Bowen's Daily Meditations

With gladness and with exultation Paul contemplated the fact that God had made him what he was, a very dependent creature, in himself altogether incomplete, and in unceasing need of the presence and blessing of God.

Imagine a flower able to shine by phosphorescent rays, dim and dying at the best; and saying to the glorious sun in the heavens, "Depart from me, I have no need of thee; trouble not thyself to move through my skies; I am my own sun." What fatuity were this. It is the glory...

There is something exceedingly gracious and affecting about this declaration. It is the language of pure friendship and open-hearted confidence. " If things had been darker than they are, if your difficulties greater, if your future less glorious, be sure that I would have told you. Did I ever seek to disguise the difficulties that would throng your path, if you became my followers? Did I speak in a whisper of the cross that you would have to bear? Did I keep you ignorant of an opposing...

So says the Psalmist. A thousand years after, the angel who appeared to Mary takes up the refrain, saying, " He shall save his people from their sins." Peter in due time learns this admirable song, and thus modulates it in the hearing of the Jews: - " Unto you first, God, having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." Paul suffers not the strain to die. but gives it the following utterance: - " Christ gave himself for us that he...

Self-confidence, self-reliance, pride of character, sense of power, consciousness of strength, self-possession, - these make a man great in the eyes of the world, and a fool in the sight of God. For strength is in the consciousness of weakness, not in the consciousness of strength. Wisdom is in the consciousness of ignorance; and true confidence is in the utter mistrust of self. Man by himself is a fragment. He is the sport of circumstances, - the foot-ball of time. Yea, though he have...

The Almighty Maker of all demands no more of anything he has made than he has made it capable of yielding. Although when each tree yields its appropriate fruits. The plants of righteousness have per-eminence above all the trees of the field; for on their boughs, they bear, wonderful to relate, many varieties of fruits. There is one Spirit; but his fruit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. How beautiful when the trees planted in the courts...

Observe here the character of those that are spoken of: " they fear God."

Observe their condition present and prospective: "it shall be well with them."

Notice the certainty of this: " surely I know."

God is love. This word embraces all his perfections. But let none suppose that he is therefore bound down to a single line of manifestation. Light is one; yet, says the prism, manifold. The sternest acts of Providence unfold, in their own particular way, the love of God. ...

The resurrection because the life. He is the life, in that by him our souls live before God, and draw from the everlasting fulness of divine grace, and are changed into the image of our heavenly Father. He is the life that came into the world by one gate, almost at the very moment when death entered it by another. When Adam tasted the forbidden fruit, Death entered in state and enthroned himself in the world, with his royal train of terrors and miseries; but Life also entered in the meek and...

Pride is robbery. It is the robbery of that which is most precious and sacred in the universe, namely, the glory of God. To the Maker of the universe belongs all the glory of the universe. Pride takes its stand over against God and defies him. It claims for itself the tribute that belongs to God; and would have all eyes directed to itself, all knees bent before itself. God must resist pride: resist it when angels sin; when men build a tower of Babel; when men say of the voice of Herod, '' it...

Our translators have shown an unnecessary timidity, in substituting the word " seats" for " thrones." The original is: " And round about the throne, thrones twenty and four." " I am glorified in them," said Christ. Their glory does not detract from his glory, any more than his from the Father's; but their glory is his glory. Christ is enthroned over again and crowned over again, in every redeemed one who is brought up out of the horrible pit and miry clay of sin, and advanced to a...

Scarcely with anything can man be properly said to be acquainted. He is painfully alive to the fact of his limited comprehension of even the least department of the works of God; yet has no trouble at heart on the score of his want of acquaintance with the Lord of the universe. " God, I know," says one; " leave me alone with regard to any account of him. See, I am very busy in the study of these caterpillars; your talk of God hinders me from getting some valuable knowledge.'' " Why is this...

Observe, there is an " if " in the case. The prize exhibited is obtainable on a condition. There is a glorious certainty; but it exists only in a particular path.

If thou seek him. The words stop with thee. It does not glance by thee to another. The question is not, " What shall this man do?" - "Are there many that be saved?" But, "Wilt thou seek Him? Unless thou canst distinctly prove that he has been found of thee, this word will not let thee go. Its errand from heaven is to thee,...

We have here the perseverance of the saints.

God will keep the foot of those who walk in his paths. They are saints, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit dwelleth in them, as they are born of God, walk by faith, renounce the idea of their natural holiness, and hunger and thirst after righteousness. Their feet he will keep. He will not keep the feet of those who simply seek to be kept from eternal perdition; but of those who wish to be kept from all steps that accord not with the glory of God....

The church of Sardis, as a whole, might be spoken of as dead. The ordinances of religion were indeed maintained and attended; the word read; prayer offered; the communion partaken. In the estimation of many of the members, the church was anything but dead; but their conception of a living church was different from Christ's; and he pronounced it dead: dead, as a church. Yet was not vital godliness altogether extinct; some believers there were; and their position was one of great...

Canaan was divided among the ancient people of God. Each tribe had its portion. The question might have been asked, What portion has the Lord reserved for himself? The answer would have been, " The people of God are his portion. They are his peculiar possession in the earth. They are his habitation. Not merely the first fruits, not merely the Sabbaths, not merely the firstling of the flock: - all is his. The people are his; their allegiance, their service belong to him.''

So it was...