DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
O God, we know not how to express our delight in you. You are the happy God, and you are the happy-making God. You have often come to us and lifted us up out of danger and set us on our high places. You have tuned our harps. When every string was broken you came and repaired it and taught us how to sing a new song to the Lord God of our life.
Oh, that we had nothing else to do but to praise you! And truly, we have nothing else to do; but we are so slow to know this. We get full of cares and troubles and doubts and fears and sins. Lord, cleanse and purge your servants; and give us to feel that all that remains for us “Is but to love and sing and wait until the angels come to bear us to their King.”
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“In the fear of the LORD one has strong confidence and his children have a refuge.” (Proverbs 14:26)
What is this fear of the Lord? The expression is used in Scripture for all true godliness. It is constantly the short way of expressing real faith, hope, love, holiness of living, and every grace that makes up true godliness. But why was fear selected? He puts fear, because, after all, there is a something more tender, more touching, more real about fear than there is about some people’s faith.
But in speaking of fear, we must always discriminate. There is a fear with which a Christian has nothing to do. Do not be afraid of God, whatever he does with you. The kind of fear commended in the text is not such as appalls the senses, and scares the thoughts. It is a fear that has not anything like being afraid mixed with it; it is quite another kind of fear. It is what we commonly call childlike fear of God, like the child’s fear of his father.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
Read Proverbs with your children
Today’s verse of the day came from Proverbs, a book that is famous for a lot of short, memorable phrases that describe how to walk in wisdom. But there’s so much more in this book. Proverbs describes a battle between two characters — the hero, Lady Wisdom, and her enemy, Lady Folly — for the hearts of young men and women.
Lady Folly is devious and our children will encounter her voice everywhere they turn. The world will call our children to sexual immorality and cheating. But Proverbs reminds us that these invitations are really invitations to death. Our children need to be taught to resist these calls and find life and wisdom at the feet of Christ.
That’s why I’ve created a new family devotional that walks through the entire book of Proverbs in five weeks. It takes less than ten minutes each day to read and discuss the book of Proverbs with your kids. And we’ll give you EVERYTHING you need (what passages to read, discussion questions, prayer points, interactive worksheets, hands-on activities, and more).
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