Devotion of the Day

Second Adam

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
I Corinthians 15:22

We are all children of the first Adam. He fell and to this day we suffer the consequences. Sin, disease, death, all the corruptions and frailties of the body, mind and spirit, we inherit from our father, the first man of the earth, earthy.

But God started a new race with His Son from heaven. To as many as receive Him to them gives He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name. Read Romans 5 for a glorious picture of the two Adams.

Here is the true super race of sons of God whose citizenship is in heaven. We still carry the marks of Adam’s fall, and our bifocals and bridges and baldness and all our frailties bear witness that we are his offspring. But from the day we believe, we begin a new life which shall discard this shell for a new body at the resurrection. Our New Adam is perfect, and all we need here and hereafter is found in Him. We can reign in life now by Christ Jesus.

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

Deovtion of the Day

Wine or Vinegar?

Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.
Jeremiah 15:16

McLaren speaks of the “perverse ingenuity…of that state of mind in which some manage to distil for themselves a bitter vinegar of self-accusation out of grand words in the Bible that were meant to afford them but the wine of gladness and of consolation.”

The Spirit does indeed use the Word to convict the guilty and uneasy conscience, but, on the other hand, the Accuser may so beset us that Scriptures meant to give us assurance may but make us miserable. The devil is the author of a false confidence but he also generates a false diffidence, so that we get vinegar out of what should be wine to our souls.

If you have definitely committed all you are and have to God, do not be afraid to enjoy the wine of the Word. Do not cultivate a perverted taste that distils vinegar instead.

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