Daily Devotional

February 27

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC Website

Think the thoughts of God

I have often listened to Christian people who are in some perplexity; and, even as they have been stating their problem, I have realized that their trouble was wholly due to the fact that they had dropped back to the rational [i.e., human] level of thinking. For instance, when something happens to you that you do not understand, the moment you begin to feel a sense of grudge against God, you may be sure that you have already dropped back to that rational level. When you complain that what is happening to you does not seem to be fair, you are at once bringing God down to your own level of understanding....


But everything in the Christian life must be regarded from the spiritual angle. The whole of this life is spiritual. Everything about us must therefore be considered spiritually, every phase, every stage, every interest, every development...; we must think in a spiritual way and leave the other mode of thinking behind.... That was [Psalm 73] this man's problem. Why does God allow these things, he says. Why are the ungodly allowed to prosper? ... That was the problem, trying to understand God's ways...; there is only one answer to that.
It is found in Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." ... The first thing you have to realize, God says to us, is that when you come to con­sider Me and My ways, you must not do so on that low level to which you have been accustomed...; are we not constantly guilty here?

We will persist in thinking as natural men and women in these matters. We see that the matter of salvation calls for spiritual thinking; but in the things that happen to us, our thinking is prone to become rational thinking again, and we must not be surprised therefore if we do not understand God's ways, for they are altogether different from ours. The difference between the two outlooks is the difference between heaven and earth.

Faith on Trial, pp. 36-7

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”