoyments. For the thoughtful, it has intellectual delights. For the enterprising, it has bold, magnificent schemes.

The child of God feels this engrossing power. He is conscious of this seductive influence. Worldly applause—who is entirely proof against its power? Human adulation—who can resist its incense? Creature power—who is free from its captivation? Love of worldly ease and respectability, influence, and position; a liking to glide smoothly along the sunny tide of the world's good opinion—who is clad in a coat of mail so impervious as to resist these attacks? Have not the mightiest fallen before them? Such are only some of the many ensnaring influences which weave themselves around the path of the celestial traveler, often extorting from him the humiliating acknowledgment—"My soul clings to the dust" (Ps. 119:25).

In this category, we may also include things which, though they are lawful in themselves, are yet of an earthly tendency that deteriorates the life of God in the soul. What heavenly mind is not sadly aware of this? Our ever-foremost, sleepless, subtle foe stands by and says, "This is lawful, and you may freely and unrestrictedly indulge in it." But another and a solemn voice is heard issuing from the sacred oracle of truth— " 'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things are helpful" (1 Cor. 6:12). And yet how often are we forced to learn the lesson, that lawful things may, in their wrong indulgence and influence, become unlawful through the spiritual leanness which they engender in the soul!

Oh, it is a narrow path which conducts us back to Paradise. But our Lord and Master made it so; he himself has trodden it, "leaving us an example that we should follow his steps"; and he, too, is sufficient for its narrowness. Yes; such is the gravitating tendency to earth of the carnal nature within us, we are ever prone and ever ready, at each bland smile of the world, and at each verdant, sunny spot of the wilderness, to retire into the circle of self-complaisance and self-indulgence, and take up our rest where, from the polluted and unsatisfying nature of all earthly things, real rest can never be found. Thus may even lawful affections and lawful enjoyments, lawful pursuits and pleasures, wring the confession from the lips of a heavenly-minded man—"My soul clings to the dust" (Ps. 119:25).

Rise, my soul, to watch and pray,
from thy sleep awaken;
be not by the evil day
unawares o'ertaken.
for the foe,
well we know,
oft his harvest reapeth
while the Christian sleepeth.

(Johann B. Freystein, 1697; tr. By Catherine Winkworth, 1863; 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.