Category: Devotion of the Day

Stopping Short of God

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.
Psalm 63:1

Any spiritual exercise that stops short of God Himself stops far too short. We can become taken up with the means and forget the end. Our Bible reading may bring us profit and we may lay down the Book with a comfortable sense of duty well performed, but does the heart say, “Beyond the sacred page, I seek Thee, Lord”? Prayer is but a means to an end: we may get a secret satisfaction out of praying that makes prayer only an end in itself. “Early will I seek thee” – that is true prayer. “Now thee alone I seek, give what is best.” Faith has no value save as it links us with God. Yet we often become taken up with our faith and miss God entirely.

Feelings, experiences, meditation, reading, church attendance, with all these we may stop short of God, finding some satisfaction but letting the good rob us of the best – Himself. The Psalmist said, “My soul thirsteth…my flesh longeth for thee.” Only God can meet the need of the whole man.

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

The Good Old Days

Where is the Lord God of Elijah?
2 Kings 2:14

Elisha did not ask for the return of Elijah or sigh for the good old days of Elijah. Some of us are like Saul trying to call up departed Samuels. “What would Moody do today? Oh, for the times we used to have!”

A subscriber wrote to a magazine editor, “Your magazine is not as good as it used to be.” The editor replied, “It never has been.” The times have never been as good as they used to be! The Early Church, fresh from Pentecost, had barely started, when “‘there arose a murmuring.” Look at Corinth! Don’t forget Ananias and Sapphira, the Galatians and Colossians, Euodia and Syntyche, the plight of Ephesus, Sardis, Laodicea. It has always been so, yet God has carried on.

Looking back to the good old days is not the way out. Looking up to the God of All the Days is.

Elijah goes, but “thou, O Lord, remainest.”

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