December 22 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"The saying is trustworthy, for: 'If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him' " (2 Tim. 2:11–12).

Devotional

O suffering sons of God, behold your exalted privilege! O humble and afflicted ones, see how the glory beams around you! You are one with the Prince of sufferers, and the Prince of sufferers is one with you!

Oh! to be one with Christ—what tongue can speak, the sweetness of the blessing? What pen can describe the greatness of the grace? To sink with him in his humiliation here is to rise with him in his exaltation hereafter. To share with him in his abasement on earth is to share with him in his glory in heaven. To suffer shame and ridicule, persecution and distress, poverty and loss for him now, is to wear the crown, and wave the palm, to swell the triumph, and shout the song, when he shall descend the second time in glory and majesty to raise his Bride from the scene of her humiliation, robe her for the marriage, and make her manifestly and eternally his own.

Oh! Laud his great name for all the present conduct of his providence and grace. Praise him for all the wise discoveries he gives you of yourself, of the creation, of the world.

Blessed, ah! truly blessed and holy is the discipline that prostrates your spirit in the dust.

It is there that he reveals the secret of his own love, and draws apart the veil of his own loveliness.

It is there that he brings the soul deeper into the experience of his sanctifying truth. There it is that, with new forms of beauty and expressions of endearment, he allures the heart, and takes a fresh possession of it for himself.

And it is there, too, that he makes the love, tenderness, and grace of the Holy Spirit better known. As a Comforter, as a Revealer of Jesus, we are, perhaps, more fully led into an acquaintance with the work of the Spirit in seasons of soul-abasement than at any other time.

The mode and time of his divine manifestation are thus beautifully predicted: "He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth" (Ps. 72:6 NIV).

Observe the gentleness, the silence, and the sovereignty of his operation—"He will be like rain." How characteristic of the blessed Spirit's grace!

Then mark the occasion on which he descends—it is at the time of the soul's deep prostration. The waving grass is mowed. The lovely flower is laid low. The fruitful stem is broken. That which was beautiful, fragrant, and precious is cut down. Then, when the mercy is gone, and the spirit is bowed, when the heart is broken, the mind is dejected, and the world seems clad in wintry desolation and gloom, the Holy Spirit, in all the softening, reviving, comforting, and refreshing influence of his grace, descends, speaks of the beauty of Jesus, leads to the grace of Jesus, lifts the bowed soul, and lays it on the bosom of Jesus.

Precious and priceless, then, beloved, are the seasons of a believer's humiliation. They tell of the soul's emptiness, of Christ's fullness. They tell of the creature's insufficiency, of Christ's all-sufficiency. They tell of the world's poverty, of Christ's riches. They create a necessity which Jesus supplies, a void which Jesus fills, a sorrow which Jesus soothes, a desire which Jesus satisfies. They endear the cross of the incarnate God. They reveal the hidden glory of Christ's humiliation. They sweeten prayer, and lift the soul to God. And then, "Indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3).

Are you like a bruised flower? Are you like a broken stem? Does some heavy trial now bow you in the dust? Oh never, perhaps, were you so truly beautiful. Never did your grace send forth such fragrance, or your prayers ascend with so sweet an odor. Never did faith, and hope, and love develop their hidden glories so richly, so fully as now! In the eye of a wounded, a bruised, and a humbled Christ, you were never more lovely, and to his heart never more precious than now—pierced by his hand, smitten by his rod, humbled by his chastisement, laid low at his feet, condemning yourself and justifying him, taking to yourself all the shame and ascribing to him all the glory.

Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness,
mourning 'neath their sorrow's load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.

(Johannes Olearius, 1671; tr. by Catherine Winkworth, 1863)

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.