Morning Devotional (D.L. Moody) October 2004

October 5Happy is the man whom God correcteth. - Job 5:17Happy, because the correction is designed to bring him inot paths of blessedness and peace. Happy, because there is no unnecessary severity in it. Happy, because the chastisement is not so much against us as against our most cruel enemies-our sins. Happy, because we have abundant words of consolation. Happy, because whom the Lord loves He chastens. Happy, because our light affliction is but for a moment. - George Bowen

October 6They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. - Acts 4:13A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ, beautifully and eloquently written, but the best life of Christ is His living biography, written out in the words and actions of His people. IF we were what we profess to be, and what we should be, we would be picturs of Christ; yes, such striking likeness of Him that the world would not have to hold us up and say, "Well, it seems somewhat a likeness," but they would, when they once beheld us, exclaim, "He has been with Jesus; he has been taught of Him; he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he works it out in his life and every day actions." - Spurgeon

October 7When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. - Matthew 2:10We who look for Jesus ought to be joyful; it is no credit to our Lord whe we look as though we were seeking His grave. The dull looks of Christ's followers have injured Him in the sight of the world. Let us, then, smile as we go, for we have the star if we look upward and out ourselves in the right path. - Thomas Champness

October 8Let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. - 1 Thessalonians 5:8Faith, love, hope-these three form the defensive armor that guards the soul-and these three make self-control possible. Like a diver in his gear who is let down to the bottom of the wild, tumultuous ocean, so a man whose heart is girded by faith and love, and whose head is covered with the helmet of hope, may be dropped down into the wildest sea of temptation and of worldliness, and yet will walk dry and unharmed through the midst of its depths, and breathe air that comes from a world far above the restless currents. Faith will bring you into communication with all the power of God. Love will lead you into a region where all the temptations round you will be touched by Ithuriel's spear, and will show their own foulness. Hope will turn your eyes from looking at the tempting splendor around, and fix them upon the glories that are above. And so the reins will come into your hands in an altogether new manner, and you will be able to be king over your own nature in a fashion that you did not dream of before, if only you will trust in Christ and love Him, fixing your desires on the things above. Then you will be able to govern yourself, when you let Christ govern you. - Alexander MacLaren

October 9I spake unto thee in thy prosperity. - Jeremiah 22:21We shade our eyes with the hand to shut out the glare of the strong daylight when we want to see far away. God thus puts, as it were, His hand upon our brows, and tempers the glow of prosperity, that we may take in the wider phases of His goodness. It is a common experience that, looking out from the gloom of some personal affliction, men have seen for the first time beyond the earth plane, and caught glimpses of the Beulah Land. Let us not shrink from the Hand which we know is heavy only with blessing. - Ludlow

October 10Come and dine. - John 21:12This morning the voice of the Beloved of our soul is heard giving us His invitation. "Children," He asks, "have you any meat?" We answer, "No, of ourselves we have nothing but hunger and starvation. O God, we cannot feed ourselves!" Then it is that His own sweet voice replies, "Come and dine!" - W. Hay Aitken

October 11O Lord God, thou knowest. -Ezekiel 37:3Here is the response of faith, "You know!" What a pillow for the heart to repose upon! "You know!" What few but comprehensive words to sum up and express the heart's difficulities and perplexities and trials. "You know!" What an inexpressibly sweet resting place in the midst of life's tumultuous heavings, in the midst of a scene in which tossings to and fro are hourly history! What an answer they contain for every heart that can find no words to express its big emotions, for a heart whose sorrows are too deep for language to find its way to God! Oh, that they were ever uppermost in the soul, as the response to every difficulty in our path! They are God's answer to everything we cannot fathom, God's answer for our hearts to rest upon and our lips to utter when everyway is hedged up so that we cannot pass. "O Lord God, You know!" Rest here, believer. Lean your soul on these words. Repose calmy on the bosom of your God, and carry them with you into every scene of life. "O Lord God, You know." - F. Whitfield

October 12When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. - Micah 7:8If you are willing to choose the seeming darkness of faith instead of the illumination of reason, wonderful light will break out upon you from the Word of God. - A.J. Gordon

October 13He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. AFter that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. - John 13:4-5Acts are common and humiliating because they are ordinarily expressive of the thoughts of men. Let us not accuse the acts that make up our daily lives of meanness, but our ignoble souls that reveal themselves so unworthily through those acts. The same act may successively mount up through every intermediate stage from the depth of unworthiness to a transcendent height of excellence, according to the soul that is manifested by it. One of the glorious ends of our Lord's incarnation was that He might repair us using the details of life, so that we would disdain these as insignificant, but rather disdain ourselves for our inability to make these details interpreters of a noble nature. Oh, let us then look with affectionateness and gratitiude upon the daily details of life seeing the sanctifying imprint of the hand of Jesus upon them all! - George Bowen

October 14Behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. -Genesis 28:12Think of that mystic ladder, which descends from the throne of God to the spot, however lowly, where you may be. It may be a moorland waste, a humble cottage, a ship's cabin, a settler's hut, a bed of pain, but Jesus Christ finds you out and comes just where you are. The one pole of this ladder is the gold of His deity; the other is the silver of His manhood. The rungs are the series of events from the cradle of bethlehem to the right hand of power where He sits. That ladder sways beneath a weight of blessing to you. Oh, that you would send away your burdens of sin, care, and fear by the hands of the ascending angels of prayer and faith, so that you would be able to recieve into your heart the trooping angels of peace, joy, love and glory. -F.B. Meyer

October 15Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. -Genesis 28:16The parish priest, of austerity,Climbed up in the high church steepleTo be nearer to God, that he might handHis word down to the people.And in sermon script he daily wroteWhat he thought was sent from heaven;And he dropped it down on the poeople's heads Two times one day in seven.In his age God said, "Come down and die."And he cried out from the steeple:"Where art thou, Lord?" And the Lord replied:"Down here among My people." -Author Unknown

October 16Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgements, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. - Deuteronomy 4:1"Hearken" and "do," that ye may "live" and "possess." This is a universal and abiding principle. It was true for Israel, and it is true for us. The pathway of life and the true secret of possession is simple obedience to the holy commandments of God. We see this all through the inspired volume, from cover to cover. God has given us His Word, not to speculate upon it or discuss it, but that we may obey it. And it is as we, through grace, yield a hearty and happy obedience to our Father's statutes and judgements, that we tread the bright pathway of life, and enter into the reality of all that God has treasured up for us in Christ. - C.H.M.

October 17I live not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20The man who lives in God knows no life except the life of God. - Philip Brooks

October 18As my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do. - 1 Kings 2:38There is something infinitely better than doing a great thing for God, and the infinitely better thing is to be where God wants us to be, to do what God wants us to do, and to have no will apart from His. - G. Campbell Morgan

October 19Who is among you that feareth the Lord... that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. - Isaiah 50:10"In fierce stroms," said an old seaman, "we can do but one thing; there is only one way. We must put the ship in a certain position and keep her there."This Christian, is what you must do. Sometimes, like Paul, you can see neither sun nor stars, and no small tempest lies on you. Then you can do but one thing: there is only one way. Reason cannot help you. Past experiences give you no light. Even prayer fetches no consolation. Only a single course is left. You must put your soul in one position and keep it there. You must stay upon the Lord. Come what may winds, waves, lightning, thunder, frowning rocks, roaring breakers-you must lash yourself to the helm and hold fast your confidence in God's faithfulnes, His sovereign engagement, His everlasting love in Christ Jesus. - Richard Fuller

October 20The word of our God shall stand for ever. - Isaiah 40:8The word of God is the water of life: the more freely you allow it to flow, the fresher it runs. It is the fire of God's glory: the more you blow on it, the clearer it burns. It is the corn of the Lord's field: the better you grind it, the more it yields. It is the bread of heaven: the more it is broken and given forth, the more it remains. It is the sword of the Spirit: the more it is used, the brighter it shines. - Bishop Jewel

October 21He placed... cherubims, and a flaming sword.. to keep the way of the tree of life. - Genesis 3:24Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they have the right to the tree of life. - Revelation 22:14How remarkable and beautiful it is that the last pages of Revelation should bend round to touch the first pages of Genesis! The history of man began with angels with frowning faces and flaming swords barring the way to the Tree of Life. It ends with the cherubim guard withdrawn; or perhaps, sheathing of their swords and becoming guides to the no longer forbidden fruit, instead of being its guards. that is the Bible's grand symbolic way of saying that all between-the sin, the misery, the death-is a parenthesis. God's purpose is not going to be thwarted. The end of His majestic march through history is to be men's access to the Tree of Life, from which, for the dreary ages that are but as a moment in the great eternities, they were barred out by sin. - Alexander Maclaren

October 22That the God our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revaltion in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. - Ephesians 1:17-18We were coming down a mountain in Switzerland one evening, when a black thunderstomr blotted out the day, and all was suddenly plunged into darkness. We could only dimly see the narrow, dusty footpaths, and the gloomy sides that were swallowed up in deeper gloom. What then of all the majesty all about us-heights, and depths, and wonders? All was darkness. Then came lightning-not flashes, but the blazing of the whole sky-incessant, and on every side. What recesses of glory we gazed into! What marvels of splendor shone out of the darkness!Think how with us, in us, is One who comes to make the common, dusty ways of life resplendent, illuminating our dull thoughts by the light of the glory of God; clearing the vision of the soul, and then revealing the greatness of the salvation that is ours in Christ. - Mark Guy Pearse

October 23The eleven disciples went...into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. Jesus came and spake unto them, saying... God ye... and teach all nations. - Matthew 28:16,18-19The considerable actions int he world have usually very small beginnings. Of a few letters, how many thousand words are made! of then figures, how many thousand numbers! A point is the beginning of all geometry. A little stone flung into a pind makes a little circle, then a greater, till it enlarges itself to the sides. So from small beginnings God cases an efflux through the whole world. - Charnock