Daily Devotionals: (May 23rd): Prayer for the Blessedness of Forgiveness

Reading: “I die daily.”—1 Corinthians 15:31

Heavenly Father, who has permitted me, in Your great mercy, to see the light of another day, enable me to begin and to end it with You. Let all my thoughts and purposes and actions have the superscription written on them, “Holiness to the Lord.”

Give me to know the blessedness of reconciliation—what it is, as a sinner and the chief of sinners, to come “just as I am, without one plea” to that blood “which cleanses from all sin.” I desire to take hold of the sublime assurance that Jesus is “able to save unto the uttermost,” that He has left nothing for me as a suppliant at Your throne—a pensioner on Your bounty—but to accept all as the gift and purchase of free, unmerited grace.

While I look to Him as my Saviour from the penalty, may I know Him also as my Deliverer from the power of sin. I have to lament that so often I have yielded to its solicitations, that my heart, a temple of the Holy Spirit, has been so often profaned and dishonored by the “accursed thing,” marring my spiritual joy, and sorely interrupting communion with the Lord I love. Give me grace to exercise a godly jealousy over my traitor affections, to live nearer You, to have the magnet of my heart more centered on Yourself, to keep the eye of faith more steadily on Jesus, to live more habitually under “the powers of the world to come.”

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Daily Devotionals: (May 22nd): Prayer for Gratitude in Mercies

Reading: “Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight.”—Psalm 119:77 

Good Lord, preserve me from the sin of insensibility to Your unwearied kindness—of taking Your mercies as matters of course and thus living in a state of independence of You. May my whole existence become a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. May all my doings testify the sincerity and devotion of a heart feeling alive to every gift of the great Giver; and, especially, may I be so brought under the constraining influence of redeeming love, as to consecrate every power of my body and every faculty of my soul to Him who so willingly consecrated and shed His very life’s blood for me.

Lord, this day shine upon me with the light of Your countenance; may every mercy I experience in the course of it be hallowed and sweetened by the thought that it comes from God. And, while ever mindful and thankful in the midst of present mercies, teach me to keep in view the crowning mercy of all—the hope of at last sharing Your presence and full fruition, and of joining in the eternal ascription with the ransomed multitude above who cease not day nor night to celebrate Your praises.

Bless all near and dear to me. Defend them by Your mighty power. Give them, too, gratitude for mercies past, and the sure and well-grounded hope of a glorious inheritance in that better world, where mercy is unmixed with judgment, and joy undarkened by sorrow. And all I ask is for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Daily Devotionals: (May 21st): Thanksgiving in Mercies

Reading: “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits towards me?”—Psalm 116:12

O God, I adore You as the Author and Giver of every good and every perfect gift. You are daily loading me with Your benefits. Every returning morning brings with it fresh causes for gratitude—new material for praise. I bless You for Your temporal bounties—“How great has been the sum of them!” While others have been pining in poverty, or wasted by sickness, or racked in pain, or left friendless and penniless, You have been making showers of blessing to fall around my dwelling. I laid me down last night and slept. I awoke, for the Lord sustained me.

I might never have seen the morning light. Mine might have been the midnight summons to meet a God in whose righteous presence I was all unfit and unprepared to stand. And yet I am again spared, a monument of Your goodness. Oh, enkindle a flame of undying gratitude to You, on the clay-cold altar of my heart. I mourn and lament that I am so little and so feebly affected by the magnitude of Your mercies, and especially by the riches of Your grace and love manifested in Jesus—that my affections are so little alive to the incalculable obligation under which I am laid to Him who has “loved me with an everlasting love.”

I am doubly Yours, Lord. Creation and redemption combine in claiming all I am, and all I have, for You and Your service. Take me, O Lord, and use me for Your glory. In the name of my blessed Redeemer, Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Daily Devotionals: (May 20th): The Prayer of a Pilgrim

Reading: “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.”—Psalm 73:24

I rejoice to know, blessed Jesus, it is Your burdened ones You have specially promised “gently to lead.” You will conduct me by no rougher road than is necessary. “Undertake for me.” May the wilderness journey be this day resumed and renewed with a more simple, and childlike, and habitual leaning on You. Put this new song into my mouth, “The Lord is my Rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” Say to me, in the midst of my weakness, “Fear not, you worm Jacob.” With the pillar of Your presence ever before me, “I will go from strength to strength.”

Keep me this day from sin. May no evil thoughts, or vain imaginings, or deceitful lusts, obtrude on my walk with God. May an affecting sense of how frail I am, keep me near the atoning sacrifice. May the ”horns of the altar” ever be in sight. Blessed Jesus, my helpless soul would hang, every moment upon You.

Look down in Your kindness on all connected with me by ties of earthly kindred. May the blessing of the God of Bethel rest on every heart and household I love. May we all be journeying heavenwards, and be so weaned from earth as to feel that heavenwards is homewards. If pursuing different paths, and separated, it may be, far from one another, may the journey have one blessed and happy termination. May we meet in glory, and meet with You. And all I ask is for the Redeemer’s sake. Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Our God-Given Dominion over the Earth

The second part of the answer to this foundational question—who owns the earth?—is that the earth belongs to mankind; it is his “domain.” In Genesis 1 we read that the first assignment the Creator gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden was to “subdue [the earth]: and have dominion.” Man was given the earth to live on and he was to make it his home in the same way a tenant makes his apartment his home.

In Psalm 8:6 the psalmist states clearly that although the Lord is the sovereign, yet He has graciously endowed mankind with the honour of being vice-regent over the earth. In this psalm the psalmist celebrates in poetry what the author of Genesis records using other literary techniques. In Genesis, immediately after giving the account of creation in chronological order (1:1–2:3), Moses begins another account of creation. This second account of creation has an ingenious layout which focuses on the creation of man and his environment. Had Moses been interested in man only he would have simply rehearsed the work of the sixth day, but instead, he breaks into his subject at the beginning of the third day (1:9) after the universe was created but before the plants and herbs and animals were created: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew” (2:4–5, emphasis added).

This important arrangement of the text highlights the place that mankind has as the apex of creation. But it also focuses on the environment in which man exists with the reference at the beginning to the vegetable kingdom (vv. 4-5). This reference to the plants and vegetation highlights the fact that all the activity of the first five days of creation was preparatory for the creation of man—the Lord was building an environment for him.

Daily Devotionals: (May 19th): Prayer for Strength in Weakness

Reading: “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”—2 Corinthians 12:9

O high and mighty God, inhabiting eternity, draw near to a poor unworthy sinner, who ventures anew this morning to approach the footstool of Your throne. Give me now the gracious aids of Your gracious Spirit, that out of much weakness I may be made strong. It is Your own gracious assurance, that ”those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” I would rely on the faithfulness of a promising God. May my own utter emptiness drive me to all fullness. May my own conscious weakness wean me from all earthly props, and confidences, and refuges, to “abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”

Lord, I confess this day with shame and confusion of face my many infirmities, my coldness and lukewarmness, my distrust of Your providence, my insensibility to Your Love, my murmuring at Your dealings, my tampering with sin, my resisting of Your grace. How often, like the slender reed, have I bent before the blast of temptation, my best resolutions proving “as the morning cloud and the early dew!”

And yet gracious Father, You have not broken “the bruised reed.” You have not “quenched the smoking flax.” I am here this morning a marvel to myself that You are still sparing me. It is the prerogative of the everlasting God that “He faints not, neither is weary.” You are this morning giving me fresh grants of mercy, renewed proofs and tokens of unmerited love. I am receiving “at the Lord’s hand double for all my sins” for which I am thankful gracious Father, Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Daily Devotionals: (May 18th): A Prayer for Guidance

Reading: “Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.”—Psalm 143:8

Merciful Saviour, if my path be in any way now hedged up with thorns, “undertake for me,” “Guide me with Your counsel.” Let me take no step, and engage in no plan, unsanctioned by Your approval. Let it be my grand aim and ambition, in all the changes of a changing life, to hear Your directing voice, saying, “This is the way, walk in it”; and then shall all life’s trials be sweetened, and life’s burden lightened, by knowing that they are the appointment of infinite wisdom and unchanging love, and that, though man may err, God never can.

May Your Holy Spirit lead me this day into all the truth. May all its duties be pervaded by the leavening power of vital godliness. While in the world, may I seek to feel and to exhibit that I am not of it. May I give evidence, in my walk and conversation, of a renewed nature and of a nobler destiny.

Hasten, blessed Jesus, Your coming and Your kingdom. “How long shall the wicked triumph?” “Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance; feed them also, and lift them up forever.” Let the voice of salvation be heard in the household of all I love. May theirs be the dwellings of the righteous. May this be their name, “The Lord is there.” May they know Him who has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

And “now, Lord, what do I wait for? my hope is in You.” Hear and answer these unworthy supplications, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Daily Devotionals: (May 17th): Prayer of Thanksgiving for God’s Mercy

Reading: “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.”—2 Corinthians 9:15

O eternal Lord, whose nature and whose name is love, I bless You that I am again invited into Your presence. What am I, that I should be permitted to speak to the infinite God! I might have been left through eternity a monument of Your righteous vengeance. I might have known You only as “the consuming fire.” But “Your ways are not as man’s ways”; mercy is remembered when wrath might have come upon me.

I desire to begin this day, blessing and praising You for “Your unspeakable gift,” Jesus the Son of Your love. Adored be your name, that the guilt of my sin, which the holiness of Your law could not permit otherwise to be cancelled, has to Him been transferred—that, as the scape-goat of His people, He has borne the mighty load into the land of oblivion, never more to be remembered. May I be enabled to show forth my lively gratitude to You for this wondrous token of Your Love, not only by lip homage, but by heart and life devotion. Sanctify and seal me in body, soul and spirit; and present me at last “faultless before the presence of Your glory with exceeding joy.”

O my God, I rejoice to know that my interests for time and eternity are confided to Your keeping. Though often “wonderful in counsel,” You are ever “excellent in working.” You are “God only wise”—“righteous in all Your ways, and holy in all Your works.” I commit my way and my doings unto You whose mercy has saved me, Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Daily Devotionals: (May 16th): Prayer for the Strength of the Lord

Reading: “But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.”—Psalm 40:17

Lord, when I look to my inner self I have good cause indeed for misgivings and despondency. Conscience repeats, over and over again, a sentence of condemnation, and I have nothing to extenuate my guilt or excuse my sin. Where can I flee? Where can I look but to You, O Lamb of God, sin-bearing and sin-forgiving Saviour!

Enable me to be living more from moment to moment on Your grace, to rely on Your guiding arm with more childlike confidence, to look with a more simple faith to Your finished work, disowning all trust in my own doings, and casting myself, as a poor needy pensioner, on the bounty of Him who has done all, and suffered all, and endured all, for me. Thus relying on the unseen arm of a covenant-God, when the hour of darkness and discouragement overtakes me, when trials multiply, and comforts fail, and streams of earthly blessings are dried up, may I have what compensates for the loss of all— “Your favor, which is life, and Your loving-kindness, which is better than life.” “I will go in the strength of the Lord God.”

Be the God of all near and dear to me. May all my relatives be able to claim a spiritual relationship with You, that so those earthly bonds of attachment, which sooner or later must snap asunder here, may be renewed and perpetuated before the throne. Pity all who are in sorrow. Comfort the feeble-minded. May “the joy of the Lord be their strength.” May those appointed unto death be prepared for their great change. And all I ask is for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.

Daily Devotionals: (May 15th): Prayer for Hope in Discouragement

Reading: “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”—Psalm 43:5

O God, in Your infinite mercy You have again spared me to approach Your blessed presence. May each morning find me better prepared for the glorious waking-time of immortality, when “the day shall break,” and earth’s shadows shall forever “flee away.” May I seek to rise this day in newness of life, breathing more of the atmosphere of holiness, and partaking more of the character of heaven.

You are always, by the salutary dispensations of Your providence, reminding me that this earth is not my rest. It is well, Lord, that it should be so; that, by Your own gracious and needed discipline, the world be disarmed of its insinuating power, and I be weaned from what is precarious at the best, and which ultimately must perish.

O my God, I feel heavily burdened by reason of sin. I mourn my guilty proneness to temptation. How anything and everything seems often enough to drive me from you, and to lead me to seek my happiness in created good, rather than in Yourself, the infinite fountain of all excellence! How sad have been my backslidings! How have solemn vows been broken! How have abandoned and forsworn sins threatened again to have dominion over me! How little tenderness of conscience has there been! How little dread of an uneven walk! How often, on the heart which I have consecrated to You has there been burning incense to strange gods! Lord, discouraged with myself, I hope in you through Christ.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.