Daily Devotionals for July 7, 2026

"Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His afflicted." Isaiah 49:13

So sweet are the comforts of the LORD, that not only the saints themselves may sing of them, but even the heavens and the earth may take up the song. It takes something to make a mountain sing; and yet the prophet summons quite a choir of them. Lebanon,...

Vanish for ever all thought of indulging the flesh if you would live in the power of your risen Lord. It were ill that a man who is alive in Christ should dwell in the corruption of sin. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" said the angel to Magdalene. Should the living dwell in the sepulchre? Should divine life be immured in the charnel house of fleshly lust? How can we partake of the cup of the Lord and yet drink the cup of Belial? Surely, believer, from open lusts and sins you are...

Taken by themselves, the sufferings of this present time can be appalling. I think of the gruesome sufferings of the Christian martyrs. I think of what some of God's people have had to endure in the concentration camps. What shall we say concerning the horrible sufferings associated with war? The cruel dismemberment and paralysis connected with accidents? The unspeakable pain of human bodies racked by cancer or other diseases?

And yet physical suffering isn't the whole story. It seems...

WE need fear nothing but sin; and we have no reason to fear whether God will pardon that, and save us from it, if we believe in Jesus, confess and forsake it. He has promised, "I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." He will not impute sin unto us; but He will impute righteousness, even the righteousness of Jesus without works. He has made up His mind to glorify the riches of his grace, thus to display the wonders of His...

Whether or not the Christian should separate himself from the world is not open to debate. The question has been settled for him by the Sacred Scriptures, an authority from which there can be no appeal. The New Testament is very plain: "They are not of the world," said our Lord, "even as I am not of the world." James wrote, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God" Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."...

The Bible does not mock the anguish-bitten soul by telling it that the Christian cannot experience unhappiness or disappointment; or by telling it that it has no business to be wretched. The followers of the righteous Jesus are told distinctly that there are afflictions for them; and that these afflictions are many. So in drawing up an inventory of what belongs to them, they may put down many afflictions. These are a part of their property.

We see that it is not a disreputable thing...

What must be the apostate professor's doom when his naked soul appears before God? How will he bear that voice, "Depart, ye cursed; thou hast rejected me, and I reject thee; thou hast played the harlot, and departed from me: I also have banished thee for ever from my presence, and will not have mercy upon thee." What will be this wretch's shame at the last great day when, before assembled multitudes, the apostate shall be unmasked? See the profane, and sinners who never professed religion,...

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts" (Col. 3:15).

Peace does not, and cannot, exist in the fallen Adam life; and as long as the old man reigns within, there is going to be turmoil both within and without. The path of the Cross is alone the path of peace. "The moment came when the Lord Jesus could say, Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you' (

Matthew 4:12-25

In Matthew's gospel, the story of the first months of our Lord's public ministry is omitted. Several chapters of John's gospel come in between verses 11 and 12 of Matthew's fourth chapter. The mission of John the Baptist was to go before Christ and prepare His way. When he had done this, introducing Him to the people - John's work was really ended. But he continued to preach for some months, until he was arrested by Herod...

If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. § I lay down My life for the sheep … No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it...

Undoubtedly God goes along with us as far as He can in this weak and one-sided treatment of the Holy Scriptures, but He cannot be pleased with this way of doing. Our Heavenly Father takes pleasure in seeing us develop and grow up spiritually. He does not want us to live entirely on a diet of sweet stuff. He gives us for our encouragement Isaiah 41, but He gives us also Matthew 23 and the book of Jude,...

In the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. § We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without...

For Reading and Meditation:     Esther 4:10

We said yesterday that when Mordecai and Esther were confronted with the news of Haman's edict, they surely must have glimpsed something of the sovereignty of God, which had led them to Persia and overruled their lives there. The issue of divine sovereignty is something about which we, as Christians, ought never to tire of...