Bowen's Daily Meditations

It is perhaps needless to remark that the word conversation is intended to include the entire conduct - literally, the way. The ordering of one's conversation, implies meditation and study as to what one's conduct should be, in its various particulars; a definite and well understood standard; a solemn and sustained resolution to live according to that standard, by the help of God.

Most men allow themselves to be wafted along by the current of events; their conduct is determined by...

In many ways faith leads to beneficence. Faith discovers to us the infinite mercy shown by God in providing a ransom for us; and the contemplation of this sacrifice prompts us to engage in enterprises for the good of our fellow-men. It shows us God delighting in the reciprocal love of his creatures one to another, and seeking to make them mutually exponents of his love. It reveals to us the Lord Jesus who pleased not himself, and went about doing good; and teaches us, that we are his...

Every man's world is what his heart makes it to be. When his heart changes, the world changes. When faith has come in and renewed his heart, he thenceforth walks in a new world. A new aspect comes over the face of all things. Faith reveals to him new and most important truths concerning everything, so that he can no longer take a step in just the mood that he formerly did, nor look upon a single individual as he once did.

Imagine a man on a beautiful island where there are a thousand...

We shall find it impossible to commit our way unto the Lord, unless it be a way that he approves. For it is only by faith that a man can commit his way unto the Lord; and if there be the least suspicion in the heart, that the way be not a good one, faith will refuse to have anything to do with it. As well might you expect Achan to bring his wedge of gold and Babylonish garment to Joshua and ask him to take care of them; or a deserter to inquire of his general the way to the enemy's camp....

Turn not disdainfully away from these words of God, as though they had no claim upon your attention. These words come to you, so to speak, upon your own invitation. For, what have you done all your life long, but rush hither and thither, into this path and into that, crying unceasingly, " How shall I obtain the desires of my heart?" Behold here an answer to your life-long question. The explanation of all your disappointments, the remedy of all your sorrows, is here. Though there were on your...

Abandon the idea that you must recover yourselves from your backslidings and then approach God. Perhaps you think that you could then approach him with some confidence. But does God forget? And will he look complacently upon your mended piety? He will look with just as much disgust upon the patched robe as upon the rent robe. But further you ought to know better than to entertain such an heretical notion as that you are able to recover yourself from your backsliding. Could you do that you...

You are exempt from the necessity of bringing lambs and heifers to the altar; but the aim of the gospel is to lead you to do what the law could not induce men to do, consecrate your own body to the Lord, bringing it daily to the altar, and devoting it to the execution as well as the enduring of his will. You are ever ready to yield it unto death as Abraham was his son; but the angel of the Lord ever interposes and says, God has some work for this body to do; see to the doing of that and come...

Does not this word " slothful" accurately characterize the habit of mind of most professors of religion? While we behold them diligently in the pursuit of worldly good, laboring untiringly on in the acquisition of wealth; while we see them exercising circumspection, vigilance, forethought, sagacity in their temporal vocation, and giving to it the best energies of their nature, we see them indolent and sluggish in all that relates to their heavenly calling. They read the newspapers with a...

The additional words " from henceforth," give this passage a specific and prophetical meaning. Neglecting these at present, we may consider the great unquestionable truth that there is for the Christian a blessedness in death. Not but that there is something better than death. Death is one of the enemies of Christ that must be put under his feet, and his saints shall one day get the victory over it, and, undergoing a change at his advent, live on eternally. In the meantime however, death is...

When the sinner turns from the error of his way, submits to God and gives himself to the service of Christ, he thinks that he will never fail to enjoy the tokens of his Father's favor. The change in himself is immense. He is now day and night intent upon doing the will of God, whereas formerly he recked not of it; he checks within himself a hundred impulses that formerly had full sway. He naturally expects that perpetual successes shall wait upon him in his efforts to do good. And at first,...

Unhappily, it is when men most need to be watchful, when the flame of heavenly grace is flickering in its socket, that they are least disposed to be watchful. We find that as men advance in holiness, make great attainments, ascend far up above the region in which ordinary believers walk, that they become watchful to an amazing degree. A habit of argus eyed watchfulness is in fact, itself, the evidence of a great victory over the enemy of the soul. When men have declined from grace, and when...

Hast thou considered well, O John the son of Zebedee, the beloved disciple, what is implied in these words of thine? These words fly in the face of all human philosophies, and give a picture of the world such as all the world is sure to abhor. They will laugh thee to scorn, with thy description of mankind as being without life save as they find it in Christ. For thy words, if they mean anything, declare that all the world have become obnoxious to the everlasting wrath of God, and are going...

By life the Scripture means, true life, life in union to God, in the image of God; life with bliss and purity. An eternity under conditions like those that belong to the life of sinful man, were utterly undesirable. True life includes everything desirable, and the entire universe of God is just one of its perquisites. They that believe in Christ have Christ. They that have Christ have life. They that have life, have it eternally. They that have eternal life may know that they have it, and...

The meaning is not. Be thou faithful all thy days; but, have thou that faithfulness which characterizes the martyr disciple, leads him to count not his life dear unto himself, and enables him at any moment to lay it own freely in the service of his Master. The expression does not refer to length of service, but to entireness of consecration. Be thou unrebukably faithful in all possible situations and circumstances.

Christ requires of every disciple that he should have the spirit of a...