December 15 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me" (John 15:26).

Devotional

With regard to the spiritual sorrows of a child of God—those peculiar only to a believer in Jesus—we believe that a revelation of Jesus is the great source of comfort to which the Spirit leads the soul.

Here is the true source of comfort. What higher comfort do you need? What more can you have? That a believing soul has Jesus is enough to heal every wound, to dry every tear, to assuage every grief, to lighten every cross, and to make the roughest place smooth.

Having Jesus, what does a believer have? He has the entire blotting out of all his sins.

Is not this a comfort? Tell us, what can give comfort to a child of God apart from this? If this fails, then where can he look?

Will you point him to the world—to its many schemes of enjoyment, to its plans for the accumulation of wealth, to its domestic happiness? Wretched sources of comfort to an awakened soul! Poor empty channels to a man made acquainted with the inward plague!

That which he needs to know is the sure payment of the ten thousand talents—the entire cancelling of the bond held against him by stern justice—the complete blotting out, as a thick cloud, of all his iniquity. And, until this great fact is made sure and certain to his conscience, all other comfort is only like a dream of boyhood, a shadow that vanishes, a vapor that melts away. But the Holy Spirit comforts the believer by leading him to this blessed truth—the full pardon of sin.

This is the great controversy which Satan has with you, the believer. It is this arch-enemy's constant effort to bring you to doubt the pardon of sin, to unhinge your mind from this great fact,. And, when unbelief is powerful, and inbred sin is strong, and outward trials are many and sore, and, in the midst of it all, the single eye is removed from Christ, then it is the hour of Satan to charge home upon the conscience of the believer all the iniquity he ever committed.

And how does the blessed Spirit comfort at that moment? By unfolding the greatness, perfection, and efficacy of the one offering by which Jesus has forever blotted out the sins of his people, and perfected those who are sanctified. Oh, what comfort this truth speaks to a fearful, troubled, anxious believer, when by the Spirit working faith in his heart, he can look up and see all his sins laid upon Jesus in the solemn hour of atonement, with no condemnation remaining!

Dear child of God! As poor and worthless as you may feel yourself to be, this truth is even for you. Oh, rise to it. Welcome it. Embrace it. Do not think it too costly for one so unworthy. It comes from the heart of Jesus, and cannot be more free. "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Ps. 32:1).

Having Jesus, what else does the believer have? He possesses a righteousness in which God views him complete and accepted, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

Is not this a comfort? To stand "complete in him" (Col. 2:10) in the midst of many and conscious imperfections, infirmities, flaws, and proneness to wander. Yet for the sorrowing and trembling heart to turn and take up its rest in this truth, that "by him everyone who believes is justified from everything" (Acts 13:39), and stands accepted in the Beloved, to the praise of the glory of God's grace (Eph. 1:6)— what a comfort! That God beholds him in Jesus without a spot, because he beholds his Son in whom he is well pleased, and viewing the believing soul in him can say, "You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you" (Song 4:7)!

The blessed Comforter conveys this truth to your troubled soul. He brings you to take up your rest in it. And, as you realize your full acceptance in the righteousness of Christ, and rejoice in the truth, you weep as you never wept, and mourn as you never mourned, over the perpetual bias of your heart to wander from a God who has so loved you. The very comfort poured into your soul from this truth lays you in the dust, and draws out your heart in ardent breathings for holiness.

Come, thou Fount of ev'ry blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount of God's unchanging love.

(Robert Robinson, 1758)

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.