Dear Friends,

Someone has said, “Opportunity may knock but once, but temptation keeps banging away at the door year after year!” Alas, that is all too true. Is it banging at your door? Today’s devotional will give you help in rebuffing it! God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

• Matthew 6:24

  Matthew 6:24   English Standard Version (ESV)
  24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.[a]

• James 4:8

  James 4:8   English Standard Version (ESV)
  8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Matthew 6:24;  James 4:8

“Alone he purchased your redemption; will you not be his property, and. his alone? Oh, hast thou given half of thyself to the world, and only half to thy Master? Did the world ever bless thee? Did the world redeem thee? Was the world crucified for thee? Did the world tread the wine-press for thee? No; then give not the world a portion of thy heart. Thou hast some dear relative whom thou lovest with all thy soul; but take thou heed, O Christian, that still thy heart is set most on thy Lord! Did that friend tread the wine-press for thee? Did that friend drink the gall for thee? Did that friend suffer for thee on the cross? Nay; then let Jesus stand first and foremost; let him sit King upon the throne, and no one else save he. And when thou daily goest forth to labor, take thou good heed that thou laborest not for self, or pleasure, or any worldly object, but that thou laborest for Jesus. If the world says, ‘Come with me, and I will show thee all manner of delights,’ reply, ‘O world! I cannot come; I never saw thy foot in the wine-press.’ Doth lust invite thee? Cry. ‘O lust! I cannot love thee, for thou didst never sweat a drop of blood for me.’ Yea, if all the world’s inhabitants should open wide their loving arms, to beseech you to come in and forsake your Lord, answer, ‘No, no; you did not tread the wine-press, and that is all I care for. Jesus trod the wine-press alone, and I will give myself wholly to him.’ Half-hearted Christians, ye who divide yourselves in twain, giving one half to Christ and the other to lust, ye are not the Lord’s; ‘ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ There can be only one Master and one Lord, because there was but one Redeemer, one Friend, one Governor, One whom we live on, for whom we would even dare to die; because there is only One who dared to die for us. Never, I beseech you, Christians, and I beseech myself also, — for I plead with myself when I plead with you, — never forget this, Jesus trod the wine-press alone; and always take care that you have him alone as King in your heart.”
[Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIV, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1898), p. 202-203]