Bowen's Daily Meditations

God is love; and we were called into being that in our measure we might manifest forth this truth, by loving one another. But we are an apostate race; and each one, so far from seeking to be the servant of all, is bent upon serving himself of all. Men are consecrated first and foremost to the augmentation of their own gains. Ordinarily they understand by covetousness some extraordinary development of the passion for gain. But the question is not, what definition of it is given in man's code,...

The greater part of mankind pass through the earthly stage of their existence without anything that can appropriately be termed the knowledge of God. To others, however, it is given in some most solemn moment to find themselves suddenly in the presence of God and to be overwhelmed with the perception of his holiness, power, sovereignty, and omniscience. The scales fall from their eyes, and they behold that sublime and offended Majesty in whose august presence they, in willing...

Christ prayed for his people that they might be with him where he was (" where I am") and behold his glory. Christ is formed in us, the hope of glory; glorious now as revealed by faith, so that we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; but immeasurably more glorious upon the throne of the heavenly majesty, entrancing the universe with the image of the invisible God.

I shall he satisfied: let a man look into his heart and see how much is comprehended in this. He imagines...

Had Peter done as he promised to do, and followed Christ from Gethsemane, content to be bound with him, mocked with him, scourged with him, condemned with him, and crucified with him, what an incomparably exalted place would he have had in our regard. Nothing but his own treacherous heart hindered him from occupying this worthiest and sublimest of places occupied by mere finite men. However, as his Lord generously foretold, he followed him afterwards. He met the same hostility, the same...

A great many of our confessions of sin fall trippingly from the tongue, as though the commission and the acknowledgment were all a mere matter of course. How little of self-reproach there seems to be in it all! How little shame, how little confusion of face! A public exposure - the attention of men drawn to one of the least of these sins - would fill us with unspeakable shame. Is God then nobody in comparison with man? Because God has forgiven us so readily, are we to make light of the sins...

They that are Christ's are Abraham's seed, and we are among the posterity whose privileges are here foreshadowed. The people of God are those that are taught of God, and they that are taught of God, have great peace. The throne of God is the seat of a great teacher. The course of nature is a course of instruction. The universe is one vast school. God writes lessons for men on the firmament, on the sea, on the sands, on the mountains, on the forests; yea on every leaf. We tread on problems;...

Who is this that stands in the midst of an assemblage of mortals and makes proclamation in a loud and fearless voice, that if any man, not merely in that assembly but throughout the whole world, desire happiness, he should draw near and obtain what he desires? Who is this that offers to heal all human woes and accomplish in behalf of the entire human family, deliverance from the curse? That speaks of himself as a fountain of the water of life springing up in the centre of the earth, and...

Drawing nigh to Peter, many years after the ascension of his Lord, we find him reading; and looking over his shoulder, see that he is occupied with our own good Isaiah, and that his attention is directed to what we designate as the fifty-third chapter and sixth verse: "All we like sheep have gone astray." And when he takes up his pen to write to the churches, how readily and naturally do the words glide from him: " Ye were as sheep going astray." We need not suppose that Peter, writing this,...

The believer walks as seeing him who is invisible, and receives everything from the hand of his heavenly Father. He does not overlook the part that he himself may have had in bringing about a calamity; nor the part that his fellow-men may have had in it; nor the agency of evil spirits; nor the laws of nature, if so you choose to call them; but after noticing these causes his soul looks away to the Great Cause, to him who sitteth upon the throne of the universe and is not unmindful of a...

Take away the sense of need, and blessings are bestowed in vain. They are no longer blessings. Food is of no avail to a man whose appetite is satisfied. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; they shall be filled, but not in any sense that shall leave them unacquainted with need. They shall never hunger, as those who have not the means of satisfying their hunger; but only as those who have much goods laid up for everlasting days in Christ. The spring of our happiness is...

These words are remarkable as being the utterance of a Hebrew prophet, in days when Gentiles were viewed as castaways. What Christ long afterwards commanded is here prophesied. We now behold the beginning of the fulfilment. The ends of the earth are becoming in some sense acquainted with the wonderful ransom paid for sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ.

The universal preaching of the Gospel brings out first and foremost the great truth of the universality of man's apostasy and of his...

Written according to the analogy of the English language, this would be, "Is not Ephraim my dear son? Is he not a pleasant child?" The sins of the ten tribes, represented by Ephraim, had required of the Lord to withhold from them the expressions of his kindness, and to give them into the hands of their enemies that they might have a taste of the great difference between the service of an earthly master and that of their heavenly master. But as a king whose son has transgressed the laws of...

Your affliction is very great; but there is a corresponding greatness in your comforter. I that died on Calvary, that have all power in heaven and in earth, who am from everlasting to everlasting, I am he that comforteth you. I looked upon your sorrow long before you came into existence, and on every page of my word that I caused to be written, I introduced some word of comfort with reference to you. Turn over the leaves of Scripture and see how much I have been occupied about you in days of...

What an inconceivable length and breadth, depth and height has every such declaration as this! The whole life-journey of the Christian is a journey into the treasures that he heaped up in this sentence. In it, in fact, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. After a month of some peculiar experience, let the believer come and look into this verse, and he will find what he never found before. In the avenue commanded by this verse, no two Christians are at exactly the same place; no two...