July 28 – Hear, My Children …

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

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“Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, and give attention to know understanding.” Proverbs 4:1

“We speak what We know and testify what We have seen.” John 3:11

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit — but test the spirits, whether they are of God.” 1 John 4:1

Reader, let the following monitions, the result of long experience and observation designed for your spiritual good, be acceptable to you. Let the life you live in the flesh be by faith in the Son of God. Labor after a constant soul-reviving fellowship with the Father and the Son, through the Holy Spirit. Watch over your passions, conduct, and conversation, so that the Spirit of the Lord be not grieved, nor His comfortable influences withdrawn from your soul. Be ready for every good work, as you have ability and opportunity; and take special care that your good be not evil spoken of, through the manner of your performing it. Let no external services whatever, either respecting yourself or others, make you neglect a constant watchfulness over the inward motions of your own heart. Let the written word of God be your invariable rule, both in principle and practice. Whatever persuasion advances not the Redeemer’s honor and tends not to magnify His grace, work, and salvation, comes not of Him that calls us. Be very earnest after meekness, humility, patience, self-denial, inward holiness, and all other graces of the Spirit; these carry their own evidence that they are wrought of God, and in their blessed effects will remain with you forevermore. Daily pray for and expect the renewings of the Holy Spirit.

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)