Category: Devotion of the Day

JESUS MADE REAL

He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you.
John 16:14.

We do not make Jesus real by conjuring up a mental picture of Him long ago in Galilee and trying to walk in imagination with Him there. We do not have to go back two thousand years or travel to Palestine to find Jesus. There is a fad for that sort of thing, but so might one inwardly visualize any character of history. Such mental association may, indeed, affect one’s life to some degree, but it is far from the way Christ is made real to the believer.

The Holy Spirit has come for that purpose. All things spiritual are from God through Christ and are communicated to us by the Spirit. It was expedient that Jesus should go that the Spirit might come. He does not testify of Himself but of Christ, and He makes the Lord real to the heart. It is not a mere mental exercise but the work of the Spirit that enables us to say, “He is real to me.”

LACKING “ONE THING” OR “NOTHING”

Lacked ye anything?
Luke 22:35

One thing thou lackest.
Mark 10:21

When the disciples went forth at the bidding of Jesus without purse or scrip or shoes, they lacked nothing. The rich young ruler had purse and scrip and shoes, but when he went away he lacked one thing, and, lacking that, he lacked everything.

When we obey our Lord’s orders and go forth by His commission we find His grace sufficient and our needs supplied through God’s riches in glory by Christ Jesus. But a man may have all else, yet if he be not willing to abandon it all for the Master, he is a pauper. The supreme thing in this life is to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord. A man may have kept other commandments, but if he will not cut loose from his dearest earthly treasure at the bidding of the Lord, he has failed at the vital point and is still a rebel.

Nothing matters but this: does Jesus have the utter absolute first and final say in your life? If He does, you will lack nothing.