Daily Devotional

July 26

A First Book of Daily Readings

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

Then are the children free

The trouble with us Christian people is that we do not realize what we are as children of God, we do not see God’s gracious purposes with respect to us.... He contrasted us as children with the grass of the field. The grass is here today in the field, but tomorrow it will be thrown as fuel into the oven to bake bread. But God’s children are destined for glory. All the purposes and the promises of God are meant for us and designed with respect to us, and the one thing we have to do ... is just to realize what God has told us about ourselves as His children. The moment we grasp that, worry becomes impossible. A man then begins to apply the logic which argues: ‘If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life’ (Romans 5:10). That is it. Whatever happens to us, ‘He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?’ The mighty argument continues in Romans 8 ... We may have to face problems and distresses and sorrow, but ‘in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us’. The vital thing is to see ourselves as His children. The argument follows of necessity. If God so clothe the grass how much more shall He clothe you? Your heavenly Father, who sees the birds, feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? We have to realize what we are as God’s children.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, pp. 131–2

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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.”