Daily Devotional

July 02

A First Book of Daily Readings

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

If a Creator will do so much—how much more will a Father do!

God is our Father, and if our Father takes [such] great care of the birds to whom He is related only in His general providence, how much greater, of necessity, must be His care for us. An earthly father may be kind, for instance, to the birds or to animals; but it is inconceivable that a man should provide sustenance for mere creatures and neglect his own children. If this is true of an earthly father, how much more is it true of our heavenly Father....


You see our Lord's method of reasoning and arguing; every word is important and must be noted carefully and closely. Observe the subtle transition from God caring providentially for the birds of the air, to "your heavenly Father"... we notice and observe these facts of nature.... But because we are Christians we must look at them with a deeper understanding and say to ourselves, "No; things do not just happen in nature.
They have not just come into being anyhow, somehow, fortuitously, as so many modern scientists would have us believe. Not at all. God is the Creator, and God is the sustainer of all things that are. He provides even for the birds, and the birds know instinctively that it is there, and He sees to it that it is there." 

Very well then; but what about myself? I now remind myself that I am a child of God, that He is my heavenly Father. God is not to me merely a Creator. He is the Creator, but He is more than that; He is my God and Father in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.' We should reason thus with ourselves, according to our Lord; and the moment we do that, care and anxiety and worry are quite impossible.... God is our heavenly Father if we are truly Christian. We must add that, because all that we are considering applies only to Christians ... it is only the man who is a Christian who knows God to be his Father.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, pp. 119-20

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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.”