J. C. Philpot - Daily Portions

Devotional For

September 4

      "I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight." Isaiah 42:16
      
      What is the mind of man--of any man--of your mind, my mind, under affliction? Let him be tried with pain of body, poverty of circumstances, sickness in his family, guilt of conscience, hard bondage in his own soul, without any beam of divine light upon his path, and what is he? A murmuring, rebellious wretch, without a grain of resignation, without a particle of contentment or submission to the will of God. But let the glory of the Lord be revealed; let him have a view by faith of a suffering Jesus; let some ray of light shine upon his path; let there be some breaking in of the exceeding weight of glory that is to be manifested at Christ's appearing; where are all his crooked things now? All made straight. But how? By his crooked will--crooked because it did not lie level with the Lord's--being made to harmonise with the promise and precept, the footsteps and example of the blessed Jesus. The crook is not taken out of the lot, but straightened in the lot; the cross is not removed from the shoulder, but strength--that strength which is "made perfect in weakness"--is given to bear it. So it was with Christ himself in the garden and on the cross; so it is with the believing followers of the crucified One.