Category: Devotion of the Day

COME BEFORE WINTER

Do thy diligence to come before winter.
II Timothy 4:21

“It is not good that the man should be alone.” Adam had God in the Garden of Eden, but he still needed Eve, and God knew it. We must have human companionship. Paul had no wife, so he turned to his friends, and to Timothy, his “beloved son” in particular. He urged first, “Do they diligence to come shortly unto me” (v.9); then he thought of approaching cold weather and of what it would add to his loneliness, so he repeats his request and says, “Come before winter.” It is a touching sidelight on a great soul, but human like us all.

Winter has a way of coming in varied forms, and blessed is the fellowship of a kindred soul. We have the Lord, but He Himself has recognized that we need the touch of a human hand. He Himself came down and lived among us as a man. We cannot see Him now, but blest be the tie that binds human hearts in Christian love. Most precious of earthly ties is husband and wife “in the Lord.” If Paul is denied a wife he had better find a Timothy. And may Timothy arrive before winter!

THE WALL

For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
Isaiah 25:4

How often in the loneliness and strain of our work, when foes, seen and unseen, beset us, we have been conscious of an invisible wall, the angel of the Lord encamping round about us to deliver us. Often we have been helpless, with no strength of our own against the enemy. Yet we have been able to lie down and sleep, conscious that our Keeper never slumbers. “The wall” is a good figure, for we need not be roofed in overhead. Satan can surround us but he cannot roof us over, and we need the upward look unobstructed. Never has God’s wall broken down, nor has the Adversary breached it. Because it is invisible, the devil would have us fear it is not there; but it is. He can come so far but no farther.

If ever we needed a wall, it is now. The hosts of evil are making their worst mad assaults, and no ramparts of our own can avail. But we have a fortress, a hiding place, a Rock of Ages. Are you hid with Christ in God?