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Today's Devotional

“[B]ring your father and your families back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land.” You are also directed to tell them, “Do this: Take some carts from Egypt for your children and your wives, and get your father and come.” —Genesis 45:18, 19.

We are too much inclined to forget that “Come” is not merely an invitation, but a command. An ordinary invitation can be accepted or refused; but a royal invitation is always a royal command, giving no option, but requiring obedience. Therefore, just so long as we are hanging back, just so long as we have not come to Jesus, we are living in a state of actual disobedience to him.

Joseph, whose dealings with his brethren are among the most beautiful types, was to say to them not only, “Come close to me,” [Genesis 45:4 NIV] but “Come down to me; don’t delay!”

The Lord Jesus, the King of Glory, has said … “Come unto Me!” (Matthew 11:28) to you and me. And so we are commanded. There is no excusing ourselves by any uncertainty about it. The very moment that “Come” first fell on our heart, the command was upon us, and we were responsible for obeying it. And every moment since, we have been disobeying the plainest and sweetest word of command that ever fell on mortal ear, unless we have really and truly come to Jesus.

So it is not at all a light thing, but a heavy and tremendous sin in which we are living—the sin of direct and continued disobedience to Christ.…

Death without mercy [was commanded for disobedience to the law of Moses and] is as terrible a punishment as can well be imagined; but what must be the “much worse punishment” than that, which is denounced by the Word of our God on those who, instead of merely “despising Moses’ law,” have “trampled underfoot the Son of God?” (Hebrews 10:29).

We must not and dare not leave out of sight the awful revelation that it is the Lord Jesus himself, the very same tender Savior who now bids you “Come,” who will take vengeance in flaming fire on them “that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 1:8,9).

Oh, “see that ye refuse not him who speaks!” (Hebrews 12:25). If you do not obey the “Come unto me,” there remains nothing for you but the “Depart from me” (Matthew 25:41).

About the author and the source

Frances Havergal (1836–1879), the author of such well-known hymns as “Take My Life and Let it Be” and “I Gave My Life for Thee,” also wrote several devotional books, each having a month’s worth of thoughts. One, Royal Invitation, considered each day one of the Bible’s many appeals to “come.”