DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
O God, you are our exceeding joy. The very singing of your praises lifts our heart upward: when we can join in the solemn psalm or the sacred hymn, our heart leaps within us. And when your name is glorified, when we see sinners glorifying the name of Jesus, when we look forward to the brighter days when myriads shall flock to the Crucified: above all, when we contemplate his final triumph, then is our heart very restful, and our spirit rejoices in God our Savior. What a fountain of delight you are, and how richly you have promised to bless the men that delight themselves in God.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)
God is to be the great object of your joy. Rejoice in the Father, your Father who is in heaven, your loving, tender, unchangeable God. Rejoice, too, in the Son, your Redeemer, your Brother, the Husband of your soul, your Prophet, Priest, and King. Rejoice also in the Holy Spirit, your Quickener, your Comforter, in him who shall abide with you forever.
Sometimes, brothers and sisters, you cannot rejoice in anything else, but you can rejoice in the Lord; then, rejoice in him to the full. Do not rejoice in your temporal prosperity, for riches take to themselves wings, and fly away. Do not rejoice even in your great successes in the work of God. If the Lord is your joy, your joy will never dry up. All other things are but for a season; but God is forever and ever. Make him your joy, the whole of your joy, and then let this joy absorb your every thought. Be baptized into this joy; plunge into the deeps of this unutterable bliss of joy in God.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
We need to stop living for ourselves
Today we prayed, praising God for bringing us a great joy in him. If God is really our greatest joy, then we will be freed to give everything we are away.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always our experience today. We frequently hoard our blessings instead of pouring them out on others — this is not God’s design, so we can’t keep living that way.
That’s the point of Something Needs to Change by David Platt. This book is an incredible testimony and devotional, sharing both biblical truth about God’s heart for the nations and his plan for your life, as well as David’s own experience coming face-to-face with urgent physical and spiritual need in the Himalayas.
Warning: this book will challenge you and shake you out of your comfort zone. But the good news is that it will make you take up your call to be a blessing to all nations.