Daily Devotional

August 04

A First Book of Daily Readings

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

The Life of Faith

[Some apparently Christian people] are worried about food and drink; they are always talking about wealth and position and their various possessions. These things really control them. They are made happy or unhappy by them; they are put out by them or pleased by them; and they are always thinking and talking about them. That is to be like the heathen, says Christ; for the Christian should not be controlled by these things. Whatever may be his position with respect to them, he is not finally to be controlled by them ... because that is the typical condition of the heathen, who is dominated by them in his whole outlook upon life and in his living in this world.

This is a very good way, therefore, of increasing our faith and of introducing ourselves to the biblical conception of the life of faith. God’s people, God’s children in this world, are meant to live the life of faith; they are meant to live in the light of that faith which they profess. I suggest therefore, that there are certain questions which we should always be putting to ourselves. Here are some of them. Do I face the things that happen to me in this world as the Gentiles do? When these things happen to me, when there seem to be difficulties about food, or drink, or clothing, or difficulties in some relationship in life, how do I face them? How do I react? Is my reaction just that of the heathen, and of people who do not pretend to be Christian? How do I react during a war? How do I react to illness and pestilence and loss?

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, p. 139