Daily Devotional

July 05

A First Book of Daily Readings

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

Infinite Providence

Look at the ... lilies of the field, the natural wild flowers, the grass. The authorities again spend many pages in trying to decide exactly what a ‘lily’ means. But surely He is referring to some common flowers which were growing in the fields of Palestine, and with which they were all perfectly familiar. And He says, Look at these things—consider; these do not toil, neither do they spin, and yet look at them. Look at the marvel, look at the beauty, look at the perfection. Why, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

The glory of Solomon was proverbial amongst the Jews.
You can read of his magnificence in the Old Testament, the marvellous clothing and all the wonderful vestures of the king and his court, his palaces of cedarwood with their furniture overlaid with gold and encrusted with precious stones. And yet, says our Lord, all that pales into insignificance when compared with one of these. There is an essential quality in the flowers, in the form, in the design, in the texture and substance, and in the colouring that man, with all his ingenuity can never truly imitate.

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

That is what He sees. He sees the hand of God; He sees the perfect creation; He sees the glory of the Almighty. The little flower that is never perhaps seen during the whole of its brief existence in this world, and which seemingly ‘wastes its sweetness on the desert air’, is nevertheless perfectly clothed by God. That is a fact, is it not? If so, draw the deduction from it. ‘If God so clothe the grass of the field ... shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?’

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, pp. 123–4

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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.”