Morning  “Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.” Daniel 5:27

 It is well frequently to weigh ourselves in the scale of God’s Word. You will

find it a holy exercise to read some psalm of David, and, as you meditate upon

each verse, to ask yourself, “Can I say this? Have I felt as David felt? Has my

heart ever been broken on account of sin, as his was when he penned his

penitential psalms? Has my soul been full of true confidence in the hour of

difficulty as his was when he sang of God’s mercies in the cave of Adullam, or

in the holds of Engedi? Do I take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of

the Lord?” Then turn to the life of Christ, and as you read, ask yourselves how

far you are conformed to his likeness. Endeavour to discover whether you

 have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit which he constantly

inculcated and displayed. Take, then, the epistles, and see whether you can go

with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have you ever cried out as

he did–“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this

death?” Have you ever felt his self-abasement? Have you seemed to yourself the

chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints? Have you known anything

of his devotion? Could you join with him and say, “For me to live is Christ, and

to die is gain”? If we thus read God’s Word as a test of our spiritual

condition, we shall have good reason to stop many a time and say, “Lord, I feel

 I have never yet been here, O bring me here! give me true penitence, such as

this I read of. Give me real faith; give me warmer zeal; inflame me with more

fervent love; grant me the grace of meekness; make me more like Jesus. Let me no

longer be found wanting,’ when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, lest I

be found wanting in the scales of judgment.” “Judge yourselves that ye be not

judged.”

 

Evening  “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling.”  2 Timothy 1:9

 The apostle uses the perfect tense and says, “Who hath saved us.” Believers in

Christ Jesus are saved. They are not looked upon as persons who are in a hopeful

state, and may ultimately be saved, but they are already saved. Salvation is not

a blessing to be enjoyed upon the dying bed, and to be sung of in a future state

above, but a matter to be obtained, received, promised, and enjoyed now. The

Christian is perfectly saved in God’s purpose; God has ordained him unto

salvation, and that purpose is complete. He is saved also as to the price which

has been paid for him: “It is finished” was the cry of the Saviour ere he died.

The believer is also perfectly saved in his covenant head, for as

 he fell in Adam, so he lives in Christ. This complete salvation is accompanied

by a holy calling. Those whom the Saviour saved upon the cross are in due time

effectually called by the power of God the Holy Spirit unto holiness: they leave

their sins; they endeavour to be like Christ; they choose holiness, not out of

any compulsion, but from the stress of a new nature, which leads them to rejoice

in holiness just as naturally as aforetime they delighted in sin. God neither

chose them nor called them because they were holy, but he called them that they

might be holy, and holiness is the beauty produced by his workmanship in them.

The excellencies which we see in a believer are as much the

 work of God as the atonement itself. Thus is brought out very sweetly the

fulness of the grace of God. Salvation must be of grace, because the Lord is the

author of it: and what motive but grace could move him to save the guilty?

Salvation must be of grace, because the Lord works in such a manner that our

righteousness is forever excluded. Such is the believer’s privilege–a present

salvation; such is the evidence that he is called to it–a holy life.