Daily Devotionals
Devotional: July 30th
" To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit." - Isaiah 66:2.
What mighty efforts, and how many, to obtain the regard of men: how rare the effort to obtain the regard of God! The admiring glance of God passes by the great and noble, the wise and prudent, the wealthy, the powerful, all the illustrious that shine as stars in the firmament of this world, and singles out some obscure person who is distinguished by no thing but a poor and contrite spirit, God looks to him and God alone. The mere possession of humility leaves him with out the slightest power to attract the attention of men. If he had but an arithmetical talent; or an uncommon memory; or an unusual degree of muscular power; could he but dance, run far, walk quickly, eat much, drink much, fast much; had he any kind of ability almost, men would look to him; but being merely a humble man, of a contrite spirit, singular only in his freedom from pride; they do not look to him. God looks to him.
God can do something with such a man as that. God is love, and delighteth in mercy, and he is ever seeking whom he can bless; and when he finds a man of a poor and contrite spirit, he has the opportunity of blessing. For such a one will receive the gifts of God without being lifted up by them; he knows that all comes to him in the way of unmerited grace; and his heart will glow the more with gratitude and self-forgetting affection, the more that God bestows upon him. He is of course docile, teachable; he will learn the ways of God and will walk therein. Do not imagine that he is a poor spirited creature, trembling at the face of man. No, this contrite-hearted man, when he hath once tasted of the joy of God’s salvation, and taken knowledge of the eye of his God and his Saviour fixed upon him, is thenceforth lion-hearted in the presence of men. He is at the disposition of God, and is whatever his heavenly Master wishes him to be. It is a light thing for the Spirit of God to make of such a one a Luther, a Knox, a Paul; to bestow upon him all human excellencies; and give him power to thresh mountains, to revolutionize kingdoms, to do any work soever that needeth to be done. He is in the school of God, to be educated by God. He has begun aright; and eye hath not yet seen, ear hath not yet heard, heart hath not yet conceived, what he will become in the plastic hand of his divine Fashioner.
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