Category: Devotion of the Day

Supposing

But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey.
Luke 2:44

Joseph and Mary supposed Jesus was with them when He was not. How many religious groups and movements run on for years long after Jesus has dropped out from the procession!

How many churches still carry on their programs, their Sunday-by-Sunday uprisings and downsittings and yet, like Samson, wist not that the Spirit of the Lord has departed!

And all because so many of us go on many a day’s journey after we have left Jesus far behind, so far as the conscious sense of His presence and blessing is concerned. We sing the same songs, say the same prayers, give the same testimonies, but men see Him not in their lives because His presence is only a supposition.

It will not do to proceed on a supposition. We must make sure of Jesus or we travel in vain. Nothing is so futile as religious activity that only imagines the Lord’s presence. We might well inquire, “Is the Lord among us or not?” It is wrong to doubt His presence when we may be sure of it, but it is foolish to imagine His presence when there is proper occasion to doubt it.

Three-Way Faithfulness

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
II Timothy 4:7

Paul was faithful to the faith: “I have kept the faith.” Not only is faith itself a fight (“fight the good fight of faith”), but we are also to contend for the faith. So he was also faithful to the fight: “I have fought a good fight.” And he was faithful to the finish: “I have finished my course.”

Some are faithful to the faith, sound in belief, orthodox in doctrine, but are not faithful to the fight, do not contend for the faith. But Paul was “set for the defense of the Gospel,” and because some have not been so minded, apostasy has taken over many a church and school. Still others are faithful to the faith and to the fight, but they give up the battle and do not endure unto the end; they are not faithful to the finish. We grow weary in well-doing all too soon. Paul did not soften up in old age and drift into that smiling tolerance which so many today think is a mark of broadminded maturity.

We are in deep need of three-way faithfulness, to the faith, to the fight, to the finish.