Daily Devotionals: (June 28th): Thanksgiving for the Hope of Heaven

Reading: “We shall be like him”—1 John 3:2

O God, the eternal fountain of all excellence and glory! Through the one “new and living way” I approach You. Powerless in my own pleadings, I look up to the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, to that “Prince who has power with God” and at all times “prevails.”

Guilty, I come to this guiltless Redeemer. Diseased, I come to this great Physician. Outcast, I come to Him who has promised that He will by no means “cast out.” May His presence always be with me. May I know Him, and believe in Him, and rejoice in Him. May I feel that I need no other Saviour, that He is all I require for life or for death, for time or for eternity.

I rejoice to think of the glorious multitude around Your throne—the trophies of Your grace—already wearing the white robe and the immortal palm. I rejoice to think of the blessed unity which pervades their glorified ranks: no note of discord disturbing their lofty harmonies, all seeing eye to eye, and heart to heart.

I thank you this morning for the life and liberty we have in Christ. Help me to live today with Christ as my only hope and the joy of the church triumphant as my only inheritance. In Jesus name I ask, 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.