Bowen's Daily Meditations

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...

If we are created anew, we are created unto good works. The world ought not to be angry with God for creating men anew; for he is creating them for this among other things that they may tread in the footsteps of 'their Divine Master and abound in good works to their fellow-men. The world, how ever, is irritated at the proposition that men need a special creation in order to become competent to bestow good gifts. It professes to be able to point to men, who have spent for tune, time, health,...

The farmer could not make a greater mistake, than to suppose he would gain by not scattering his seed in the field. To keep the seed is to deprive it of its value; to cut oneself off from the blessing that might have been expected ; and to inflict the greatest wound upon the future. No, scatter it; throw it away and let it go to naught, apparently, and be long lost, if need be, and forgotten; in its appointed time it will come up loaded with treasures which it has gathered from the secret...

He will perfect my happiness. " My people shall be satisfied with my goodness." He will perfect his own image in me. He will make me perfect in wisdom; perfect to know and to do his will; perfect to glorify the Redeemer; perfect in beauty and in strength.

The thought of humanity being again clothed with perfection is something altogether wonderful. It was a light thing to call a world into existence out of nothing; but to take a nature that had become earthly, sensual, devilish, and...

In manifold ways, Christ reveals unto men that he is willing and ready to enter into relations with them; and to those who have already some knowledge of him, he gives many a token that he is ready to enter into more intimate and hallowed relations with them. He does not wait, that men should seek him; he does not send word that he is waiting for them; he comes to them. He does not merely come: he stands and knocks.

The door is for the purpose of excluding enemies, and those whose...

Amidst the mutations of character, the fluctuations of time, and the vicissitudes of events, the soul longs for something that does not and that cannot change, to which it may attach itself and thus find compensation for all the mutabilities of which It is compelled to have experience in this world. There needs of course something else besides immutability in order to constitute an object worthy of our earnest attention and heart-felt confidence. We cannot desire immutability where there is...

A thief comes only where he is not expected. His great interest is that people should be off their guard. Where there is watchfulness, there is no opening for him. Our Lord comes as a thief upon the world, because the world has no expectation of him. The world has no more thought of his coming than it has of the coming of Socrates or Alexander. This is not, be it understood, because Christ has done anything to keep the world unaware of his coming. He has sent the fullest information to every...

Thus early and thus distinctly do we find the gospel emancipated, and the Spirit of God breaking away from his prison house, from Judea, to utter a premonitory invitation in the ears of distant nations, occupied with their idols. We should never allow ourselves to suppose that when God was bestowing so much labor of love upon the Jewish nation, that he was then unmindful of the rest of mankind. God took nothing away from the other nations of the earth, when he made the Jewish people the...

The seven spirits and the seven stars have a relation to each other. It is the divine Spirit that is spoken of thus; and the intention is not to lower our conception of his divinity, but to exalt it. The Spirit is wholly wheresoever he is; but his manifestations are modified and affected by the exigencies of those whom he blesses with his presence. The unity of the Spirit shall be witnessed in its perfection, only when the different denominations of Christians flow together. He that hath the...

What mighty efforts, and how many, to obtain the regard of men: how rare the effort to obtain the regard of God! The admiring glance of God passes by the great and noble, the wise and prudent, the wealthy, the powerful, all the illustrious that shine as stars in the firmament of this world, and singles out some obscure person who is distinguished by no thing but a poor and contrite spirit, God looks to him and God alone. The mere possession of humility leaves him with out the slightest power...

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord; that is, humble yourself truly; for his eye is as a flame of fire; and no mere pretense of humility will pass current with him. He does not ask you to conceal your pride from the observation of men, but to mortify it. He does not ask you to be humble merely in your addresses to him; for he is ever with you.

In order to humble yourself, know yourself. Pride grows in the atmosphere of falsehood. It is only by dint of lying that a soul...

God is my Saviour; and inasmuch as he saves me by bringing me into blessed relations to himself, clothes me with the garment of his own unsullied righteousness, and makes me to bear his image, I may well speak of him as my salvation. This, like a thousand other passages of the Old Testament, teaches the divinity of Christ, and it is a marvel how any one can say that the evidences of this are chiefly confined to the New Testament. Every passage in the Old Testament that exhibits God as the...