December 24 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

2 Corinthians 8:8–15

Devotional

Our Lord Jesus Christ was eternally rich, glorious, and exalted. But “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor.” As the rich saint cannot have true communion with his poor brethren unless he ministers to their needs from his own substance, so also it is impossible that our Divine Lord could have had fellowship with us unless he had imparted to us of his own abounding wealth and had become poor to make us rich.

If he had remained on his throne of glory, and if we had continued in the ruins of the fall without receiving his salvation, then communion would have been impossible on both sides. Our position by the fall, apart from the covenant of grace, made it just as impossible for fallen man to fellowship with God as it is for Belial to be in harmony with Christ.

In order for communion to be accomplished, then, it was necessary that the rich kinsman should bestow his estate upon his poor relatives. It was necessary, on the one hand, that the righteous Saviour should give to his sinning brethren of his own perfection. It was necessary, on the other hand, that we, the poor and guilty, should receive of his fullness grace for grace. This was so that in giving and receiving this way, the One might descend from the heights, and the other ascend from the depths, and thus be able to embrace each other in true and hearty fellowship.

Poverty must be enriched by him in whom are infinite treasures before it can venture to commune. And guilt must lose itself in imputed and imparted righteousness before the soul can walk in fellowship with purity. Jesus must clothe his people in his own garments, or he cannot admit them into his palace of glory; and he must wash them in his own blood, or else they will be too defiled for the embrace of his fellowship.

O believer, herein is love! For your sake the Lord Jesus “became poor” that he might lift you up into communion with himself.

[Dec 24]

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