December 27 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Job 8:11–18

Devotional

The reed is spongy and hollow, and even so is a hypocrite—there is no substance or stability in him. It is shaken to and fro in every wind, and even so do formalists yield to every influence. For this reason the reed is not broken by the tempest, and neither are hypocrites troubled with persecution.

I would not willingly either be a deceiver or be deceived. Perhaps the text for this day may help me to try myself whether I be a hypocrite or no.

By nature, the reed lives in water. It owes its very existence to the marsh and moisture wherein it has taken root. Let the marsh dry up and the reed withers very quickly. Its greenness absolutely depends on circumstances. A present abundance of water makes it flourish, and a drought destroys it at once. Is this my case? Do I serve God only when I am in good company, or when religion is profitable and respectable? Do I love the Lord only when I receive temporal comforts from his hands? If so I am a base hypocrite, and like the withering reed, I will perish when death deprives me of outward joys.

But can I honestly assert that when bodily comforts have been few, and my surroundings have been rather adverse to grace than at all helpful to it, I have still held fast my integrity? Then I have hope that there is genuine vital godliness in me. The reed cannot grow without the marsh, but plants of the Lord’s own planting can and do flourish even in the year of drought. A godly man often grows best when his worldly circumstances decay.

He who follows Christ for his bag is a Judas. Those who follow for loaves and fishes are children of the devil. But those who attend him out of love to himself are his own beloved ones.

O Lord, please let me find my life in you, and not in the marsh of this world’s favour or gain.

[Dec 27]

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