Category: Devotion of the Day

If Any Man Will…

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
John 7:17

The battle is fought in the citadel of the will. We have intelligence, emotions, and will. We may not be able to understand with the intelligence or feel with the emotions as we would like, but we can take a stand in the will and be true to God, however all else may clamor.

Do not yield to confusion. Are you a man or a mob? Too many today do not have themselves in order and under command. Many a man is not a personality, he is a panic!

Of course, our poor wills, left unaided, are but cotton strings. But when we will the will of God He begins to work in us both to will and do of his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). We submit to His will: “Thy will be done.” Then we assert His will: “Thy will be done!” It is both passive and active. “Thy will be done” is not mere resignation to the inevitable, it is affirmation of the invincible. However little the intelligence may understand or emotion feel, we take our stand in the will yielded to His will.

The daily devotions are from Day by Day by Vance Havner. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1953.

Subtilty and Simplicity

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
II Corinthians 11:3.

Strictly speaking, what is in mind here is the simplicity of our faith in Christ rather than the simplicity of the Gospel, but we need not stop there. What stands out most is the contrast between subtilty and simplicity. Satan deals in subtilties. Our Lord deals in simplicities. There is sublimity aplenty but the sublimity is revealed to the simple, kept from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. We have let our minds be corrupted by Satan’s subtilties away from the Saviour’s simplicities. Beware of any teaching, any movement that is sneaking and insidious. The truth is frank and honest and aboveboard. Satan’s subtilties bear the mark of the serpent—“the snake in the grass.” Our Lord stood in the public place and invited men to Him. The Early Church came out in the open. Paul said, “This thing was not done in a corner.”

It is part of Satan’s program to make our faith and practice complicated and involved. Now and then we need a rediscovery of the simplicity that is both in and toward Christ, in Him and in our faith in Him.

The daily devotions are from Day by Day by Vance Havner. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1953.