December 28 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 15:57).

Devotional

Does the ear of some dear departing saint of God lend itself to the recital of these closing words?

Beloved of the Lord, beloved in the Lord, what a blessed opportunity you now have to lean the entire weight of your soul—with all its sins and sorrows—upon the finished work of Jesus, your Almighty Savior, your God, your Redeemer!

The great debt is cancelled. Justice does not exact a second payment, the first from your Surety, the second from you. No, justice itself is on your side! Every perfection of God is a wall of fire round about you. You stand complete in the righteousness of the incarnate God. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Father's own Son, cleanses you from all sin.

Now you see your flaws, your derelictions, your departures, your backslidings, and your stumblings to have been many and aggravated. Sin appears now as it never did before. The sense of your utter unworthiness presses you to the earth.

But who is on the eager watch for the first kindlings of godly sorrow in the heart of the prodigal? Who welcomes his return with joy, with music, with honors? Whose heart has never ceased to love, whose eye has never ceased to follow, amid all the waywardness and wandering of that child? Oh, it is the Father! "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20). Behold your God, your covenant God and Father in Christ Jesus! This reconciled Father is yours. Throw yourself in his arms, and he will fall on your neck, and will seal upon your heart afresh the sense of his free forgiveness and his pardoning love.

Heaven is before you. Soon will you be freed, entirely and forever freed, from all the remains of sin. Soon the last sigh will heave your breast, the last tear will fall from your eye, and the last pang will convulse your body. Soon, oh, how soon, "your eyes will behold the king in his beauty" (Isa. 33:17), the Jesus who loved you, who died for you, who ransomed you, and who loves you still! Soon you will fall at his feet, and be raised in his arms, and be hushed to rest in his bosom.

Soon you will mingle, a pure and happy spirit, with patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, and with all who sleep in Jesus, who have gone but a little before you. See how they line the shores on the other side! See how they wait to welcome you over! See how they beckon you away!

Above all—sweetest and most glorious of all!—see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, prepared to receive you to himself! Jesus has gone before, to make ready for the glorification of his church. "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). Oh sweet words! A place prepared—a room in the Father's house set apart for each individual believer! "In my Father's house are many rooms" (John 14:2). A room in his heart, a room in his kingdom, a room in his house, for the weakest babe in Christ.

The Forerunner has already entered for us, even Jesus! How sure is heaven! How certain the eternal happiness of every pardoned and justified soul!

Though the angry surges roll
on my tempest-driven soul,
I am peaceful, for I know,
wildly though the winds may blow,
I've an anchor safe and sure,
that can evermore endure.

(Refrain:)
And it holds, my anchor holds;
blow your wildest then, O gale,
on my bark so small and frail:
by his grace I shall not fail,
for my anchor holds, my anchor holds.

Mighty tides about me sweep,
perils lurk within the deep,
angry clouds o'ershade the sky,
and the tempest rises high;
still I stand the tempest's shock,
for my anchor grips the Rock.

(William C. Martin, 1902)

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.