DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Our Father, for that is the sweetest title by which we can address you, we pray that you would save us entirely from sin. There are many in your presence who are resting in the peace which comes of justification by faith. We know that we are righteous through the righteousness of another, even Jesus Christ; but we pant and pine for personal likeness to you.
If you are our Father, then upon every child of yours should be the Father’s image impressed: so let it be. We beseech you, Lord, to enable us to recognize our death to sin; and when it tempts us may we be deaf to the voice of the charmer with the deafness of death; and when it would use our members as instruments of unrighteousness, may we be quite incapable thereof with the incapacity of death.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“Who is like the LORD our God— the one enthroned on high,” (Psalm 113:5)
The challenge will never be answered. None can be compared with him for an instant; Israel’s God is without parallel; our own God in covenant stands alone, and none can be likened unto him. Even those whom he has made like himself in some respects are not like him in godhead, for his divine attributes are many of them incommunicable and inimitable. None of the metaphors and figures by which the Lord is set forth in the Scriptures can give us a complete idea of him: his full resemblance is borne by nothing in earth or in heaven. Only in Jesus is the Godhead seen, but he unhesitatingly declared, “he who has seen me has seen the Father.”
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
Finding Scripture-saturated hope in the midst of doubt and suffering
For Christians, doubt is often associated with our own experiences of suffering. It is hard to believe in a good and powerful God when we feel so much pain in this broken world.
In the midst of suffering, it is easy to doubt God’s love for us and feel as if he has deserted us. An excellent book to help you find hope and faith through that kind of suffering is Deserted by God? by Sinclair Ferguson.
This book offers several reflections on the Psalms of lament in the Bible, where divinely-inspired authors cried out to God in the midst of their pain.
No matter what trials you are currently going through (or will go through in the future), Deserted by God? will give you the kind of Bible-saturated firm faith you need to endure. I hope you will grab a copy today.