December 14 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Psalm 73:21–28

Devotional

Remember that Psalm 73 is the confession of a redeemed child of God. In telling us his inner life, Asaph confesses, “I was senseless and ignorant.” The word “senseless” shows that his ignorance had sin in it. In an earlier verse of the Psalm, he confesses, “I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (v. 3). He puts himself down as being “a brute beast.” His attitude and reaction had been sinful. He could not excuse it by frailty. Rather, it deserved to be condemned because of its perverseness and wilful ignorance. He had envied the present prosperity of the ungodly, forgetting the dreadful end that awaited them.

Are we any better than him that we should call ourselves wise? Do we profess that we have attained perfection, or that we have been so chastened that the rod has removed all our stubbornness? This would be pride indeed! If Asaph saw himself as foolish, how foolish we should be in our own esteem if only we could see ourselves!

Look back, believer. Think of how you doubted God when he has been so faithful to you. Think of your foolish outcry of “Not so, my Father” when he crossed his hands in affliction in order to give you a greater blessing. Think of the many times when you have read his providences in the dark, misinterpreted his dealings, and groaned, “All these things are against me,” when in fact God was causing them all to work together for your good (Rom. 8:28)! Think how often you have chosen sin because of its pleasure, when indeed that very pleasure became a root of bitterness to you!

Surely if we know our own heart we must plead guilty to the charge of a sinful folly. And conscious of this foolishness, we must resolve to make Psalm 73’s hope our own, “You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will take me into glory” (vv. 23–24).

[July 28]

Extracted from C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (public domain), language modernized by Larry E. Wilson.