Category: Devotion of the Day

Lord an Lepers

A lord…said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? …And there were four leprous men…and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die?
II Kings 7:2,3

The “Lord” ridiculed the idea that the siege of Samaria could be lifted and its famine relieved, but The Lord used lepers, of all people, to make the venture of desperation that brought deliverance. Truly, God keeps His secrets from the wise and prudent and reveals them unto babes. While King Jehoram and his experts and generals were at wit’s end, God used the means least expected to turn the tide. It was not the wise, mighty, and noble who relieved Samaria but the base and despised. And while lords laughed, lepers demonstrated the power of God.

How often has the Almighty by-passed the high and mighty and confounded the experts, while some lowly soul on the verge of despair has put us all to shame by marching straight ahead in holy desperation to discover what the rest of us only debate! God proves Himself by raising up son nonentity who is willing to risk everything on a venture to show what god can do. While lords make light of it, lepers make history.

“Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?” “Prove me now herewith, saith The Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven.” Which will you believe, “a lord” or The Lord?

The Christ of Experience

Last of all he was seen of me also.
I Corinthians 15:8

In this marvelous and classic statement of the Gospel, Paul sets forth the Christ of history: “Christ died”; the Christ of doctrine: “Christ died for our sins”; the Christ of the Scriptures: “Christ died…was buried…and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Then he moved further to declare the Christ of experience, the experience of others, to begin with. “He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve, of above five hundred brethren at once, of James, of all the apostles.” And finally he reaches a climax in the Christ of his own experience: “and last of all he was seen of me also.”

It is possible to know Christ as a fact of history, of doctrine, of the Scriptures, of the experience of others, but it avails nothing if we cannot add, “Last of all he was seen of me also.”

It was said of Thomas Chalmers that he had “an original experience of Jesus Christ.” Have you seen Him for yourself?