Thursday, January 2, 2025
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
"A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" Proverbs 15:23
DAILY PORTIONS
(Selected from the writing of J.C. Philpot by his daughters)
"A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" Proverbs 15:23
"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."--Psalm 90:12
Casting our eyes back upon the year now past and gone, are there no mercies which claim a note of thankful praise? It is sweet to see the Lord's kind hand in providence, but sweeter far to view his outstretched hand in grace. Are we then so unwatchful or so unmindful of the Lord's gracious hand in his various dealings with our soul as to view the whole past twelve months as a dead blank in which we have never seen his face, nor heard his voice, nor felt his power? "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?" (Jer 2:31,) the Lord tenderly asks. Has he been such to us also for twelve long and weary months?
What! No help by the way, no tokens for good, no liftings-up of the light of his countenance, no visitations of his presence and power, no breakings-in of his goodness for all that long and dreary time--for dreary it must indeed have been for a living soul to have been left and abandoned of the Lord so long! If not blessed with any peculiar manifestations of Christ, with any signal revelations of his Person and work, blood and love, grace and glory, for such special seasons are not of frequent, occurrence, have we not still found him the Way, the Truth, and the Life? If we have indeed a personal and spiritual union with the Son of God, as our living Head, there will be communications out of his fullness, a supplying of all our needs--a drawing forth of faith, hope, and love--a support under trials, a deliverance from temptations, a deepening of his fear in the heart, and that continued work of grace whereby we are enabled to live a life of faith on the Son of God.
"We will be glad and rejoice in You." Song of Solomon 1:4
Morning and Evening
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"We will be glad and rejoice in You." Song of Solomon 1:4
We will be glad and rejoice in You. We will not open the gates of the year to the dolorous notes of the sackbut—but to the sweet strains of the harp of joy, and the high sounding cymbals of gladness. "O come, let us sing unto the Lord—let us make a joyful noise unto the rock of our salvation!" We, the called and faithful and chosen—we will drive away our griefs, and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. Let others lament over their troubles—we who have the sweetening tree to cast into Marah's bitter pool—with joy will magnify the Lord!
"Eternal Spirit, our effectual Comforter, we who are the temples in which You dwell—will never cease from adoring and blessing the name of Jesus."
We WILL, we are resolved about it—Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight; we will not dishonor our Bridegroom by mourning in His presence. We are ordained to be the minstrels of the skies, let us rehearse our everlasting anthem before we sing it in the halls of the New Jerusalem.
We will be GLAD and REJOICE. These are two words with one sense, double joy, blessedness upon blessedness. Need there be any limit to our rejoicing in the Lord even now? Do not men of grace find their Lord to be camphire and spikenard, calamus and cinnamon even now—and what better fragrance have they in heaven itself?
We will be glad and rejoice IN YOU. That last word is the dainty in the dish—the kernel of the nut—the soul of the text. What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, yes, and every drop of their fullness in Him! "Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, You are the present portion of Your people, favor us this year with such a sense of Your preciousness, that from its first to its last day—we may be glad and rejoice in You. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus."
