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Today's Devotional

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him —John 14:21 (ESV).

It is very important that we should know whether or not we do love Jesus Christ; for it is only by the love of him that we can judge of our interest in the merits of his death.

The text gives a plain rule by which we may find out our real state. It is not the having Christ’s commandments, having a knowledge of the Bible, or attending in the place of hearing where his commandments are enforced and explained, which will prove a man to love Christ with a saving love; “he who keeps my commandments, he it is that loves me,” is our Lord’s declaration, for “love is the fulfilling of the law.” Do we keep Christ’s commandments as we would keep something precious that we were afraid to lose? Do we treasure them up in our minds as the rule by which all that happens to us must be decided? Do we follow them against the customs and examples of the multitude, as the connection between us and Christ? bringing us into closer communion with him through the Spirit of Truth, by whom Christ manifests himself to those who love him? God grant that we may “perfectly love him and worthily magnify his holy name.”

About the author and the source

We often do not know what stories lie behind devotional books. In the case of Daily Readings, we have a hint. It was produced “in the hope of furnishing to the Inhabitants of two Villages in Northumberland, some counter-action against the moral evils arising from the temporary settlement of Railway Labourers in the immediate neighbourhood.”