Bowen's Daily Meditations

It is a great moment in a man's life when he ascertains that he does not know God. The next step is to ascertain that one ought to know God. After this a man may still go knocking at many wrong doors; but let us hope that he will at length reach the right door, even the Bible, and conclusively set himself to seek God therein.

If we want to know what it is to seek diligently, we need no dictionary; we need only look around us; in every community there are men who seem to have assigned...

" Art thou able, Christ, to slake the thirst of my soul? Dost thou know what strength of desire there is in me? Consider what seas of goodness have, in the providence of God, been poured upon me without in the least diminishing the force of aspiration within me. Whatever is given, seems only to stimulate my imagination and send it soaring a higher flight. Thus it would appear that in the very nature of things I never can know satisfaction. Give me everything that I can now conceive of, and...

Keep that which is good, in it; that which is evil, out: thoughts, feelings, purposes, imaginations, desires. Especially, keep God's word in it. Quench not the Spirit. Cherish a memory for what is good. Be as a gardener; be as a banker.

For the mind is God's wonderful gift.

As our thoughts, so our words and acts.

As our thoughts, so our future life.

Be as the pilot.

Thermopylae.

Our peace easily destroyed by unwatchfulness.

God looks at the...

Among those who read the Bible, how small a proportion, what an insignificant minority are the broken and contrite in heart! How rare a thing it is to see a man who is bowed down beneath a sense of his sinfulness, and who finds it difficult to conceive that there should ever be pardon for him! How small the number of such!

Now see what honor God has put upon these few. A great deal of his word seems to be intended just for them. God, so to speak, passes by the crowds of those who are...

Perfect love casteth out fear; but not the fear "here spoken of. There is no torment in this fear. It is at home in company with the most unlimited confidence. The man that trusts in God is the same as the man that fears God; the two expressions are convertible, and are over and over interchanged in the word of God. Let the man that thinks he fears God, see to it that he trusts in God: and let the man that thinks he trusts in God, see to it that he fears God.

He fears God who has a...

When Love divine was about to follow Christ back to heaven, he said, " Not so; I am no more in the world, but these are in the world." So this Love has ever since tarried with the people of God.

The Christian knows that goodness and mercy shall go with him all the days of his life, as two attendant angels. He knows that they have followed him hitherto. But it is some times difficult for him to perceive that they are with him. When Jeremiah was in that deep, dark dungeon, where there...

And how were the servants of God to comfort the people of God? By telling them of Christ. This became the burden of Isaiah's prophecies, as recorded in the fortieth chapter and onwards; and all the prophets his successors continued this strain. This was the banquet that God saw fit to provide for his ancient people. They demanded other comfort, and demanded in vain. When Jesus himself appeared, they refused to accept the comfort; they saw no beauty in him that they should desire him. They...

Before you, seated in the cavern of this world, the wizard of this world causes to appear, one after another, scenes of beauty, dissolving scenes that scarce have presented themselves to your vision before they have gone, leaving you in darkness. The wizard shows them to you that he may bind you to himself forever. "All these things will I bestow upon you," he says, " if you fall down and worship me." " The realities are in my chambers," he says; "I give them to whomsoever I will."...

Having bestowed righteousness, thou wilt express thy pleasure in that righteousness. We should not need a revelation from heaven to tell us this. It ought to be an unquestionable, self-evident axiom, that God who has all gifts at his disposal, will bestow his best, gifts upon those who please him most.

But there is none righteous, no, not one. Well, in the absolute sense of the word, Christ is the only righteous one that ever sojourned on this earth. He knew no sin. But they that...

This seems a very moderate declaration of attachment but very few can go so far as this. The gospel of Christ is the word that sets forth Christ. It is nothing apart from Christ. As He is honorable, so is it; as He is excellent, so is it. To be ashamed of it, is to be ashamed of Him.

Are you ashamed to speak, look, and act in such a way as to show your conviction that you and all men are lost sinners until recovered by the grace of God; and that you are dependent upon this grace for...

Even in the giving of promises, God has made manifest that he giveth liberally and upbraideth not. The necessity of reiterating promises, is sometimes irksome to us; we want people to take us at our word. But God knows the stupendous strength of unbelief in the heart of man. If a mountain of granite is to be reduced to powder by successive strokes of an instrument, there must be a vast number of strokes. If we wish to form some conception of the nature of unbelief let us look at the mighty...

Happy the soul that is able to find its joy in the indulgence of such a hope as this. Fallen man rejoices in hope of his own glory; not of his own true glory, but of a false and worldly glory, utterly disconnected with the glory of God. That soul is already largely redeemed that has learned to identify its own interests with the glory of God. And this hope shall be fulfilled; nothing is more certain. The glory of God must go forth triumphant one of these days, and conquer all the detestable...

God enlarges our heart by taking away from it the idea of our own righteousness and of our own strength; by taking away from us hardness of heart and insensibility; by delivering us from the oppressive fear of an offended God; by casting out a great deal of selfishness; by breathing into us the new life of faith in Christ, and making us buoyant with the delightful assurance of God's undeclining favor; by the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.

Then no wonder that we run the way of...

Lord, is this thy desire? Didst thou take such a desire as this to heaven with thee? When thou wert parted from thy disciples and a cloud was about to receive thee out of their sight, were these sweet and love-expressing words still hovering on thy lips? When thou didst ascend up far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, when the hosts of heaven clustered gladly and adoringly around thee, were thine eyes still fixed on us, and did the desire still predominate in thy...