Since the mid 1990’s, I’ve treasured the devotional book, “Morning and Evening” by Charles Hadden Spurgeon. As Spurgeon himself has written, this is how the LORD has used this one book in my life …
“My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me.”
It has been for many, many years a favorite devotional book of mine to supplement with my daily Bible reading. It’s my prayer that this devotional, (dated 9/22/2023 morning) will encourage you, daughter of the Most High, to be glad! To rejoice! To overflow with exceeding joy! Because you have so much cause for gladness and rejoicing in God!
“Let Israel be glad in his Maker,” Psalm 149:2
Rejoice, believer, but take care that your gladness has its spring in the Lord.
You have much cause for gladness in God, for you can sing with David, “God my exceeding joy.” (Psalm 43:4)
Be glad that the Lord reigns, that Jehovah is King! Rejoice that He sits on the throne and rules all things!
Every attribute of God should become a fresh ray in the sunlight of our gladness.
The fact that He is wise should make us glad, knowing as we do our own foolishness.
That He is mighty should cause us who tremble in our weakness to rejoice.
That He is everlasting should always be a theme of joy when we know that we wither like grass.
That He is unchanging should provide a perpetual song, for we change every hour.
That He is full of grace, that He is overflowing with it, and that this grace in covenant He has given to us, that it is ours to cleanse us, ours to keep us, ours to sanctify us, ours to perfect us, ours to bring us to glory—all this should serve to make us glad in Him.
This gladness in God is like a deep river. So far we have only touched its edge; we know a little of its clear sweet, heavenly streams, but further on the depth is greater, and the current more powerful in its joy.
The Christian feels that he may delight himself not only in what God is, but also in all that God has done in the past.
The Psalms show us that God’s people in olden times were keen to make much of God’s actions and to have a song concerning each of them.
So let God’s people now rehearse the deeds of the Lord!
Let them tell of His mighty acts and “sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously.
Let them never cease to sing, for as new mercies flow to them day by day, so their gladness in the LORD’s loving acts of providence and grace should display itself in continued thanksgiving.
Be glad, children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God!
*Morning and Evening Devotional
