August 13 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more” (1 Thess. 4:1).

Devotional

What are some of the footprints of this walk? How can you follow it?

A first undoubted mark of pleasing God is unreserved obedience—an obedience that asks no relaxing of the precept, but that follows the Lord fully in its observance, not because it "makes sense" but because love constrains the heart. Walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, as the primitive saints did, is indeed well-pleasing to God.

Oh! let there be no reserves in your obedience! Do not withhold from Christ any part of his purchased inheritance. Surrender it all at the feet of him whose blood was the purchase price of it all: "Lord, however strait the path, however painful the cross, and however self-denying the precept, I would sincerely walk uprightly in all your ways and fully follow you in all your commands, leaving the consequences of my simple and implicit obedience to your control. I can endure the rejection of the world, the alienation of friends, the coldness of relatives, and can take the spoiling of my earthly goods joyfully, if only you, my Lord, sustain me with your grace, cheer me with your presence, and comfort me with your love."

There is a second footprint in this walk by which the Christian journeys to his heavenly home. As unbelief is most dishonoring, so faith is most honoring to the Lord Jesus. What a revenue of praise accumulates from it to his name! To betake yourself to his blood with your corruptions the moment they are discovered. To betake yourself to his sufficiency with your anxiety the moment it occurs. To betake yourself to his grace with your sorrow the moment it is felt. To betake yourself to his sympathy with your wound the moment it is inflicted. To betake yourself to his love with your guilt the moment it is detected. Oh! do you not think that this walk of faith is most pleasing to the Lord?

Beware of anything that impairs the simplicity of this your walk. Beware of anything that makes you stumble or turn aside. Even be cautious, in the varied circumstances of your history, of applying first to a human arm for support, or to a human bosom for sympathy. The Lord cannot be well pleased with this. But do not hesitate to bear them at once to the one-appointed Source of all your supply. Disclose your needs to the full Savior. Make known your wanderings to your heavenly Father. Tell your griefs and burdens to your elder Brother and Friend. And in thus walking by faith, you will have the divine assurance in your souls. You will rejoice in this—the testimony of your conscience that you please the Lord.

Oh, seek closely to resemble the two illustrious examples of this high and holy walk set before us in God's Word. The minor one—because purely human—of Enoch, who "before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God" (Heb. 11:5). The higher one—because the human was blended with the Divine—of Jesus, who could say, "I always do the things that are pleasing to him" (John 8:29).

Jesus, keep me near the cross;
there a precious fountain,
free to all—a healing stream—
flows from Calvary's mountain.

(Refrain:)
In the cross, in the cross,
be my glory ever;
till my raptured soul shall find
rest beyond the river.

Near the cross, a trembling soul,
love and mercy found me;
there the Sun of Righteousness
spread his wings around me.

(Fanny J. Crosby, 1869 [st. 2 alt., LEW, 1984])

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.