Monday 14 October 2013

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

October 14

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. —Psalm 91:11, 12

Devotional:
But the Scripture principally insists on what might conduce most to our consolation, and the confirmation of our faith—that the angels are dispensers and administrators of the Divine beneficence towards us; and therefore it informs us that they guard our safety, undertake our defense, direct our ways, and exercise a constant solicitude that no evil befall us.

The declarations are universal, belonging primarily to Christ the head of the Church, and then to all the faithful; "He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." Again, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them."


In these passages God shows that he delegates to his angels the protection of those whom he has undertaken to preserve. Accordingly, the angel of the Lord consoles the fugitive Hagar, and commands her to be reconciled to her mistress.

Abraham promises his servant that an angel should be the guide of his journey. Jacob, in his benediction of Ephraim and Manasseh, prays that the angel of the Lord, by whom he had been redeemed from all evil, would cause them to prosper.

But whether each of the faithful has a particular angel assigned to him for his defense, I cannot venture certainly to affirm. —Institutes, I, xiv, vi

John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin's Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

No comments: