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Today's Devotional

What is it to have God’s Holy Spirit, then? I will tell you. When a child comes to Christ as his Savior he is born again, and the old spirit or old heart is said to be changed. There is, in fact, a new heart or a new spirit given to him. A new master is in his heart, to rule there entirely and to influence everything within....

To make this plainer: two men went out to see a beautiful landscape; they ascended a high hill, and below them lay a lovely scene; pretty villages, churches, orchards with their sweet pink blossoms, green fields studded with daisies and buttercups, cottages covered over with green vines and rose-trees, hills and valleys, and, afar off, the calm blue sea.

But although both men saw the same scene, the effect on the two was very different. One man said, “Look! look, James!” (for they were brothers), “did you ever see anything so grand? See, too, on the blue ocean that pretty white sail, and listen! Do you hear that song? That is the skylark.”

“I can see no sail,” said James, the younger brother. “How far can you see, Richard? To be sure, I can scarcely make out the sea at all, much less see a sail upon it. No—I hear no lark. I don’t think it was at all worth the trouble to mount this hill,” and he sighed. James had weak sight and dull hearing, and the sights and sounds which charmed his elder brother were no pleasure to him, poor fellow.

Just so with two children reading in the same Bible of the same Savior. To the one the story of the love of Jesus, of his compassion to the weak, the ignorant, and the sick, is full of beauty and of meaning, because he is taught by the Spirit of God, and he loves and values the things of God.

To the other child who has never received the gift of the Spirit, because he has never asked it, the Bible is a very dull book. The history of Jesus, although he may like to hear it now and then, yet is a thing he feels he has nothing to do with; but there is every encouragement for all to ask for this gift, for had he sought he would have received it, because Christ himself has said so. Do not, then, fear to pray for God’s Holy Spirit, which he declares he is so willing to bestow. 

About the author and the source

Hannah Ransome (ca. 1819–1861) was an English author of children’s religious books, who wrote under the name Mrs. Thomas Geldart. Her works included Emilie the Peacemaker and Daily Thoughts for a Child. Today’s devotional was extracted from the morning lesson for the twenty-seventh day of the latter.