Daily Devotion

 

 

Here, we have three sayings, each with its own warning for life.  (1^st) Verse 16 stresses the essential conspicuousness of the Christian life.  Christianity is, by its very nature, something that must be seen.  It is easy to find prudential reasons why we should not flaunt our Christianity in the world's face.  In almost every person there is an instinctive fear of being different, and the world is always likely to persecute those who do not conform to its pattern.

A writer tells how he kept hens.  In the hen-run, all the hens were precisely the same in marking except one.  The one different hen was pecked to death by the other occupants of the hen-run.  Even in the animal world, to be different is a crime. Hard as it may be, the duty is laid upon us of never being ashamed to show whose we are, and whom we serve, and if we regard the matter in the right way it will be, not a duty, but a privilege. 

 

The Christian, however, humbles his position, and his sphere must never be ashamed to show his colors.

 

(ii) Verse 17 stresses the impossibility of secrecy.  There are three people from whom we try to hide things.  (a) Sometimes we try to hide things from ourselves.  We shut our eyes to the consequences of certain actions, and habits, consequences of which we are aware.  It is like a man shutting his eyes to symptoms of an illness which he knows he has.  (b) Sometimes we try to hide things from our fellow men.  Things have a way of coming out. The man with a secret is an unhappy man.  The happy man is the man with nothing to hide. (c) Sometimes we try to hide things from God.  No man ever attempted a more impossible task.  We would do well to have before our eyes forever the text that says, "Thou art a God of seeing."  (Genesis 16:13).

(iii) Verse 18 lays down the universal law that the man who has will get more, and the man who has not will lose what he has.  If a man is physically fit and keeps himself so, his body will be ready for ever greater efforts; if he lets himself get flabby, he will lose even the abilities he has.  The more a student learns, the more he can learn; but if he refuses to go on learning, he will lose the knowledge he has. That is just another way of saying that there is no standing still in life.  All the time we are either going forward or backward.  The seeker will always find, but the man who stops seeking will lose even what he has.

 

Life Application: What have you learned from these verses?  God's plan for His children, I believe is that we are to be forever learning from the Bible, and from life.

 

Praise/Prayer: Dear Father, I am so thankful that You want Your children to be forever learning from You.  You have so much to teach us.  The Bible is so full of material for us to learn.  Thank You for loving Your children, and being willing to teach them.  Amen!