Spurgeon Daily Devotional Bible: December 17

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Spurgeon Daily Devotional Bible: December 17


Today is: Friday, April 19th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)

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Morning

“
Hope to the end.”

1Pe_1:1-16

Our present reading is taken from the first epistle of Peter, a letter full of pastoral teaching, but without a trace of a priestly, much less of a Papal, spirit. Those whose wicked legends set forth Peter as the first Pope find no countenance for their folly in either of his epistles.

1Pe_1:2

Christians were not ashamed of the doctrine of election in the olden time, but styled each other “the elect.” We are chosen to be holy, and who shall deny the Lord’s right to choose men for such a purpose? Well may the apostle proceed to bless the Lord as he thinks of this choice favour.

1Pe_1:3-5

Observe that the inheritance is kept for the saints, and the saints for the inheritance. Christ who has gone to prepare heaven for us has sent the Holy Ghost to prepare us for heaven.

1Pe_1:6

It is not merely that we are in manifold troubles, but we are in heaviness through them; the iron has entered into our soul. This is a needful part of those trials which are meant to chasten us. If the rod does not make the child smart, of what use is it?

1Pe_1:7-9

Peter’s Master once bade him feed the sheep, and here he does so very sweetly: every word, yea, every letter, is full of an infinite sweetness. Jesus is with us, faith in him is our strength, and his love fills us with unutterable joy. All this we daily experience. Do we not?

1Pe_1:14-16

Children should be like their parents. Nature itself prompts the son to imitate the father; and shall not grace have equal power? Shall not the new birth be even more influential than the first? Shall not the children of the thrice holy Jehovah exhibit something of their great Progenitors spirit and character? It must be so, or we shall have serious reason to doubt whether we are children of God at all.



O Lord, with sorrow and with shame,

We meekly would confess

How little we, who bear thy name,

Thy mind and ways express.



Give us thy meek, thy lowly mind;

We would obedient be;

And all our rest and pleasure find

In fellowship with thee.



Evening

“
If ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye.”

1 Peter 3

1Pe_3:1-6

A woman’s sphere is her home, her sceptre is love, her crown jewels are domestic virtues. She is most graceful who is most gracious, and she is best arrayed who is clothed with holiness.

1Pe_3:7

Tender love and affectionate honour must be rendered to the queen of the little kingdom of home, through whom God blesses the household so much.

1Pe_3:8-9

We cannot wash off dirt with dirt, or cure evil by evil; let us not try to do so. If we are indeed believers, we are blessed, and we are yet to be more blessed, therefore let us bless others.

1Pe_3:10-17

Yet we hear persons say, “I would not mind being blamed if I deserved it,” which is very absurd, since it is the deserving of blame which ought to trouble us far more than the rebuke.

1Pe_3:18-20

This passage nobody understands, though some think they do. It is for our good to be made to feel that we do not know everything. The point which is clear is that as Jesus suffered though innocent, we also must be willing to suffer at the hands of the ungodly.

1Pe_3:21-22

Noah’s deliverance in the ark, and our baptism, are figures of salvation. Both represent a living burial, a passage from the old world into the new, by death and resurrection. Was our baptism the answer of a good conscience toward God?



Inured to poverty and pain,

A suffering life my Master led;

The Son of God, the Son of man,

He had not where to lay his head.



Since he is intimately nigh,

Who, who shall violate my rest?

Sin, earth, and hell, I now defy;

I lean upon my Saviour’s breast.