July 7 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

2 Corinthians 7:8–10

Devotional

What is salvation? Salvation is deliverance from the greatest misery and the impartation of the greatest blessing. It is the fulfillment of all our needs. It is the filling of our emptiness. God pours out His love, joy, and peace into our heart. One can call salvation the opening of heaven. It is an inexpressible joy granted by the Lord and exceeds man’s expectations.

Salvation is communion with God. In this communion God unites and reveals Himself to the soul. God comes to the soul and speaks, “Behold, here I am; behold, here I am.” And everywhere that God is present in His favor, it is well.

Salvation is what Paul and Silas experienced in prison. They sang praises to God. Perhaps you are living in trouble and adversity. As long as you have God with you, you are a partaker of salvation. Salvation does not mean that your cross in life will be removed, or that you will have an easy life, but it means that God is with you. He walks along with you in your troubles. When God is with you, all things are for you. Oh, what sadness there is for those who do not have the Lord to walk with them in their trials and sorrows! Salvation is to have full sufficiency in God. In Him, all things will work together for your good. As long as God is with you, it is well. It is better to be in adversity with God than in prosperity without God. God’s presence is what counts for God’s children. It is God’s presence in Christ Jesus that constitutes the beauty of heaven.

Ask God’s Spirit to teach you what it is to have godly sorrow that works repentance to salvation, so that you might learn to say with the psalmist in Psalm 73:24-26, “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.