GRACE FOR TODAY Daily Devotional Readings Donald S. Fortner, Pastor Grace Baptist Church of Danville 2734 Old Stanford Road Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438 1 Printed by Grace Baptist Church By Gracious Permission From Evangelical Press 16/18 High Street, Welwyn, Herts, AL6 9EQ, England © Evangelical Press 1986 First published 1986 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Fortner, Donald S. Grace For Today. 1. Devotional calendars. 1. Title 242’.2 BS390 ISBN O-85234-233-O Typeset by Wagstaffs Typeshuttle, Henlow, Beds. 2 Grace For Today Don Fortner JANUARY 1 PSALM 86:11 DAY 1 ‘Teach me thy way, O Lord’ Read Psalm 1:1-6 There is no better way for us to begin this day and this year than by earnestly seeking the will of God in it. It is certain that God sovereignly accomplishes his will, his eternal purpose, in all things (Isa. 46:9-1 1). Nothing comes to pass in time except that which God purposed in eternity. Yet nothing is more important, and nothing more difficult, to a believer than seeking the will of God in making responsible choices and decisions about his actions in life. We know by painful experience that it is possible to make the wrong choices. We rejoice to know that God graciously overrules our errors in judgment for out spiritual, eternal good and for the glory of his own great name (Rom. 8:28). And we praise him for that! But when a believer walks contrary to the will of his Lord, he brings grief and trouble to himself. Be Wise, therefore, and seek grace both to know and do the will of God in all things. ‘Teach me thy way, O Lord.’ Do you desire, my friend, to know the will of God in all things? Then ask God himself to reveal his will to you, by his Spirit and by his Word. He alone can teach you his way and he will if you are willing to walk in it. ‘I will walk in thy truth.’ In essence, David is saying, ‘Lord, if you teach me your way, by your grace I will gladly walk in it. If you will mark out my path in providence, I will stick to it. ‘This is the attitude of submission and faith before the Lord. And where there is true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and submission to his will, there will always be an acknowledgement of weakness and sin and the need for divine grace. ‘Unite my heart to fear thy name.’ We can walk in God’s will only as he gives us grace to do so. When we do make errors concerning the will of God, it is either because we have not earnestly sought his will, or else because we are rebellious to it. Of this one thing we can be sure: God always reveals his will to the person who is willing to (Prov. 3:5-6). 3 Grace For Today Don Fortner JANUARY 2 HEBREWS 9:26 DAY 2 ‘He appeared to put away sin’ Read Isaiah 53:1-8 In his life of obedience to the law of God Christ established righteousness for us. But that righteousness is not sufficient, in and of itself, to make us acceptable to God. Sin must be punished. Justice must be satisfied. Every guilty sinner must be put to death. The only way God could both punish us for sin and save us from sin was by the infinitely meritorious, voluntary and efficacious death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Substitute. For the accomplishment of our salvation Christ became ‘obedient unto death, even the death of the cross’. God made his Son to be sin for us. Christ had no sin of his own. He had no original sin and no actual sin. He was ‘holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sin.’ Yet he was made sin. By divine imputation, all the sin of all God’s elect was laid upon Christ our Substitute. Christ ‘his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree’. This transfer of sin from us to our Substitute was so real and complete that the Son of God became sin for us! He even claimed our sin as his own, willingly assuming all responsibility for the sins of his people. God the Son, being made sin, died as our Substitute. When God found sin on his Son, he cried out to his own holy law and inflexible justice: ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow... smite the shepherd!’ Then and there all the sin of all God’s elect was slain, annihilated forever and taken away. Justice, being fully satisfied, forever sheathed its dreadful sword. Wrath, being completely spent upon Christ, is altogether absorbed in Christ for all his people. In so far as God’s law and justice are concerned, all of God’s elect have died. We died in Christ our Substitute. In Christ all who believe are completely justified. His precious blood has forever washed away our sins, so that we are justly pardoned and forgiven. His life of righteousness has been imputed to us, so that we are perfectly holy in God’s sight. In Christ we have all that God in his law demands for our acceptance, complete satisfaction for sin and perfect righteousness. 4 Grace For Today Don Fortner JANUARY 3 GENESIS 5:24 DAY 3 ‘Enoch walked with God’ Read Colossians 3:1-17 This is an astounding statement: ‘Enoch’, a sinful man like you and me, ‘walked with God’! And ‘he had this testimony, that he pleased God’. In his daily life Enoch walked in company with the living God, living in God’s presence as his constant Friend, in whom he confided and by whom he was loved. What kind of man was Enoch? What kind of life did he live? The answer is clear: Enoch was a man of faith, and he lived a life of faith. He was not a sinless man. He did not live a higher life, a deeper life or a holier life than anyone else who lives by faith. It was not Enoch’s conduct, his personality, or his disposition that pleased God, but his faith in Christ (Heb. 11:5-6). There was nothing at all remarkable about the character or works of this man Enoch by nature, which caused God to look upon him with pleasure. Enoch did not win God’s favor by something he did. God was pleased with Enoch, because Enoch believed God. He believed that which God has spoken. Enoch’s faith was the same as Abel’s before him and Noah’s after him. The faith by which Enoch walked with God and pleased God was the same faith that the dying thief possessed. And it is the faith of God’s elect today. My friend, walking with God is neither more nor less than believing God. The only way anyone can walk with God and please God is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. No man pleases God, but his Son. No man walks with God, but his Son. And the only way any fallen child of Adam can please God and walk with God is by faith in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our sanctification, like our justification, is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We grow in grace as we grow in faith. Having begun in the Spirit, we are not now made perfect by the flesh. We do not begin and go a certain distance by faith in Christ, and then finish our course by the works of the law. To walk with God is to continue as we began ⎯ by faith in Christ. ‘As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith.’ 5 Grace For Today Don Fortner JANUARY 4 JOB 14:14 DAY 4 ‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ Read I Thessalonians 4:13-18 With Paul, I say, ‘If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable’ (1 Cor. 15:19). If there were no eternal life in Christ, no eternal bliss of life with Christ in glory and no resurrection, the believer would be the most miserably frustrated person in the world. We would never have that which we most earnestly desire ⎯ Christ. We would never enjoy that for which we are most ambitious ⎯ Christ. We would never see the end of our hope ⎯ Christ. We would never embrace Christ, or be embraced by him. My mind has never entertained a more cruel or miserable thought. What a tormenting supposition! But it is not so! I live in hope of the resurrection, and my hope is well founded. I have three good reasons for this good hope. I have already been resurrected representatively. (Eph. 2:5- 6; Rom. 8:29-30). When the Lord Jesus Christ arose from the grave, he arose as the Representative of his people. We were resurrected with Christ! His representative resurrection necessitates and guarantees the resurrection of his people. Christ was raised as the first fruits of them that sleep, and the full harvest must follow. Christ was raised as the second Adam and, as we have born the image of our first, covenant head, we must bear the image of the second. Our Lord’s covenant engagements as the Surety of his elect are not complete until we are raised from the dead (John 6:37-40).