August 10 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit" (John 15:2).

Devotional

Before he fills, the Lord empties. He makes room for himself, for his love, and for his grace. He dethrones the rival; he casts down the idol; and he seeks to occupy the temple, filled and radiant with his own ineffable glory. In this way, he brings the soul into great straits and lays it low, so that he may school and discipline it for richer mercies, higher service, and greater glory.

Be sure of this, that when the Lord is about to bless you with some great and peculiar blessing,he may prepare you for it by some great and peculiar trial. If he is about to advance you to some honor, he may first lay you low so that he may exalt you. If he is about to place you in a sphere of great and distinguished usefulness, he may first place you in his school of adversity so that you may know how to teach others. If he is about to bring forth your righteousness as the noon-day, he may cause it to pass under a cloud so that, emerging from its momentary obscuration, it may shine with richer and more enduring radiance.

This is how he deals with all his people. This is how he dealt with Joseph. Intending to elevate him to great distinction and influence, he first cast him into a dungeon, and that, too, in the very land in which he was so soon to be the gaze and the astonishment of all men. This, too, is how he dealt with David, and Job, and Nebuchadnezzar. And this is how God dealt with his own Son, whom he advanced to his own right hand from the lowest state of humiliation and suffering.

Regard your present suffering as but preparation for future glory. This will greatly soothe your sorrow, reconcile your heart to the trial, and tend materially to secure the important end for which God sent the trial.

The life of a believer is but a disciplining for heaven. All the covenant dealings of his God and Father are simply to make him a partaker of his holiness here, and in this manner to fit him to be a partaker of his glory hereafter. Here, the believer is only schooling for a high station in heaven. He is only preparing for a more holy, and, for all we know, a more active and essential service in the upper world. And every infirmity that is overcome, every sin that is subdued, every weight that is laid aside, every step that is advanced in holiness, does but strengthen and mature the life of grace below, until it is fitted for, and terminates in, the life of glory above.

O suffering believer, see then that you emerge from every trial of the furnace with some dross consumed, some iniquity purged, and with a deeper impress of the blessed Spirit's seal of love, holiness, and adoption, on your heart. See that you make some advance towards the state of the glorified; that you are more perfected in love and sanctification—the two great elements of heaven; and that therefore you are more suited for the inheritance of the saints in light.

Blessed and holy is the tendency of all the afflictive dispensations of a covenant God and Father towards a dear and covenant child!

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
leave to thy God to order and provide;
in ev’ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.