Dear Friends,
None of us enjoy being disturbed. We do everything in our power to avoid it. But sometimes it is necessary and does us good. Today’s devotional will explain. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
John Janney

• John 3:1-5 (ESV)

  1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

“I knew a man, who attended at a certain church, and on one occasion he heard a good gospel sermon. I do not know who was the author of it, but the parson who preached it certainly was not. This gospel sermon had so cut into the hearer’s conscience that, when he went home, he could not rest. The next morning, he went off to the clergyman, and he said to him, ‘Sir, I am greatly troubled by what you said yesterday.’ ‘My dear fellow,’ replied the parson, ‘I never meant to say anything to give you a moment’s uneasiness, I am sure; and if I did so, I am truly sorry for it.’ ‘Oh, sir!’ said the man, ‘but your sermon did give me dreadful uneasiness. You preached about our being born again; tell me, sir, what it is to be born again.’ ‘Well,’ said the minister, ‘I was educated at Cambridge, but I do not know what it is to be born again, and I do not think there is any need for you to trouble yourself at all about the matter. I wish I had never bought that sermon, or read it, for it has proved to be a troublesome sermon to two or three others beside yourself, but I will never preach it again, I will promise you that.’ Ah! but our poor awakened friend could not be quieted in that fashion, for that sermon had dragged off every coverlet from him, and the bed was too short for him to stretch himself upon it, and he did not rest until he had found out a true minister of Christ, who was able to point out to him the way to obtain peace with God through believing in Jesus. Then, how glad he was to think that the clergyman had, even unintentionally, made him uncomfortable! How glad he was that he, though in ignorance, had taken away his first false peace, that God might come in, and establish the second, — the peace that does not lie in ourselves, but in Christ, — the peace that is not founded upon an assumption of our own personal righteousness, but upon the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.” [Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLVII, (1901), p. 322-323]