Morning, June 12
Go To Evening Reading
“Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.”
Daniel 5:27
It is well frequently to weigh ourselves in the scale of God’s Word. You will find it a holy exercise to read some psalm of David,
and, as you meditate upon each verse, to ask yourself, “Can I say this? Have I felt as David felt? Has my heart ever been
broken on account of sin, as his was when he penned his penitential
psalms? Has my soul been full of true confidence in the hour of difficulty
as his was when he sang of God’s mercies in the cave of Adullam, or in the holds of Engedi? Do I
take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord?” Then turn to the life of Christ, and as you read, ask yourselves
how far you are conformed to his likeness. Endeavour to discover whether
you have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit which he constantly
inculcated and displayed. Take, then, the epistles, and see whether
you can go with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have
you ever cried out as he did—“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?” Have you ever felt his self-abasement? Have you seemed to yourself
the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints? Have
you known anything of his devotion? Could you join with him and say,
“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”? If we thus read God’s Word as a test of our spiritual condition, we shall have good reason
to stop many a time and say, “Lord, I feel I have never yet been here, O bring me here! give me
true penitence, such as this I read of. Give me real faith; give me
warmer zeal; inflame me with more fervent love; grant me the grace
of meekness; make me more like Jesus. Let me no longer be ‘found wanting,’ when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, lest I be found wanting
in the scales of judgment.” “Judge yourselves that ye be not judged.”