Daily Devotionals
Devotional: January 23rd
" I will heal their backsliding." - Hosea 14:4.
God does this:
(l) By letting them taste some of the bitter fruits of their backsliding. Dreadful shadows gather round their path. Anguish invades their souls. They discover the frightful desolation of a path where God is not.
(2) He brings to their recollection the happy state from whence they fell; the blessedness of having the Good Shepherd to lead them, and to keep them.
(3) He directs them to the promises, and so to the open arms of Christ.
(4) He fills them with an intense abhorrence of their backsliding, by the cross of Christ.
(5) He puts it into their heart to cleave unto him; to be wary and watchful; to renounce all self-dependence, and evermore to press forward in the divine life, hungering and thirsting.
To express it briefly, he heals them now as he healed them first, by the cross of Christ, by the unspeakable love of the crucified One. Mere conviction does not heal. Mere attention to religion does not. Mere promises of amendment do not. Neither does forgetfulness of declension. No palliatives are of avail here.
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