August 9 devotion for 09-AUG-00

Daily Promises
Devotion for Wednesday, August 09, 2000

Selection Taken From:
Daily Promises by Herbert Lockyer

Designed for personal devotion and study, each meditation can also be used effectively as a meeting opener or group discussion starter.

"August 9"

"I...tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross." - Philippians 3:18

The apostle Paul always lived under the impact of the record of his master weeping over the sins of Jerusalem. His warm, Christlike tears were shed not only over those who were utterly godless and positvely hostile to the idea of a man dying for their sins but also over those who professed Christ and sought to shelter beneath His cross. Paul's tears, his liquid agony, over those in the Phillippian church indicate at once the tenderness of a mourner and the awful certainty of the coming ruin of those who were enemies of the Cross because they did not see in it the evil sin. They had the distorted belief that although under grace, they could give the reins to sin instead of being strangers to its attractions. They would not submit to the authority or conform themselves to the example of Christ who died upon a cross. To such enemies, the Christian liberty Paul preached meant license. Continuing in sin that grace may abound, those Philippians made themselves the foes Paul described them to be. Thus they turned "the grace of our God into licentiousness" (Jude 4) and earned for themselves the severe judgement of destruction. If the Cross is all our glory, then we must never by conduct or conversation bring disgrace upon it. We must endeavor in every possible way to advance its victory, spread its glory, and bring sinners to trust Him who was crucified upon it for their salvation. Because that wondrous Cross is the foundation of our hope, the key opening the gates of paradise, the object of angelic wonder and the cause of Satan's everlasting destruction, it should give us pain to be considered its enemy in any way. May grace be ours never to be ashamed of, or a shame to, the Cross! May He who died in our place enable us to glory in His cross, declare its triumphs, and hold it up in the face of a godless world as its only hope for life, here and hereafter!