DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Our Father, we would not crouch before you like slaves before a tyrant, but feel the spirit of adoption, which draws us into familiar communication with you; though still with holy trembling for you are God in heaven and we are still but men upon the earth and at the very sight of you we feel a trembling coming over us; yet is there joy with it; and you have taught us to rejoice with trembling.

We would in spirit now pass into that inner place, into which the High Priest of Israel dared not come but once a year, and then not without blood. We bless you that the veil is torn and now every believer is made a priest and permitted to come into the Holy of Holies, and to draw near unto the mercy-seat, sprinkled with blood, without fear of being regarded as an intruder, or smitten down like Nadab and Abihu

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever.” (Hebrews 7:28)

Our High Priest is of such dignity that none can be compared with him. He is the Son of the Highest, the equal of the Father. I want you to think of this truth, because it may help you to see how great must have been the merit of the sacrifice when it was God himself who “offered himself.” He was no mere delegated or elected priest, but Christ Jesus himself, in whom “the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9)—Christ, who is the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person. It was him who stood at the altar presenting “himself” to God as the one and only sacrifice for sin.

PRAY FOR THE NATIONS

This week, we’re praying for the Dondo of Indonesia.

Jesus said that “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world” (Matthew 24:14), but it has never — at any point in history — been proclaimed to the Dondo.

Pray that the gospel would reach the Dondo for the first time.

FAITH’S CHECKBOOK

“As a mother comforts her son, so I will comfort you…” (Isaiah 66:13)

A mother’s comfort! Ah, this is tenderness itself. How she enters into her child’s grief! How she presses him to her bosom and tries to take all his sorrow into her own heart! He can tell her everything and she will sympathize as nobody else can. Of all comforters the child loves his mother best. Even full-grown men have found it so.

Does the Lord condescend to love us like a mother? This is goodness indeed. We readily perceive how he is a father, but will he be like a mother also? This promise invites us to holy familiarity, to unreserved confidence, to sacred rest. When God himself becomes the comforter, no anguish can long abide. Let us tell our trouble, even though sobs and sighs are the only utterance we can speak. He will not despise us for our tears; our mother did not. He will consider our weakness as she did and he will put away our faults in a surer, safer way than our mother could do. We will not try to bear our grief alone; that would be unkind to one so gentle and so kind. Let us begin the day with our loving God. And we will finish it in the same company, since mothers do not grow weary of their children.

Something to think about today if you’re feeling sorrowful: God cares about your sorrow.

LAST WORD FROM SPURGEON

“Do as the Lord bids you. This keeps you in the king's highway and under royal protection.” — Charles Spurgeon