Devotional for November 29

Myrrh, Aloes, and Cassia

45 My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
2 Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.
3 Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.
4 And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.
5 Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; whereby the people fall under thee.
6 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.
7 Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
8 All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.
9 Kings' daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.
10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house;
11 So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.
12 And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favour. Psalm 45:1-12 (KJV)

Morning Exhortation

The will of God and our highest good are one and the same. We have only one lifetime to learn this truth. Check your motives. Reduce the extent of physical needs and clarify the intent of the heart. Enter in by the straight gate, fan into flame the Word planted within you, and glorify God in all you do. The desire of the sanctified human will is to do the will of God out of love. It is not the blind obedience of a robot slave that God desires, but a faithful love service of His sons and daughters. There is much happiness to be found in keeping our thoughts, as well as our prayer requests, pleasing to the Lord. There is divine power in His exceeding great and precious promises given to us so that we don’t have to be buffeted and battered by every whim and wind of our feelings and emotions. We can now choose faith in God to be our rule for life by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Faith is a matter of the will determined to trust God, not in any good or bad feelings about what we think is true or so. What God has said, that is so. Let the sometimes turbulent sea of feelings and emotions be as they may.

Today’s Bible Reading

1 Chronicles 26-27; 2 Peter 1

Micah 4; Luke 13

The Prayer Appointed for This Week from the Book of Common Prayer

Almighty God, give all of us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.