Daily Devotionals

Devotional: November 21st

THE REFUGE OF THE DEVOUT SOUL

For Thou, O Lord, art my Refuge! - Psalms 91:9

This cry of the devout soul, recognizing God as its Asylum and Home, comes in response to a revelation of God’s blessing and to large words of promise. Let us be sure that we are hearkening to the voice with which He speaks through our daily circumstances as well as by the unmistakable revelation of His will and heart in Jesus Christ. And then let us be sure that no word of His that comes fluttering down from the heavens, meaning a benediction and enclosing a promise, shall fall at our feet ungathered and unregarded, or shall be trodden into the dust by our careless heels. The manna lies all about us; let us see that we gather it. Turn His promises into your creed, and whatever He has declared in the sweet thunder of His voice, loud as the voice of many waters, and melodious as harpers harping with their harps, do you take for your profession of faith in the faithful promises of your God.

This cry of the devout soul suggests to me that our response ought to be the establishment of a close personal relation between us and God. " Thou, O Lord, art my Refuge." We must isolate ourselves and stand, God and we, alone together - at heart-grips, we grasping His hands, and He giving Himself to us - if the promises which are sent down into the world for all who will make them theirs can become ours. They are made payable to your order; you must write your name on the back before you get the proceeds. There must be what our good old Puritan forefathers used to call, in somewhat hard language, "the appropriating act of faith," in order that God’s richest blessings may be of any use to us. Put out your hand to grasp them, and say " mine," not " ours." The thought of others as sharing in them will come afterwards, for he who has once realized the absolute isolation of the soul and has been alone with God, and in solitude has taken God’s gifts as his very own, is he who will feel fellowship and brotherhood with all who are partakers of like precious faith and blessings. The "ours" will come; but you must begin with the "mine" - " my Lord and my God." " He loved me, and gave Himself for me." Just as when the Israelites gathered on the banks of the Red Sea, and Miriam and the maidens came out with songs and timbrels, though their hearts throbbed with joy, and music rang from their lips for national deliverance, their hymn made the whole deliverance the property of each, and each of the chorus sang, "The Lord is my Strength and my Song, He also is become my Salvation," so we must individualize the common blessing. Every poor soul has a right to the whole of God; and unless a man claims all the Divine nature as his, he has little chance of possessing the promised blessings.

This cry of the devout soul recognises God as He to whom we must go because we need a refuge. Only he who knows himself to be in danger bethinks himself of a refuge. It is only when we know our danger and defenselessness that God, as the Refuge of our souls, becomes precious to us. So, underlying, and an essential part of, all our confidence in God is the clear recognition of our own necessity. The sense of our own emptiness must precede our grasp of His fulness.

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