Category: Devotion of the Day

HEAT AND LIGHT

He was a burning and a shining light.
John 5:35

So spake our Lord of John the Baptist. The Forerunner had both heat and light. It is a combination not always found in one personality. Some saints have heat aplenty, but they need light, wisdom, guidance. Some have light, but it is cold; there is no fire, no warmth. Someone has said, “Youth has fire without light and age has light without fire.”

It is hard to tell which has done most harm, hotheaded ignorance or cold-hearted knowledge. The wild street preacher, screaming and tearing his hair, needs to burn less and shine more. The cold, intellectual preacher in stiff Sunday-morning formalism needs to shine less and burn more.

John the Baptist burned and shone. “Stir up the gift of God…” “Let your light so shine…” Give us more witnesses with both heat and light!

FOOLISHNESS STILL

The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
I Corinthians 1:18

It was foolishness to the world then and it still is. Religion is very popular today and some are misled by that fact. A scared and desperate generation, having tried all else, is considering religion. But they do not want the preaching of the cross. Jesus the Example and Teacher maybe, Christianity as a lovely philosophy, but not a crucified Saviour. That is still “foolishness” to this age and ever will be.

And to most church members the counterpart of Christ’s death for our sin, our death with Him and resurrection to walk with Him in newness of life, is just as unpopular. Call upon the average congregation to live out Romans 6, with its “reckon,” “yield,” and “obey,” and you will hear few “amens.”

The preaching of the cross in its meaning for sinner and saint is still “foolishness” to sinners and distasteful to not a few saints.