May 4 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" (Mark 4:40).

Devotional

The habitual—or even the occasional—doubtful apprehension of his interest in Christ indulged in will tend to a significant degree to enfeeble and decay a believer's faith. No cause can be more certain in its effects than this.

If it is true that exercising faith develops its strength, then it is equally true that perpetually indulging in doubtful apprehensions of pardon and acceptance must necessarily eat at the root of faith like a grub. Every misgiving entertained, every doubt cherished, every fear yielded to, every dark providence brooded over, tends to disengage the soul from God. It dims its near and loving view of Jesus. To doubt the love, the wisdom, and the faithfulness of God; to doubt the perfection of the work of Christ; to doubt the operation of the Spirit on the heart—what can tend more to the weakening and decay of this precious and costly grace? Every time the soul sinks under the pressure of a doubt of its interest in Christ, the effect must be a weakening of the soul's view of the glory, perfection, and all-sufficiency of Christ's work.

But the doubting Christian may not be sufficiently aware how every unbelieving fear that he cherishes dishonors Jesus—how it reflects upon his great work. However the soul might shrink from such an inference, it is a secret wounding of Jesus! It is a lowering, an undervaluing, of Christ's obedience and death—that glorious work of salvation with which the Father has declared himself well pleased; that work with which divine justice has confessed itself satisfied; that work, on the basis of which every poor, convinced sinner is saved, and on the ground of which millions of redeemed and glorified spirits are now basking around the throne—that work, we say, is dishonored, undervalued, and slighted by every doubt and fear that a child of God secretly harbors or openly expresses. The moment a believer looks at his unworthiness more than at the righteousness of Christ, the moment he supposes that Jesus' merit is not sufficient to supply the absence of all merit in himself before God—what is this but setting up his own sinfulness and unworthiness above the infinite worth, fullness, and sufficiency of Christ's atonement and righteousness?

There is much counterfeit humility among many of the dear saints of God. Some imagine that to be always doubting one's pardon and acceptance is the evidence of a humble spirit. It is, allow us to say, the mark of the very opposite of a lowly and humble mind.

That is true humility that trusts the testimony of God, that believes because he has spoken it, that rests in the blood and righteousness and all-sufficiency of Jesus because he has declared that "whoever believes in him shall not perish" (John 3:16), that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom. 10:13). This is genuine lowliness—the blessed product of the Eternal Spirit. To go to Jesus just as I am, a poor, lost, helpless sinner—to go without previous preparation—to go glorying in my weakness, infirmity, and poverty, that the free grace, and sovereign pleasure, and infinite merit of Christ might be seen in my full pardon, justification, and eternal glory.

There is more of unmortified pride, of self-righteousness, of that principle that would make God a debtor to the creature in the refusal of a soul fully to accept of Jesus than is suspected. There is more real, profound humility in a simple, believing venture upon Christ as a ruined sinner, taking him as all its righteousness, all its pardon, all its glory than it is possible for any mortal mind to fathom.

Doubt is ever the offspring of pride, humility is ever the handmaid of faith.

Lord, I believe; thy pow'r I own,
thy Word I would obey;
I wander comfortless and lone
when from thy truth I stray.

Lord, I believe; but gloomy fears
sometimes bedim my sight;
I look to thee with pray'rs and tears,
and cry for strength and light.

Lord, I believe; but thou dost know
my faith is cold and weak;
pity my frailty and bestow
the confidence I seek.

Yes, I believe; and only thou
canst give my soul relief:
Lord, to thy truth my spirit bow;
help thou mine unbelief.

(John R. Wreford, 1837)

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 2025.