Meditate
with a daily devotion
Daily Light's Morning Reading
A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest.—ISA. 32:2.
Forasmuch . . . as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.—The man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts.—I and my Father are one.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.—There shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.—The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.—Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble.—Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
Heb. 2:14. -Zech. 13:7. -John 10:30.Psa. 91:1. -Isa. 4:6. -Psa. 121:5,6.Psa. 61:2. -Psa. 32:7. -Isa. 25:4.
Spurgeon's Morning Reading
“Thou hast made summer and winter.”
Psalm 74:17
My soul begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows and the piercing winds all remind thee that he keeps his covenant with day and night, and tend to assure thee that he will also keep that glorious covenant which he has made with thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to his Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted world, will not prove unfaithful in his dealings with his own well-beloved Son.
Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and if it be upon thee just now it will be very painful to thee: but there is this comfort, namely, that the Lord makes it. He sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of expectation: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes over the once verdant meadows of our joy: he casteth forth his ice like morsels freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, he is the great Winter King, and rules in the realms of frost, and therefore thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness, sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills, are of the Lord’s sending, and come to us with wise design. Frosts kill noxious insects, and put a bound to raging diseases; they break up the clods, and sweeten the soil. O that such good results would always follow our winters of affliction!
How we prize the fire just now! how pleasant is its cheerful glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. Let us draw nigh to him, and in him find joy and peace in believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of his promises, and go forth to labours which befit the season, for it were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.
Old Testament Chapter a Day - 1 Kings 9
9. Solomon's Other Activities
God Appears Again to Solomon
9
When Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build,2the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.3The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you made before me; I have consecrated this house that you have built, and put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.4As for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my ordinances,5then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David, saying, ‘There shall not fail you a successor on the throne of Israel.’
6 “If you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,7then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them; and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a taunt among all peoples.8This house will become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be astonished, and will hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this house?’9Then they will say, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, worshiping them and serving them; therefore the Lord has brought this disaster upon them.’ ”
10 At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king’s house,11King Hiram of Tyre having supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.12But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him.13Therefore he said, “What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they are called the land of Cabul to this day.14But Hiram had sent to the king one hundred twenty talents of gold.
Other Acts of Solomon
15 This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the house of the Lord and his own house, the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer16(Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it down, had killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife;17so Solomon rebuilt Gezer), Lower Beth-horon,18Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness, within the land,19as well as all of Solomon’s storage cities, the cities for his chariots, the cities for his cavalry, and whatever Solomon desired to build, in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.20All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel—21their descendants who were still left in the land, whom the Israelites were unable to destroy completely—these Solomon conscripted for slave labor, and so they are to this day.22But of the Israelites Solomon made no slaves; they were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, and the commanders of his chariotry and cavalry.
23 These were the chief officers who were over Solomon’s work: five hundred fifty, who had charge of the people who carried on the work.
24 But Pharaoh’s daughter went up from the city of David to her own house that Solomon had built for her; then he built the Millo.
25 Three times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and sacrifices of well-being on the altar that he built for the Lord, offering incense before the Lord. So he completed the house.
Solomon’s Commercial Activity
26 King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.27Hiram sent his servants with the fleet, sailors who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon.28They went to Ophir, and imported from there four hundred twenty talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.
New Testament in Four Years - Colossians 4:2-6
4. Instructions and Final Greetings
Further Instructions
2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.3At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison,4so that I may reveal it clearly, as I should.
5 Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.6Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.
Psalm a Day - Psalm 114
114. Psalm 114
Psalm 114
God’s Wonders at the Exodus
1
When Israel went out from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2
Judah became God’s sanctuary,
Israel his dominion.
3
The sea looked and fled;
Jordan turned back.
4
The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs.
5
Why is it, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
6
O mountains, that you skip like rams?
O hills, like lambs?
7
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8
who turns the rock into a pool of water,
the flint into a spring of water.