11/16, Recognition

R. M. McCeyne’s DAILY BREAD portions:

MORNING:
1 Chronicles 7-8 (family); Amos 5 (secret)
EVENING:
Hebrews 11 (family); Luke 1:1-38 (secret)

A CHRISTIAN CATECHISM:

Q42.What is the first commandment?
A42. The first commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:3

Q43. What is required in the first commandment?
A43. The first commandment requires us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God, and to worship and glorify Him accordingly. Deuteronomy 26:17; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Matthew 4:10


CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST DEVOTION:

“The four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne” (Revelation 4:10).

We must be very watchful in these last days that our attention doesn’t get on our works accomplished and our fruit produced. Certainly, there will be times that the Spirit will, and must, bring us to examine ourselves, whether we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5); inspecting the good works and the spiritual fruit produced, as it were, and testing the center of our devotional duty and proving whether it has love for God, first, and love for the brethren second, and etceteras.

Yet, we must guard our hearts against a tendency toward legalism. Because we want to ensure that we’re walking rightly before God, ministering justly before His people, proclaiming effectively His everlasting gospel, we can attach little unbiblical methods to what we do to satisfy a need for vindication; that is, we seek justification for our work rather than living by the justification that Christ has already wrought through His atoning sacrifice. We might want to preach the gospel, even knowing that all of it is God’s supernatural work of efficacious grace, yet, we’ll give an altar call and lead sinners in a prayer. The more hands raised and the more commitments made, the better we seem to feel about ourselves. O, Lord, save us from our arrogance.

In reading the passage of the heavenly scene, because of this unhealthy and unholy need to be vindicated in our salvation, we want to do something to obtain a crown so we won’t feel left out when everyone is casting crowns before the eternal throne. As our dear friend, Mr. Spurgeon, would say, “RUBBISH!” The reason that the elders are casting their crowns down before the throne is because they realize that they received them, not for anything in them, but because they have them by God’s grace and His grace alone. It’s all of grace and nothing else. “And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7, NASB).

When we get our attention off of the God who sacrificed His very soul for lost sinners, when our focus is removed from the Cross, we will have such bizarre thoughts and notions. Yet, when we gaze upon the infinite glories, the eternal majesties, the magnificent splendors, and the superlative excellencies of the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, how can we have a thought for anything else but Him?

Oswald Chambers said something very interesting: “The mature stage is a life of a child which is never conscious; we become so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used never enters in.… A saint is never consciously a saint; a saint is consciously dependent upon God.”

I had that quote highlighted for many years… and I knew what Mr. Chambers was saying, but I never really knew what he meant until I labored to get to the Cross and stay at the Cross of Jesus Christ.

The spiritual life is not about our recognition from God; it’s about our recognition of God. It’s not about the things we get from God, or even the things we do for Him, because He is the Gift and the Giver. Again, even all we do in Him and for Him would never have come through us or from us had He not equipped us, enabled us, and empowered us in the first place by His free and sovereign grace.

When He gave Himself on Calvary’s Tree, to reconcile us to Himself, He gave us the greatest Gift in the universe: Himself. Get to the Cross and stay at the Cross and look to Him who is the Giver of all good things (James 1:17).

“We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19); “…her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much” (Luke 7:47).


Behold the glories of the Lamb
amidst His Father’s throne;
Prepare new honours for His name,
and songs before unknown.

Lo! elders worship at His feet;
the church adores around,
With vials full of odours rich,
and harps of sweetest sound.

These odours are the pray’rs of saints,
these sounds the hymns they raise;
God bends His ear to their requests,
He loves to hear their praise.

Who shall the Father’s record search,
and hidden things reveal?
Behold the Son that record takes,
and opens ev’ry seal.

Hark how th’ adoring hosts above
with songs surround the throne!
Ten thousand thousand are their tongues;
but all their hearts are one.

Worthy the Lamb that died, they cry,
to be exalted thus;
Worthy the Lamb, let us reply,
for He was slain for us.

To him be pow’r divine ascribed,
and endless blessings paid;
Salvation, glory, joy, remain
for ever on His head!

Thou hast redeemed us with Thy blood,
and set the pris’ners free;
Thou mad’st us kings and priests to God,
and we shall reign with Thee.

From ev’ry kindred, ev’ry tongue,
Thou brought’st Thy chosen race;
And distant lands and isles have shared
the riches of Thy grace.

Let all that dwell above the sky,
or on the earth below,
With fields, and floods, and ocean’s shores,
to Thee their homage show.

To Him who sits upon the throne,
the God whom we adore,
And to the Lamb that once was slain,
be glory evermore.

Revelation 5:6-13
Scripture Paraphrase & Hymns