Category: Devotion of the Day

Without Me – Nothing

Without me ye can do nothing.
John 15:5

The starting point to “all things” is to learn that we are nothing. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:18). “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Gal. 6:3). What a self-deceived generation, then, is ours!

“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” We do not have what it takes. Start with your nothingness – “Just as I am, without one plea” – and you are on your way to His “all things.”

Let our debts be what they may, however great or small;
As soon as we have naught to pay, our Lord forgives us all.
‘Tis perfect poverty alone that sets the soul at large;
While we can call one mite our own, we have no full discharge.
We can never be blessed until we learn that we can bring nothing to Christ but our need. “All the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him.”

“Vival” or Revival?

Enoch walked with God.
Genesis 5:24

Enoch did not need a revival every year to keep him going. Most Christians and churches need a periodic stirring up, but it should not, and need no, be so. We are in danger of thinking of revival as an occasional shot in the arm, a spurt of religious enthusiasm that soon plays out. God never meant that His children should live by fits and starts, and up-and-down experience. Some husbands and wives live that way, with periods of indifference, quarreling, and then making up again. How much better is that steady and constant companionship, not perfect, but faithful and dependable day by day!

With churches on almost every other corner, it is pathetic that we should have to have a special reviving every year. If we walked with God and kept up to date with Him we should never need to all in a preacher to get us back to normal. For real revival is simply normal New Testament Christianity, not an unusual religious spree.

If we had a daily “vival” we should not need an occasional revival. Let us walk as children of the day and we shall not need to be awakened every year.