Daily Devotionals for May 5, 2026

Those who try to give warnings to the Christian church are never very popular. Still, I must voice the caution that our craze for "activity" brings very few enriching benefits into our Christian circles. Look into the churches, and you will find groups of half-saved, half-sanctified, carnal people who know more about social niceties than they do about the New Testament. It is a fact that many of our church folks are activists engaged in many religious journeys-but they do not seem to move up...

BELOVED, let us visit Gethsemane this morning, and see this strange sight. Here is our SURETY, the only-begotten Son of God; the brightness of Jehovah's glory, and the express image of His person; groaning on the cold ground, and baptized in blood. He is sore amazed. His heart is filled with horror, and His mind with dread. His soul is troubled, tossed with tempests and not comforted. He is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. The sorrows of death encompass Him, and the pains of hell have...

It is often possible to barter life's best values for a momentary gratification of physical appetite.

That is what Esau did. He had come in from the field tired and hungry. At that moment Jacob was cooking a pot of red bean soup. When Esau asked for a bowl of the "red stuff," Jacob said, in effect, "Sure, I'll give you some if you'll sell me your birthright in return."

Now the birthright was a valuable privilege which belonged to the oldest son in a family. It was valuable...

Though we have brought forth some fruit unto Christ, and have a joyful hope that we are "plants of his own right hand planting," yet there are times when we feel very barren. Prayer is lifeless, love is cold, faith is weak, each grace in the garden of our heart languishes and droops. We are like flowers in the hot sun, requiring the refreshing shower. In such a condition what are we to do? The text is addressed to us in just such a state. "Sing, O barren, break forth and cry aloud." But...

There is a strange beauty in the ways of God with men. He sends salvation to the world in the person of a Man and sends that Man to walk the byways, saying, "If any man will come after Me!" No fanfare; no tramp of marching feet! A kindly Stranger walks through the earth, and so quiet is His voice that it is sometimes lost in the hurly-burly; but it is the last voice of God, and until we become quiet to hear it, we have no authentic message. "If any man," He says, and teaches at once the...

Ezra 8:21-32

EZRA is an interesting character. He was a priest and scribe who was commissioned to return from Persia to Jerusalem, and so took an active part in the civil and religious affairs of the Jews at Jerusalem. He led a fresh company of exiles back with him. A royal edict had been issued by Artaxerxes, clothing Ezra with authority. He was the...

As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. § There will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand… The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore....

For Reading and Meditation:     Psalm 16:1-11

Having seen the importance of differentiating between goals and desires, we return to the thought that we can experience happiness only as a by-product. If we make obtaining happiness a goal, it eludes us like a will-o'-the-wisp, but if we give up the chase and hold it only as a desire, then it takes up residence in our...

My soul, how much thou needest this, for thy lamp will not long continue to burn without it. Thy snuff will smoke and become an offence if light be gone, and gone it will be if oil be absent. Thou hast no oil well springing up in thy human nature, and therefore thou must go to them that sell and buy for thyself, or like the foolish virgins, thou wilt have to cry, "My lamp is gone out. " Even the consecrated lamps could not give light without oil; though they shone in the tabernacle they...

You were set free from the tyranny of Sin, and became the bondservants of Righteousness" (Rom. 6:18 Wey.).

The principle underlying resurrection life is, of all things, death. "For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His death, we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His resurrection. Surrender...

Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. § No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in You.

I want you to be without care. § Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Are not two sparrows sold for...

Once thou hadst other proprietors. Sin, self, death, misery - these formerly boasted that thou wert theirs. But the price I have paid shuts their mouths forever.

Self is slowest of all to understand this. Thou hast distinctly and joyfully recognised the transfer of thyself to me; and yet again and again have I seen thee acting as though it were simply an agreeable fiction. Thou hast sometimes lavished thine affections on objects with which thou hadst no thing properly to do. Thou hast...

"The LORD thy God will turn thy captivity." Deuteronomy 30:3

God's own people may sell themselves into captivity by sin. A very bitter fruit is this, of an exceeding bitter root. What a bondage it is when the child of God is sold under sin, held in chains by Satan, deprived of his liberty, robbed of his power in prayer and his delight in the LORD! Let us watch that we come not into such bondage; but if this has already happened to...