Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

 January 31– Evening

by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“Then Ahima-az took the straight route and outran Cushi.” 

—2 Samuel 18:23

Running swiftly is not everything. The speed of our journey has a lot to do with the roads we travel. A swift runner who travels up and down hills will not keep pace with a slower one who runs on level ground.

So, how is it going with my spiritual journey?  Am I laboring up the hills of my own works and down into the ravines of my own humiliations and resolutions, or do I run on the straight pathway of “Believe and live”?

How blessed is it to wait upon the Lord by faith! The soul runs without weariness and walks without fainting on the pathway of faith. Jesus is the way of life, and he is a smooth path— a pleasant way, a way suitable for the tottering feet and feeble knees of trembling sinners.  Am I walking in this way, or am I hunting for another track such as priest-craft or metaphysics may promise me? Have I been delivered from proud reason and humbled as a little child to rest in Jesus’ love and atoning blood? If so, by God’s grace I will outrun the strongest runner who chooses any other path. I should remember this in my daily cares and needs. It will be my wisest course to go at once to my God and not to this friend or that one. God knows my wants and can relieve them. I’ll help myself the most by turning to him in prayer as I walk the smooth pathway of His promises.

And running straightforward is the best strategy. I won’t play dice with the servants but, rather, hasten to their master. It strikes me that, if men vie with each other in common matters and one outruns the other to win the prize, then I ought to earnestly run in the pathway of faith that I may obtain more of the Lord Jesus. Lord, help me to press forward towards my high calling of God in Christ Jesus. [M&E]