Reverence and Awe

» Today's reading at Blue Letter Bible

Morning:
The root word translated here for lovingkindness is also translated elsewhere as mercy in the KJV and NKJV. But the NASB utilizes the word lovingkindess extensively, 176 times in fact. Here are just a few of the things we can praise the LORD for as a result of His lovingkindness:

• He leads us (Exo 15:13)
• He has forgiven His people (Num 14:19)
• We enter His house (Psa 5:7)
• He remembers us not our sins (Psa 25:6-7)
• He has drawn us to Him (Jer 31:3)
• He has compassion for us in times of trouble (Lam 3:32; Isa 54:8)

In Psalm 136 the word is used 26 times (once per verse) and each time it is to tell us that,

His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Follow this link to see all the instances of lovingkindness (using the NASB). Out of these, as Spurgeon exhorts us, we should easily be able to find something today to mention the lovingkindess of our LORD.

Evening:
Spurgeon speaks of the New Covenant with God through Christ and the necessity to obey His commandment. Jeremiah prophesied of this future covenant:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:33-34 NKJV)

The power to live in Christ is not of ourselves but by the power of God in us. Praise God that as we grow in this New Covenant, we respond to the law God has newly written in our hearts, not a law written in stone on Mount Sinai. It is our response to God out of love for His work for and within us. Paul tells us that this is through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:1-8 NKJV)

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1-3 NKJV)

So let us today submit to the Holy Spirit and respond to his urging to draw closer to Christ. The result will be to reverence Him in our thoughts and actions. Before believing, we were slaves to sin, but the Holy Spirit has regenerated us and we are now free to live for Christ and follow Him.

Labels: Devotional, Morning and Evening, Spurgeon