December 9 – In Psalms and Hymns

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns.” Ephesians 5:19

“Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns.” Colossians 3:16

If we are obliged to promote the temporal good of our neighbor, how much more the spiritual by edifying discourses! But how often have we occasion to remark that the children of God seem at a loss for conversation, or slide into unprofitable subjects! It would be well for them if at such seasons, they were thus to appeal on high: “O my God, here I receive a guest, and having nothing to set before him, I pray You to give what will prove wholesome food both for him and myself.” They would often be indulged with a gracious answer, and thus at once receive and convey spiritual improvement. Some, affecting to be philosophers, mock at Divine things and even at prayer, as if we needed no other help than our own depraved reason and will. But what Saint Paul says (Romans 1:22), is fulfilled in them: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” What will become of these poor scoffers upon their dying bed, and at the day of judgment? O that they would take warning while it is time, and now, even now, ere the day of mercy is forever past, turn to the only refuge of the guilty! Lord, send Your Spirit to convince, convert, and thoroughly turn them to Yourself.

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)