Dail}) Devotional Home Readings Connected with International Sunday! School Lessons
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B$ FREDERIC W . FARR
THURSDAY, April 3. Psalm 103:11-14. Our Father’s Mercy. The one hundred and third Psalm is a paean of praise. There is praise for personal mercy in verses 1-5, praise for past mercy in verses 6-9, praise for pardoning mercy in verses 8-12, praise for paternal mercy in verses 13-14, praise for perpetual mercy in Verses 15-18, and in verses 19-22 a plea for praise. The mercy seat was the throne of the Lord on whose golden lid the seven-fold sprinkling of the blood of atonement made it possible for God to show mercy to guilty sinners. When the publican prayed that God would be merciful to him the sinner, he asked that God would be his mercy seat or propitiation which means that God would forgive his sins on the ground of atoning sacrifice. This only makes it possible for mercy to be shown. Psalm 85:10. FRIDAY, April 4. Ephesians 1:1-14. Our Father’s Gift. God has given His Son to the world and the Holy Spirit to the Church. Christ gave His meanest gifts to those who were farthest from Him and His best gifts to those nearest to Him. He gave His purse to Judas, His clothes to the Roman soldiers, His mother to the beloved disciple and Himself to His church. Gal. 1:4. In the Blesser we have all potential blessings. Rom. 8:32. If we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies,' then our present need is the grace of appropria tion and the sense of realization. Every good and perfect gift is from above, James 1:17, but the crowning gift of all is Jesus, God’s love gift to a lost world. 2 Cor 9:15. God does not come to this world as a trader. He has noth ing to sell. Salvation can not be bought, merited or earned. It must be accepted as a free gift or it never can be obtained. SATURDAY, April 5. John 14:6-21. Knowing the Bather. Jesus came to reveal the Father and
TUESDAY, April 16. Matthew 6:1-15. Prayer to the Father This Scripture contains the disciple’s prayer. The Lord’s prayer is found in the seventeenth chapter of John. Jesus never said “Our Father” himself, John 20:17, though He put the phrase into the mouth of His disciples. This model prayer is not for unbelievers, since we become children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Gal. 8:26, John 8:44. The first part of the prayer relates to the honor and glory of God. It sug gests that we ought to be more con cerned that God should be glorified than that our own souls should he blessed. The physical and spiritual needs of man are recognized in the latter part of the prayer. Daily bread is necessary but man cannot live by bread alone. This petition is suited to babes in Christ and mature believers. A Christian never graduates from the school of prayer. Frequent prompting and faithful practice promote profici ency. Man is the capstone of the creative climax. In all previous acts of crea tion God simply uttered a creative fiat-. He spake and it was done. Let there be light and there was light. When He came to the creation of man, He paused to take thought and form a resolution. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The image of God in man is two-fold, natural and moral. The natural image is personality, con sisting of intellect, sensibility and will. The moral image is righteousness. Sin defaced the natural image and de stroyed the moral likeness. Man now has original sin instead of original righteousness. We are bound to God by the ties of creaturehood. It is He that hath made us and not we our selves. Psalm 100:3. God has a right therefore to our allegiance, homage and service. Rev. 4:11. WEDNESDAY, April 2. Genesis 1:24- 31. God Our Creator.
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