When someone first accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, they are encouraged to read the Bible and pray every day. Bible study and prayer are important. These daily devotions have been prepared to help you grow in grace and in the knowledge of God.
A quiet time with the Word is essential. Job said, "I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food." Job 23:12. Usually those things that are necessary aren't enjoyable, but the Bible is. Listen to Jeremiah, who wrote, "Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Jeremiah 15:16. The Word of God is also effectual in that it accomplishes His will in those who believe. That's the message of 1 Thessalonians 2:13. Essential! Enjoyable! Effect |
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Isaiah 26:3 3 Isaiah 26:3 3You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Isaiah spent the previous chapters telling of all the destruction that was to come to Judah and the surrounding nations. Then he looked forward in time to when the nation of God's people will enter their holy city. The walls and ramparts are salvation. God wipes away every tear from their eyes. It is the nation of believers who will not forsake their faith in God. Because of that faith God keeps them in perfect peace. The world goes through changes and turmoil. Nations rise and fall. So much of our sense of security is in the flimsiest of things, but those whose minds are steadfast, seeing the sovereignty of God, and the love and faithfulness of God, have perfect peace. Perfect peace is not circumstantial. It is much deeper than passing things. They trust that God never changes. They trust that the love that He has shown them and His faithfulness and mercy will continue forever. There is no fear that He will change. All else is fluid. All else is undependable. But the eye of faith looks past this temporal world and sees the unchanging God. The peace faith brings is perfect. It is deep and abiding. It is the peace He gives us. Do you know this peace? Where is your trust placed? If it is on something temporal, turn away from that today and learn to trust in the unchanging One. |
To be a partaker of the divine nature is not, of course, to become God. That cannot be. The essence of Deity is not to be participated in by the creature. Between the creature and the Creator there must ever be a gulf fixed in respect of essence; but as the first man Adam was made in the image of God, so we, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit, are in a yet diviner sense made in the image of the Most High, and are partakers of the divine nature. We are, by grace, made like God. "God is love"; we become love - "He that loveth is born of God." God is truth; we become true, and we love that which is true: God is good, and he makes us good by his grace, so that we become the pure in heart who shall see God. Moreover, we become partakers of the divine nature in even a higher sense than this - in fact, in as lofty a sense as can be conceived, short of our being absolutely divine. Do we not become members of the body of the divine person of Christ? Yes, the same blood which flows in the head flows in the hand: and the same life which quickens Christ quickens his people, for "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Nay, as if this were not enough, we are married unto Christ. He hath betrothed us unto himself in righteousness and in faithfulness, and he who is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Oh! marvellous mystery! we look into it, but who shall understand it? One with Jesus - so one with him that the branch is not more one with the vine than we are a part of the Lord, our Saviour, and our Redeemer! While we rejoice in this, let us remember that those who are made partakers of the divine nature will manifest their high and holy relationship in their intercourse with others, and make it evident by their daily walk and conversation that they have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. O for more divine holiness of life!