Bowen's Daily Meditations

Daily, habitually. Consider that thou hast every day an engagement with God to praise him. He has certainly a claim upon thee to consider and, in some measure, estimate his benefits bestowed on thee. A generous soul cannot bear to think that perhaps some one has bestowed on him some favor of which he is not aware. The thought of an unacknowledged kindness would keep him awake at night.

The command to bless the Lord is a command to take up, and not tread under foot, a shower of joys...

A man that is destitute knows how to pray. He needs not any instructor. His miseries indoctrinate him wonderfully in the art of offering prayer. Let us know ourselves destitute, that we may know how to pray; destitute of strength, of wisdom, of due influence, of true happiness, of proper faith, of thorough consecration, of the knowledge of the Scriptures, of righteousness.

These words introduce and stand in immediate connection with a prophecy of glorious things to be witnessed in the...

It is our privilege to serve the Lord in all things. It is ours to please the Lord in loosing the latchet of a shoe; and to enjoy the expression of this favor therein. The servant of God is not serving at the same time another master; he has not been hired for occasional service; he abides in the service of his God, and cannot be about anything but his Master's business; he eats, he drinks, he sleeps, he walks, he discourses, he findeth recreation, all by way of serving God. For the will of...

Almost all our sorrow is connected with darkness, with misconceptions, with defective knowledge of the reasons that influence God in his dealings with us; and light is fitly used as a metaphor expressive of gladness and of a soul-satisfying manifestation of God.

The scattered seed disappears in the ground that receives it. He that is to eat its fruit does not see it fall, knows nothing of it in its prolonged incarceration. Perhaps he is far away, and millions stand between him and it....

If you are a disciple of Christ, you are a soldier of Christ. If you are an expectant of salvation, you are a follower of the captain of salvation. When it was proposed to you to become his follower, it was distinctly intimated that you were to follow him to a field of conflict.

Endure hardness - that is, endure things hard to he endured. The army of Christ resembles not a Northern army rushing down from its inhospitable home into the fertile plains and genial climate of Italy,...

Christ is the Prince of peace. Peace on earth is the object of the Messiah's mission, said the angels in their song. His followers are accordingly sons of peace. They have peace with God, and they are pacificators; they follow peace with all men. Their great object is to induce men to lay aside their hostile ties, and renounce their resentments. This is their vocation in the world. They seek to extend the empire of their Master; but as that empire (and that alone) is peace, they seek no...

Man is without God. He walks in the mansion of the King of kings, wondering who contrived it, and what has be come of its royal owner; sometimes even doubting if it ever had a contriver, a proprietor. To his mind, God, if he is at all, is an absentee. He examines the treasures around him studies them, weighs them, grasps them, and speculates of the Creator as of one who may be or may not be. Generally, in deed, he speculates not at all. In his conception, God is so remote that it is idle to...

Not courteous merely; for courtesy is but one expression of kindness. Not kind to this or that choice one, with whom you have a facility of sympathy; but generally. Be ye kind; there are few words in our language more endowed with meaning than this. It has both a soul and a body. It signifies both a state of the heart, and the manifestations of that state, in acts, words, tones, looks. Some words look more to outward acts; others more to inward equalities. We cannot say to which this most...

Even the words of a fellow-creature of earth, how inexpressibly sweet sometimes, how beyond all calculation precious! All gold and silver would be despised in comparison with them. They come freighted with something as dear as life, with love, and the heart is enriched with them as though the breath of God had come into it. But does not this rainbow of earthly joy die gradually out? Do not the enrapturing words sooner or later become exsiccated in the memory, and may they not meet with...

Many things are becoming in a child that are not in a man; and many things required in a man that are not looked for in a child. The idea here, or one aspect of it, is that we should be made over again, from the very beginning.

Simplicity, freedom from guile, candor, retiringness, affectionateness, trust; these things are not uncommon among children, and are important elements of a Christian's character. Especially is the Christian required to entertain towards God, the feelings that...

That mourn over their alienation from God. - Over their past years of ungodliness. - Over the evil that they have wrought in the world. - Over their neglected opportunities of usefulness. - Over their moral unloveliness. - Over their insensibility; - their irresolution; - their bad memory for sacred things. - Over the unsatisfactory condition of the church. - The sin and danger of those near and dear to them. - The oppression, unrighteousness and misery that desolate the whole earth....

" Thou hast considered, Nicodemus, that except God were with him, no man could work such miracles as I have wrought. Thou hast considered, also, that one in whom such celestial power resides, must have a great deal of knowledge respecting the heavens, their marvels, their glories, their inhabitants. Thou wouldst fain hear me speak of these things, and have me enchant thy mind with a description of the amazing things that are found in the paradise of God. I am indeed a teacher come from God,...

Be content to lose the idea of thine own importance; cease to be wrapped up in the contemplation of thine own claims and rights. Be not counting on honors to be rendered thee, hour by hour, from this man and from that. Give up the vain idea that every hour owes thee an ample tribute of manifold benefits. Shrink into non-importance, and take the position of a simple servitor, whose business it is to do, to suffer, and to give thanks.

When you have become thus inconsiderable in your own...

The promise of the Lord never to forsake the soul that trusts in him, looks familiarly and kindly forth upon us, from many a page of Scripture, old and new. But we have here an historical statement to the effect that he has never forsaken them that seek him. This is a bold averment. History is a very large affair. Ten thousand volumes were but a small part of its library. It is startled by the challenge contained in our text; and takes down volume after volume, saying, " I will easily, with...