May 30 | Collection of Daily Devotionals

Daily Devotion: May 23, 2024
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May 30
"And no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty
and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth" (Rev
14:3).
There are songs which can only be learned in the valley. No art
can teach them; no rules of voice can make them perfectly
sung. Their music is in the heart. They are songs of memory, of
personal experience. They bring out their burden from the
shadow of the past; they mount on the wings of yesterday.
St. John says that even in Heaven there will be a song that can
only be fully sung by the sons of earth - the strain of
redemption. Doubtless it is a song of triumph, a hymn of victory
to the Christ who made us free. But the sense of triumph must
come from the memory of the chain.
No angel, no archangel can sing it so sweetly as I can. To sing it
as I sing it, they must pass through my exile, and this they
cannot do. None can learn it but the children of the Cross.
And so, my soul, thou art receiving a music lesson from thy
Father. Thou art being educated for the choir invisible. There
are parts of the symphony that none can take but thee.
There are chords too minor for the angels. There may be
heights in the symphony which are beyond the scale - heights
which angels alone can reach; but there are depths which
belong to thee, and can only be touched by thee.
Thy Father is training thee for the part the angels cannot sing;
and the school is sorrow. I have heard many say that He sends
sorrow to prove thee; nay, He sends sorrow to educate thee, to
train thee for the choir invisible.
In the night He is preparing thy song. In the valley He is tuning
thy voice. In the cloud He is deepening thy chords. In the rain

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He is sweetening thy melody. In the cold He is moulding thy
expression. In the transition from hope to fear He is perfecting
thy lights.
Despise not thy school of sorrow, O my soul; it will give thee a
unique part in the universal song. - George Matheson
"Is the midnight closing round you?
Are the shadows dark and long?
Ask Him to come close beside you,
And He’ll give you a new, sweet song.
He’ll give it and sing it with you;
And when weakness lets it down,
He’ll take up the broken cadence,
And blend it with His own.
"And many a rapturous minstrel
Among those sons of light,
Will say of His sweetest music
’’I learned it in the night.’’
And many a rolling anthem,
That fills the Father’s home,
Sobbed out its first rehearsal,
In the shade of a darkened room."1
May 30
LOVE-HUNGRY
Mar 14:1-9
Jesus is so grateful for love. It alone can satisfy his heart. He
judges everyone by the heart’s action. He thinks of every action
of ours, every bit of service, every gift, by how much heart is in
it. It’s the coin, or the act, that is tinged red with the heart’s
blood, which he prizes most. It may be only a small jar of
ointment, but its fragrance fills his heart and all the world.2
May 30
1
Streams in the Desert (Mrs. Charles E. Cowman) Published in 1925; public domain.
2
The Bent-Knee Time (Samuel D. Gordon) Published in 1918; public domain.

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THE PERSISTENCE OF LIFE
"The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob. Now He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for
all live unto Him." — Luk 20:37-38.
WHAT IS Death? It is not a condition but a transition; not an
abiding-place, but a passage; not a house, but a doorway. The
Scripture refers to it as a birth—"the first-born from the dead";
as an exodus—"after my exodus," says Peter; as a striking of
the tent—"I must shortly put off this tabernacle;" as the
weighing of an anchor—"the time for me to loose-off from the
shore is come." Each of these metaphors accentuates the fact
that Death is but a momentary act. We are absent from the
body one moment, present with the Lord the next.
Persistent Personality. In that other field we shall surely
recognise each other, and shall be as close akin, yea, closer
than we were in long-past happy days, when heart to heart had
sweet converse, or co-operated in useful ministry. Abraham will
still be Abraham; Isaac, Isaac; and Jacob, Jacob. Not bodiless
ghosts, but living personalities etherealised and transfigured.
Moses and Elijah were recognised as such by the startled
disciples on the Transfiguration mount; and Mary knew the
Master in the Garden. What gain would it have been that Jesus
promised the dying thief that he should be with Him in Paradise,
if, when he reached there, he could not recognise the Lord?
Persistent Love. Love will never fail! But how can it exist without
an object; and how can it forget! Why did Jesus promise the
"many mansions," unless He meant that there should be homes!
He knows that the heart clings, even in the light of Resurrection,
to the dear objects of human affection, else He would never
have mentioned Peter's name, nor have sent a message to His
disciples, nor come a second time for Thomas! And will He
ignore those natural cravings for us, whom He has loved better
than Himself? How deep and sweet His assurance: "If it were
not so, I would have told you!" Charles Kingsley asked that on

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the grave stone, which stood above his wife and himself, should
be inscribed the words: "Amavimus, Amamus, Amabimus"—We
loved, we love, we shall continue to love. And who shall
challenge the truth or appositeness of these words?
Persistent Activity. "His servants shall serve Him!" The tasks we
bungled here with our apprentice-hands will become possible;
and unravelling our tangled skeins, we shall weave such fabrics
as our wildest dreams never imagined.
PRAYER
I pray Thee, O Lord, to deliver me from the fear of death; and
when mine eyes open in the dawn of heaven, may I see Thee
standing to welcome me, and may I receive Thy Well-done!
AMEN.3
May 30
Coming Back Again
And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was
subject unto them — Luk 2:51
It Was Hard to Return to Nazareth after the Vision of
Jerusalem
That visit to Jerusalem was one of the great hours in the life of
Jesus. It must have moved Him to the depths. Often in the quiet
home at Nazareth His mother had spoken to Him of the Holy
City. And the Boy, clinging to her knee, had eagerly listened to
all she had to tell. Now He was there, moving through the
streets, feasting His eyes upon the Temple. He had reached the
city of His dreams. Clearly it was a time of vision. "Wist ye not
that I must be about my Father's business? In that moving hour
there broke on Him the revelation of His unique vocation. And
the beautiful thing is that after such an hour He quietly went
back to Nazareth, and was subject to Mary and to Joseph. He
drew the water from the well again. He did little daily errands
for His mother. He weeded the garden, tended the flowers in it,
3
Our Daily Walk by Frederick Brotherton (F. B.) Meyer. Published in 1893; public domain.

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lent a hand to Joseph in the shop. And all this after that great
hour which had changed His outlook upon everything and
moved Him to the very depths.
Coming from Vision to Duty Was Characteristic of Jesus
That faithful and radiant way of coming back again was very
characteristic of the Lord. We see it later at the Transfiguration.
That was a splendid and a shining hour, when heaven drew very
near to earth. Such hours find a more suitable environment on
mountain-tops than on the lower levels of the world. There
Moses and Elias talked with Him. There was heard the awful
voice of God. There His very garments became lustrous. After
such an hour of heavenly converse you and I would have craved
to be alone. Voices would have had a jarring sound; company
would have been deemed intrusion. And again the beautiful
thing about our Lord is that after such a heavenly hour as that
He came right down to the epileptic boy. Instead of the voices of
Moses and Elias, there was the clamor and confusion of the
crowd; instead of the tranquillity of heaven—the horrid
contortions of the epileptic. It was the way of Jesus, after His
hours of vision, to come right back, whole-heartedly and
happily, to the task and travail of the day.
Routine Should Never Be Counted as Drudgery
Now, that is big with meaning for us all, and is capable of
endless application. At this season, for instance, one would think
of holidays. Many of my readers have had a splendid holiday,
favored by weather exquisitely fine. A strong light, says
Emerson, makes everything beautiful, and multitudes have
found the truth of that. And now, from the "large room" of
holidays, and the healing vision of mountain and of moorland,
they are back to the old drudgery again. It is never easy coming
back like that, especially in the vivid years of youth. The "daily
round and common task" are alien and irksome for a little. But if
we are trying to follow the great Master, we can show it not only
in our going forth, but by the kind of spirit in which we return.
He went down and was subject to His parents. He left the hills

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for the epileptic boy. He did it with that unfaltering faith of His,
which assured Him that His God was everywhere. And in that
radiant spirit of return from the vision to the daily round, He has
left us an example that we should follow His steps.
It Takes Heroism to Come Back to Lowly Tasks
The same truth holds with equal force of all the great revealing
hours of life. There is often not a little heroism in coming back
again to lowly tasks. When love has once come caroling down
the highway it is not easy to get back to drudgery. When sorrow
has come and "slit the thin-spun life," how intolerable, often, is
that housework! The hand that knocks the nail into the coffin
seems to knock the bottom out of everything, and we are left
sometimes, paralyzed and powerless, in a world of phantoms we
cannot understand. Some men in such hours take to drink.
Some who can afford it take to travel. Some lose "the rapture of
the forward view" and settle down in the "luxury of woe." But
He who came to lead us heavenward, and who drank our bitter
chalice to the dregs, has empowered us for a better way than
that. To take up our common task again, to march to our duty
over the new-filled grave, to come back to the detail of the day,
knowing that this, too, is holy ground—that is the path marked
out for us by Him who went down and was subject to His
parents, and who left the mount for the epileptic boy.
A Christian Does Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways
Nor can we forget how this applies to the great hours of the
spiritual life. For that life, too, has its high revealing seasons,
when like the apostle we are caught up to Paradise. After such
hours (and one of them is conversion) men often yearn to do
great things for heaven. They want to be ministers; they want
to leave the bench, and go abroad to evangelize the heathen. If
that be the authentic call of God it will reveal itself as
irresistible, but often the appointed path is otherwise. It is not
to go forth in glorious adventure; it is to come back with the
glow upon the face—to the old home, the dubious friends, the
critical comrades, the familiar faces, it is to tell out there all that

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the Lord has done, not necessarily by the utterance of the lip,
but by the demonstration of the life. A Christian does not always
do extraordinary things. He does ordinary things in
extraordinary ways. He makes conscience of the humblest task.
He does things heartily as to the Lord. And to come back again,
with that new spirit, to the dull duty and narrowing routine is
the kind of conduct that gives joy in heaven.4
May 30
Morning
"Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines." — Son
2:15
A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide
the sun. Little foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to
the tender heart. These little sins burrow in the soul, and make
it so full of that which is hateful to Christ, that he will hold no
comfortable fellowship and communion with us. A great sin
cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him
miserable. Jesus will not walk with his people unless they drive
out every known sin. He says, "If ye keep my commandments,
ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's
commandments and abide in his love." Some Christians very
seldom enjoy their Saviour's presence. How is this? Surely it
must be an affliction for a tender child to be separated from his
father. Art thou a child of God, and yet satisfied to go on
without seeing thy Father's face? What! thou the spouse of
Christ, and yet content without his company! Surely, thou hast
fallen into a sad state, for the chaste spouse of Christ mourns
like a dove without her mate, when he has left her. Ask, then,
the question, what has driven Christ from thee? He hides his
face behind the wall of thy sins. That wall may be built up of
little pebbles, as easily as of great stones. The sea is made of
drops; the rocks are made of grains: and the sea which divides
thee from Christ may be filled with the drops of thy little sins;
and the rock which has well nigh wrecked thy barque, may have
4
Devotional Sermons by George H. Morrison from "The Glasgow Pulpit Series". Published in 1902-1928; public domain.

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been made by the daily working of the coral insects of thy little
sins. If thou wouldst live with Christ, and walk with Christ, and
see Christ, and have fellowship with Christ, take heed of "the
little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender
grapes." Jesus invites you to go with him and take them. He will
surely, like Samson, take the foxes at once and easily. Go with
him to the hunting.
Evening
"That henceforth we should not serve sin." — Rom 6:6
Christian, what hast thou to do with sin? Hath it not cost thee
enough already? Burnt child, wilt thou play with the fire? What!
when thou hast already been between the jaws of the lion, wilt
thou step a second time into his den? Hast thou not had enough
of the old serpent? Did he not poison all thy veins once, and wilt
thou play upon the hole of the asp, and put thy hand upon the
cockatrice's den a second time? Oh, be not so mad! so foolish!
Did sin ever yield thee real pleasure? Didst thou find solid
satisfaction in it? If so, go back to thine old drudgery, and wear
the chain again, if it delight thee. But inasmuch as sin did never
give thee what it promised to bestow, but deluded thee with
lies, be not a second time snared by the old fowler-be free, and
let the remembrance of thy ancient bondage forbid thee to enter
the net again! It is contrary to the designs of eternal love, which
all have an eye to thy purity and holiness; therefore run not
counter to the purposes of thy Lord. Another thought should
restrain thee from sin. Christians can never sin cheaply; they
pay a heavy price for iniquity. Transgression destroys peace of
mind, obscures fellowship with Jesus, hinders prayer, brings
darkness over the soul; therefore be not the serf and bondman
of sin. There is yet a higher argument: each time you "serve
sin" you have "Crucified the Lord afresh, and put him to an open
shame." Can you bear that thought? Oh! if you have fallen into
any special sin during this day, it may be my Master has sent
this admonition this evening, to bring you back before you have
backslidden very far. Turn thee to Jesus anew; he has not

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forgotten his love to thee; his grace is still the same. With
weeping and repentance, come thou to his footstool, and thou
shalt be once more received into his heart; thou shalt be set
upon a rock again, and thy goings shall be established.5
5
Morning and Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon. Published in 1865, 1868; public domain.

May 30 | Collection of Daily Devotionals

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