Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

July 20– Morning

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

“The down payment of our future inheritance.” 

—Ephesians 1:14

Oh! what enlightenment, what joys, what comfort is experienced by the one who has learned to feed on Jesus alone; and yet our understanding of all that we have in Christ is in this life imperfect at best. So far, we have only tasted that the Lord is gracious, and we long for more of him, but we don’t yet know how gracious he is. Thankfully, we have enjoyed the first-fruits of the Spirit, but we have yet to drink of the heavenly vintage. Here we are like Israel in the wilderness, having seen one cluster of grapes from the promised land, but there we will live in the vineyard. Here we find manna on the ground in small bits, but there we will eat the bread of heaven.

In terms of spiritual understanding we are mere beginners here; we have learned the alphabet, but we are yet unable to read the words– much less put full sentences together. But as someone has said, “He who has been in heaven for five minutes knows more than all of the Bible scholars on earth.”

Christian, think of heaven! Within a very short while you will be there. Your eyes, now filled with tears, will weep no longer. You will soon behold the splendor of him who sits upon the throne. In fact, you yourself will sit on a throne, for he will share the glory of his triumph with you; his crown, his joy, his paradise– these will be yours, and you will be co-heir with him who is the heir of all things. [M&E]