Daily Devotionals

Devotional: June 20th

"WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO?"

And the multitudes asked Him, saying, What then must we do? - Luke 3:10

What is there to do? First, and last, and midst, keep close to Jesus Christ. In the measure in which we keep ourselves in continual touch with Him will His law be written upon our hearts. If we are for ever twitching away the paper; if we are for ever flinging blots and mud upon it, how can we expect the transcript to be clear and legible? We must keep still that God may write. We must keep near Him that He may write. We must wait habitually in His presence. When the astronomer wishes to get the image of some far-off star, invisible to the eye of sense, he regulates the motion of his sensitive plate, so that for hours it shall continue right beneath the invisible beam. So we have to still our hearts, and keep their plates - the fleshly tables of them- exposed to the heavens; then the likeness of God will be stamped there.

Be faithful to what is written there, which is the Christian shape of the heathen commandment, "Do the duty that lies nearest thee; so shall the next become plainer." Be faithful to the line that is " written," and there will be more on the tablet tomorrow.

Now this is a promise for us all. However blotted and blurred and defaced by crooked, scrawling letters, like a child’s copybook, with its first pothooks and hangers, our hearts may be, there is no need for any of us to say despairingly, as we look on the smeared page, " What I have written I have written." He is able to blot it all out, to " take away the handwriting" - our own - " that is against us, nailing it to His Cross," and to give us, in our inmost spirits, a better knowledge of, and a glad obedience to, His discerned and holy will. So that each of us, if we like, and will observe the conditions, may be able to say with all humility, " Lo! I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Thy will. Yea! Thy law is within my heart."

Two mirrors set one against each other reflect one another, and themselves in each other, in long perspective. Two hearts that love, with similar reciprocation of influence, mirror back to each other their own affections. " I am thine; thou art mine," is the very mother-tongue of love, and of blessedness the source. All loving hearts know that. This mutual surrender, and, in surrender, reciprocal possession, is lifted up here into the highest regions. " I will be their God, they shall be My people."

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