Category: Devotion of the Day

END AND BEGINNING

Woe is me! For I am undone.
Isaiah 6:5

Isaiah was come to the end of himself. Like Moses in Midian, like Job when he saw God, like Daniel with his comeliness turned to corruption and Habakkuk with rottenness entering his bones; like Peter at Tiberias and Paul with his thorn, he has come to the end of all feeling and trying and praying, the end of all he is and has, to where God begins.

Blessed is that hour of holy desperation when a man reaches that extremity which is God’s opportunity and moves out of the wreck of himself into Christ. Nothing in his hand he brings, but just as he is without one plea he takes up residence with Christ in God. He puts no value on anything he has or is, attaches no importance to his feelings or faith or prayers. Christ is everything. We waste many years trying to construct some sort of refuge out of the rubbish of ourselves, until we abandon it all and dwell in Another. From then on we have no confidence in the flesh but humbly look unto Him for salvation and the “all things” that go with it, His sufficient grace for the whole man, for every day, for any need, that we, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

PRAY THROUGH AND ONLY BELIEVE

And as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him and he halted upon his thigh.
Genesis 32:31

The “Pray It Through” and “Take It By Faith” schools have argued through the centuries and many a soul has been confused thereby. Some have “sought” and “tarried” and exhausted themselves agonizing to no avail. Others have mistaken laziness of passivity and have made a feigned faith an excuse for not resolutely pressing through to God. There is truth in both schools: one must mean business and come to a point of crisis; but, still, all we get from God simple faith must take.

Jacob did not win by wrestling. God crippled him and he ended by clinging. Sunrise at Penuel found him limping, but he had power with God and men. Paul did not pray through until his thorn was removed, but he learned to take by faith grace sufficient for each day. Jacob meant business and so did Paul. But beyond that they walked by simple faith and obedience. It may take wrestling to reach the point of abandonment. After that we cling in humble dependence.