Ministries
Resources
Octavius Winslow, 1856 (edited for
today's reader by Larry E. Wilson, 2010)
Bible Verse
"It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?" (Heb. 12:7).
Devotional
As our chastenings are marks of our sonship, so also are our consolations. The kindly view the Spirit gives of our Father's dispensations—the meek submission of the will, the cordial acquiescence of the heart, and the entire surrender of the soul to God—supplies us with indisputable ground for drawing a conclusion favorable to the reality of our being the children of God.
There is a depth of sympathy in God's comforts, a degree of tenderness that can only flow from the heart of a father—that Father, God himself. "As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him" (Ps. 103:13). How sweet to know that both the correction and the consolation—both the wounding and the healing—flow from the same heart, come from the same hand, and each bears a message of love and a token of sonship.
Is the God of all comfort sustaining, soothing, and quieting your oppressed, chafed, and sorrowful heart? Oh, it is the Spirit's witness to your adoption. Bending to your grief, and associating himself with every circumstance of your sorrow, he seeks to seal on your softened heart the deeper, clearer impress of your filial interest in God's love.
And oh, if this overwhelming bereavement, if this crushing stroke, if the bitterness and gloom of this hour is the occasion of the Spirit's gentle, gracious lifting you from the region of doubt and distress as to your sonship into the serene sunlight of your Father's love so that you shall no longer question, and doubt, and deny your acceptance in the Beloved and your adoption into his family, then will you not kiss the rod, and love the hand, and bless the heart that has smitten?
Do not forget that the inward seal of adoption is testified by the outward seal of sanctification. If the Spirit of Christ is in your heart, then the fruits of the Spirit will be exhibited in your life. Then, thus meek, and gently, and lowly, like the Savior, separated from the world, so that you do not live and joy as the world does—in the secret chamber of your soul you shall often sense the voice of God, saying, "I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. 6:18).
Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
how ever dark it be!
Lead me by thine own hand,
choose out the path for me;
smooth let it be or rough,
it will be still the best;
winding or straight, it leads
right onward to thy Rest.
The kingdom that I seek
is thine; so let the way
that leads to it be thine,
else I must surely stray.
I dare not choose my lot;
I would not if I might:
choose thou for me, my God,
so shall I walk aright.
Take thou my cup, and it
with joy or sorrow fill
as best to thee may seem;
choose thou my good and ill.
Not mine, not mine the choice
in things or great or small;
be thou my Guide, my Strength,
my Wisdom, and my All.
(Horatius Bonar, 1857)
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.
© 2025 The Orthodox Presbyterian Church
