May 12 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"In him you also, when you heard the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (Eph. 1:13).

Devotional

The very moment a sinner believes into Jesus he becomes actually an "heir of God, and a fellow heir with Christ" (Rom. 8:17). You enter into the family as an adopted child.

And yet, you may not immediately experience a clear, undoubted sense of this vast mercy. You may long walk without the sweet sense of God's adopting love in your heart. The frame of your spirit and the language of your soul in prayer is more that of the "son of the bond-woman" than the "son of the free-woman" (Gal. 4:21–31). You know but little of the "free spirit," the spirit of an adopted child. And you seldom go to God as a kind, loving, tender, and faithful father.

But then the Divine Sealer—the eternal Spirit of God—works afresh and impresses deeply upon your soul the unutterably sweet and abiding sense of your adoption. Oh, what an impression is then left upon your heart! All your legal fears are calmed. All your slavish moanings are hushed. All your bondage spirit is gone. And under the drawings of filial love, you approaches the throne of grace, and cry, "My Father!" and your Father responds, "My child! You shall call me, My Father; and shall not turn away from me!"

This work of the Spirit is not necessarily accompanied by great spiritual joy. We must never forget that it is the believer's privilege to be "always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10), to "rejoice always"(1 Thess. 5:16), and that a state of spiritual joy is just as holy as it is a happy state. Still, we cannot suppose that the redeemed are always in possession of this "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:22).

It is perhaps more a state of rest in God—a state of holy quietude and peace, which, in many cases, seldom rises to that of joy. There is an unclouded hope—a firm and unshaken resting on the finished work, a humble reliance on the stability of the covenant and the immutability of God's love—that is never moved even when one feels no enjoyment and when comfort seems to die.

It is a state corresponding to that which David thus expresses—"For does not my house stand so with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire?" (2 Sam. 23:5). Perhaps it is more like Job's frame of soul when he exclaimed, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15).

Tangible comforts may be withdrawn. Joy may be absent. The Sun of Righteousness may cast only a faint twilight over the soul. And yet, such is the power of faith grasping the cross of Christ, such the firm resting of the soul upon the stability of the covenant—upon who God is and upon what he has promised—that, without one note of joy or one ray of light, the believer can still say, "I know whom I have believed" (2 Tim. 1:12).

And why, we ask, this strong and vigorous reliance? Why this buoying up of the soul in the absence of tangible comfort? We reply, because of the Holy Spirit. The working of the Spirit of Christ forms the great secret.

Gracious Spirit, Dove Divine,
let thy light within me shine;
all my guilty fears remove,
fill me full of heav'n and love.

Speak thy pard'ning grace to me,
set the burdened sinner free;
lead me to the Lamb of God,
wash me in his precious blood.

Life and peace to me impart;
seal salvation on my heart;
breathe thyself into my breast,
earnest of immortal rest.

Let me never from thee stray,
keep me in the narrow way,
fill my soul with joy divine,
keep me, Lord, for ever thine.

(John Stocker, 1777)

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.