Daily Devotion

May 17, 2006

Psalms 119:158  I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.

I recently heard this song about a carpenter who finally decides to retire.  As he hangs up his hammer he says, “I don’t want to drive another nail”. Later, on Easter morning his wife brings him to a service where the preacher talks about the nails in Jesus hands.  The old carpenter got convicted of his sins against Jesus and said, “I don’t want to drive another nail”!

Our spiritual sickness of indifference and confusion laid the healing stripes (Is 53: 5) on Jesus’ body.  Our sins drove the nails of transgression into our Savior’s hands and feet. Our shallow mockery pierced his head with a crown of thorns; our defiant arrogance pierced His side with a spear of contempt. Once we acknowledge Him as our LORD and Savior, He forgives us these sins and comes down from the cross to lives in our hearts forever, but each day that passes, the indifference, the confusion, the sins, the mockery, the defiance and the arrogance of the transgressors add to the stripes, the nails and the piercing of Jesus.  

How can we watch transgressors so hurt our dear Savior and not grieve?  How can we, for the sake of social acceptance take part of daily mockeries at the Spirit of Righteousness?  How can we “walk in the counsel of the ungodly”, “stand in the way of sinners”, or “sit in the seat of the scornful” (Ps. 1:1)and not feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit telling us, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Act 9:5).

My dear friend, let not your heart be so hardened.  Let not your spirit become so familiar with the defiling of the Holy Spirit, that it blurs the difference between the “bride” (Rev 21:2) and the “whore” (Rev 17:1).  Let not your heart feel so “at home” in this world that the transgression of the ungodly doesn’t make you grieve.  

Jer 9:1  Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Mat 23:37  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Patrick Lumbroso
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