Category: Devotion of the Day

Reproach and/or Riches

Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
Hebrews 11:26.

Moses had to choose one of two kinds of wealth, the reproach of Christ or the treasures of Egypt. He esteemed the first to be the greater riches and so laid up treasure in heaven.

He chose the imperishable, “choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” He saw the invisible: “He endured as seeing him who is invisible”; He did the impossible: “By faith they passed through the Red Sea.”

Moses got off to a good start in his parentage. This same account tells us (v. 23) that his parents hid him when he was a baby and that “they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.” We read later that Moses forsook Egypt, “not fearing the wrath of the king.” Like parents, like son!

Moses’ choice was reproach and/or riches. It is a matter of whether one wants to get rich or be rich. We can be rich in Christ Jesus or perhaps get rich in Egypt, but we cannot do both. It is never “Christ and…” It is always “Christ or…” We cannot serve God and mammon.

Two Lost Words

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Matthew 28:18-20.

Here is our Saviour’s prerogative: He claims all power; our Saviour’s program: discipling, baptizing, teaching; our Saviour’s promise: to be with us all the days, even to the consummation of the age.

What a set-up! All the world before us, all power behind us, the All-powerful One with us!

In the teaching phase of our Saviour’s program, we do not read, “teaching them all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Much of our teaching today is just that, the dissemination of information. It says, “teaching them to observe…” Here are the two lost words of the Great Commission. Throughout the Word of God the accent is on doing, observing, keeping the commandments of the Lord. Today we teach them, but we do not teach people to do them. The Word is hid in the head but not in the heart. It is the Word hidden in the heart that keeps from sin. You can have a head full of Scripture and a heart full of sin.

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