Daily Devotionals

Devotional: May 5th

"Thou art mine," - Isaiah 43:1.

Once thou hadst other proprietors. Sin, self, death, misery - these formerly boasted that thou wert theirs. But the price I have paid shuts their mouths forever.

Self is slowest of all to understand this. Thou hast distinctly and joyfully recognised the transfer of thyself to me; and yet again and again have I seen thee acting as though it were simply an agreeable fiction. Thou hast sometimes lavished thine affections on objects with which thou hadst no thing properly to do. Thou hast given thyself to enterprises which I had not commissioned thee to prosecute. Thou hast refused to go at my bidding, when the sick waited for thee, and the prisoner languished. Thou hast suffered the hungry to go unfed, and the mourner uncomforted from thy door, whither I had sent them saying, " He is mine; he will help thee, out of the resources which I have placed at his disposal." In the day of tribulation, when it pleased thee to put forth my hand upon that which is my own, didst thou not murmur, didst thou not shrink offended from the rude encounter of my providence? What meaneth this? Must my pleasure, after all, give way to thy pleasure? The infinite price which I have paid for thee, is it merely that self may sit upon a more royal throne? Nay, thou art mine, and I will put thee in whatsoever chamber seems most expedient to me; the chamber of sickness, of poverty, of humiliation, of defamation, of bereavement, of death.

Thou art mine. Wherefore I give thee the Holy Spirit. I have appointed thyself as his habitation on the earth. I sanctify thee by the truth. I bestow upon thee mine own image. I draw thy affections to myself; and teach thee to love the saints. I make thee meek and lowly. I make thee meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Why should I not? Since I have called thee mine, adopted thee, bestowed on thee the family name, recognised thee as one of my nearest relations, surely there is nothing inappropriate in the gift to thee of the most abundant influences of the Spirit. It would be strange, if I should acknowledge thee as my own, and yet leave thee to walk in thy rags, to drag on a weary life, in spiritual emaciation.

Thou art mine. Wherefore I cannot think of leaving thee forever among sinners. A place is prepared for thee by Him that died for thee. Thou must dwell in mansions that have never known the contamination of sin. Angels must be thine escort. Thou shalt go crowned with glory, honor and immortality; and shalt shine as the brightness of the firmament for ever and ever. And if any one ask, " Who is this that walketh in so much state, and is radiant with so much gladness? - let this answer suffice, " That he is mine. It is to my glory that all that belongeth to me be glorious and blessed ’

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