JCSM's Weekly Devotions (click here to listen!)

"Light For the Upright"

Psalm 112:4  "Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness; He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous."

1 John 1:5-7  "This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."

1 Thessalonians 5:5, 6  "You are all sons of light and sons of the day.  We are not of the night nor of darkness.  Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober."

Ephesians 5:8-11  "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.  And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them."

Insight: The upright seek and find God's light.  He is light and we can be reflections of His light.  Walk in the light and you will be blessed and safe.

Prayer: "Dear Lord, bless us and lift us up.  There is no other like You!  Thank you for loving us more than we know or understand.  Thank you for being good, faithful, merciful, and kind.  Thank you for lighting our path.  Thank you for giving light to the upright.  In Jesus' name, Amen."

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), a famous French author and philosopher, in Emilius and Sophia, Vol. III, Book IV, writes:

"I will confess to you, that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence upon my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers; with all their pomp of the diction, how mean, how contemptible, they are, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the works of man?

"It is possible that the Person whose history relates be Himself a mere man? Does it contain the language of an enthusiast or an ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in His manners! What affecting goodness in His instructions! What sublimity in His maxims! What profound wisdom in His discourses! What presence of mind! What sagacity and propriety in His answers! How great the command over His passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, suffer, and die, without weakness and without ostentation! ...

"The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truths are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero. ...

"Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a philosopher, the life and death of Jesus Christ are those of a God.

"Should we suppose the Gospel was a story, invented to please? It is not in this manner that we forge tales; for the actions of Socrates, of which no person has the least doubt, are less satisfactorily attested than those of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without removing it; it is more conceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one should furnish the subject of it."

In 1762, in his work Eile; ou, De l'Education, Jean Jacques Rousseau verbalized:

"Everything is good when it leaves the hands of the Creator; everything degenerates in the hands of man."

"I shall always maintain that whoso says in his heart, 'There is no God,' while he takes the name of God upon his lips, is either a liar or a madman."

"Where is the man who owes nothing to the land in which he lives? Whatever that land may be, he owes to it the most precious thing possessed by man, the morality of his actions and the love of virtue."

If you'd like to have the citations for the footnotes above, please email us.  If you'd like to see more quotes from those who framed and founded America, please click here: http://jcsm.org/AmericasFounders/.

(This explanation came from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained", by Dr. Jason Gastrich.  This book is on CD and gives over 4,000 answers to alleged Bible errors, regarding the entire Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org.  There is also a 300 question workbook that accompanies the CD-ROM.)

The king is calling and he wants to use you in a powerful way.

Prayer can bring healing.

There is always a light shining in the darkness.

God can talk to you through anything.

Some have ritual in place of love for God.

Let light scour every part of you.

God doesn't want to beat you up or twist your arm.  He just wants to fellowship with you.

God doesn't break fellowship with us.  We break fellowship with Him.

God wants to do some wonderful things in you, with you, and through you.

If I can do it, I can take credit for it.  If I cannot do it, but I do, God can take the credit for it.

Why do we grumble and complain so much, since God has given us so much?

Psalm 118:14 is the middle verse of the entire Bible.  It's in between the shortest and longest chapters.

If you'd like to read more quotes, we have thousands in our archive!  Visit http://quotes.jcsm.org.