This hymn was written by a dear sister in Scandinavia, in the country of Sweden. She had written hymns through many years of worshipping the Lord.
One time, her father, who was a pastor, was sailing with her on a ship from one part of Sweden to another. In the middle of that journey, the ship lurched significantly to the right, and her father fell overboard.
From that moment on, the day-by-day nature of the Christian life—how the Lord can lead us every moment—became more and more precious to this dear one. Before, she loved the Lord in a great way; but after that tragedy, she began in a fresh way to appreciate each moment, not only with the Lord, but with those whom she loved.
She turned, as many have, a tragedy into a triumph. We thank the Lord, even as was shared at the table this morning. Some could look at Calvary as a tragedy, but today we have celebrated it as a triumph. For that, we are eternally thankful.
I would like for us to turn this morning to Psalm 90. This is one of the psalms not written by David, but by Moses. Moses wrote this when he was pretty advanced in years. There are a couple of verses here that I would like us to consider this morning: Psalm 90:12-14.
Moses, in his prayer, says:
So teach us to number our days,
That we may get us a heart of wisdom.
Return, O Lord; how long?
And let it repent Thee concerning Thy servants.
Oh satisfy us in the morning with Thy lovingkindness,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Let us pray.
Lord, again, we thank You for the privilege we have had to gather around Your table. Lord, we thank You, as our brother opened Galatians, that You bring us back to that focus: how You have loved us with such an everlasting love, and how You have died for us.
Your love for the Father, Your love for the church, and Your love for mankind compelled You. Lord, we thank You that, as we continue in Your presence, that same love, that same power, and that same victory are with us.
Lord, by faith, we want to enter into all the provision that there is in Christ Jesus—speaking, hearing, and allowing Your Word to have liberty within our hearts today. We want to put aside things that would distract us. We want to turn unto You, Lord, with listening ears and open hearts. In Your precious name, amen.
I think in recent months we have all realized—and it has been said several times—how the Lord has been speaking to us in a very specific and special way. If we reflect on some of the things the Lord has shared, we see the need for a firm foundation in Christ.
Ones have been sharing on the gospel and seeing its fullness: justification and sanctification. We have realized how the Lord calls upon us in consecration, repentance, the narrow gate, and the testing of discipleship. Even when someone was here just visiting, he shared the testimony of Isaiah, which brought us back to the Lord.
Then we have heard concerning our response to God’s call. As the Lord has been sharing all these things with us, I think even some of us who are pretty dull of hearing have said, “Lord, You are trying to get us back to the simplicity of this Christian life. You are trying to get us back to the foundational, fundamental, essential things within this Christian life.”
We have all recognized that. But the question that is just as important, as we hear the Lord’s teaching, is this: How do we enter into all the reality of it?
We know we are not just here to learn and hear teaching related to these essential things. We are not here merely to learn what sanctification or consecration is. The key is: How does that impact our life? How does it become real in our lives, and how does it get worked out individually and together?
Without that, it is all in vain. It is vanity of vanities, and simply knowledge that puffs us up.
Brothers and sisters, we know that the Lord has us all in the school of Christ. Within this school, within His curriculum where He teaches and trains us, He has a certain training cycle that He uses whenever He wants to bring us into something new.
Really, all these things allow us to experience more and more of the riches of Himself: seeing all that He has done for us, seeing Him as our justification, seeing Him as the narrow gate, seeing Him as our sanctification, and seeing Him as the One who has called us and drawn us to Himself.
The Lord wants us to learn more of Christ. He has what I call a training cycle for teaching and training us. What is this cycle that He brings us to? This is where this psalm has been touching my heart recently.
The training cycle of the Lord is a daily cycle: day by day. The Lord, as He does His work and desires to work within us, trains us daily. He gives us one day at a time.
Many of us remember Brother Flax from England, who visited years ago. I think he was ninety-six—or ninety, he and his twin brother. I remember one time he was staying at our house. He got up in the morning, and we asked him to say the blessing for breakfast. He said, “Lord, thank You for lending me another day.”
It is all of grace. Every day He lends us, He gives us another day that we can learn of Him.
As we look today throughout the Scriptures at how the Lord works day by day, the burden on my heart is not primarily to tell us what our daily living should be. This is not a to-do list. If we all raised our hands and took a little test, we could probably come up with what we should do every day as believers.
We know we should pray, read the Word, have our quiet time of worship, serve one another, and commune with the Lord. We can agree on that. But why do we not do it? Why is it such a battle?
What is on my heart is that somehow we could see in a fresh way the necessity of this daily life. If we desire to go on with the Lord in these days, if we desire to enter into the reality of all that He has done for us, may the Lord touch us afresh to see the necessity of a daily life with Him.
Some will say, “Mac, really it is not supposed to be daily; it is supposed to be continual.” That is true. But when the Scriptures speak of continual, I think they are speaking of our position with Him.
As He saved us, we know that in our position with Him, He is always with us. He never leaves us or forsakes us. Even if we make our bed in hell, He says, “There I am.” We could flee to the farthest sea, and He says, “I am there.”
But day by day is how He desires to work out the reality of all that He has given us by our position in Christ. When we are in Christ, we have been blessed with unsearchable riches. Yet I think we all confess that not many of us have entered into very much of them.
The way He wants us to enter into these riches more and more is simply day by day: walking with Him and learning of Him. He will arrange each day for us so that we can really see this.
This is why, as we look at the prayer of Moses, he says, “Lord, teach us to number our days.” Teach us that our days would count for You.
Oftentimes, I think about that and say, “Lord, how many of my days really count for You?” I am glad I do not see that record, and I am glad He is gracious and merciful, because a lot of times I do not know how many days I would be counting.
But I thank the Lord for His grace, and I thank Him for the blood of the Lamb. When we speak of daily living, we are not talking about living a sinless life. Do not let anybody come under condemnation.
What we are talking about is this: day by day, we sin. It is not a question of whether we sin, but when. Then we know the blood of the Lamb. We know repentance, as our brother has also shared, and the essential nature of today as the day of repentance.
We are not to put things off. Today, we can enter in. The Lord has arranged this. This is what Moses is praying: “Lord, teach me to number my days.”
As we wake up in the morning, are we conscious that, “Lord, I want this day to be numbered. I want it to count for You”? Why? That we may present to Him a heart of wisdom.
We know that Christ has been made unto us wisdom. Speaking of the heart, this speaks of an inward character—His nature being formed within us—that we can present to Him. Not only that, but others may see us as a walking testimony of the One who has loved us and died for us.
The testimony of the early church was that those around them saw Christ day by day as they saw them walking. The tragedy in Christianity today is that the world looks upon us and does not see Christ day by day. They may see Christ in religious celebrations on Sundays and on certain other days, but do they see Christ lived out within us day by day?
Do our coworkers and our neighbors see Christ being lived out within us day by day?
Most of us, naturally, do not like daily living. The daily routine seems mundane, insignificant, and boring. Most of us can wake up in the morning and go through our routine unconsciously. We wake up about halfway through shaving or while we are in the shower. Sometimes we are simply going through a routine.
But the Lord wants us to wake up and not despise the significance of the daily life He has given us.
I think one reason we do not enter into it is because today we want everything instantly. We want it done just like that. We want instant Christianity. We do not want to go through the process.
But the Lord has a process through which Christ is formed within us. He desires that we give ourselves to Him so that He can work through us and work in us, and that day by day we would have this desire for Him to work.
Most of you know I am a baseball fan. One of the greatest lessons I have learned from baseball, believe it or not, comes from someone who was not even a New York Yankee. See, I am broad-minded. He was actually a Baltimore Oriole named Cal Ripken.
Cal Ripken set the record for playing the most consecutive games: over 2,100 games across more than fourteen years without missing a game. Day by day, he was out there playing.
They asked him, “What was your secret? How were you able to maintain this?” He said, “I practiced every day.”
I thought, “Oh, okay.” But he did not stop there. He said, “I practiced the right way.”
Any of us who have practiced anything—guitar, piano, figure skating, or any sport—know the difference between practicing and practicing the right way.
We can go through the outward motions of practicing something. We can comply. We can even go through the outward motions of practicing this Christian life. We can outwardly pick up our Bible and say, “Okay, I did my reading,” as though we have a little checklist.
But is that the right way? The right way is this way of life that He is calling us to enter into.
Cal Ripken practiced the right way because his heart was in it and he had a desire. Moses had this heart’s desire because he saw Him who was invisible. Moses saw the One who was invisible, and it spurred him on.
Brothers and sisters, if we can see this One who is invisible, if we can see Christ in a fresh way and see the essential nature of this daily life, there is motivation to come into this daily life with Him.
Again, it is not merely going through outward, ritualistic motions in order to comply. That is why I want to use the term daily life. It is a life with Him. Life comes from within our hearts and flows out.
I would like us to consider this by going through the Scriptures sequentially and seeing at different points how significant this issue of daily life is to the Lord—not only to us, but to the way He works.
When anyone shares, we never share the completeness of a matter; we just touch on different things. My desire is that, as we are daily in the Word in the future, the Lord would open more and more to us. As we read little phrases such as “day by day” and “daily,” which have become so common that we just go right over them, may the Holy Spirit quicken them to us.
May we see the Lord’s call upon us to live daily with Him, and the preciousness of it.
Let us turn all the way back to Genesis 1. As we look through Scripture, we want to see how the Lord works, how He has always worked, and how He continues to work.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
And there was evening and there was morning, one day.—Genesis 1:3-5
God had a work to do on that day, and He did it. Then He had work to do on the second day, and He did that. He had work to do on the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day, and the sixth day. He did that work, and then His work was completed.
He chose to show us something in this. To me, it says that God has a work He wants to do in our lives each day. As we allow the Holy Spirit within us to do that work, Christ is formed within us.
Could the Lord have done all this work in one day? I think He could have. He is powerful. There is no limitation on God. If He had wanted to do all these six days of work in one day, He could have done it just like that.
I do not want to get distracted by discussions about gaps in Genesis or these other matters. I am intentionally not using the word created, because I do not want to get into all that discussion. But the passage shows us that He had one day in which He did this and another day in which He did that.
He could have done six days’ work in one day, but I think He was showing us that a day is special to Him. He has a day, and He has a work He wants to do. At the end of the day, He says, “That is good.” That day counted.
Brothers and sisters, in each one of our lives, He has a work He wants to do. At the end of the day, we want to be able to say, “That is a good day. That day counted.”
How does the Lord measure our lives? It is interesting, because so often we think in terms of years and months. But look at Genesis 5, where we read about the descendants of Adam.
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
—Genesis 5:5
Then, speaking of Seth, it says, “All the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve.” We can continue throughout that chapter: all the days of Enosh, all the days of Cainan, and so on.
The Lord looks at all the days of their lives. Brothers and sisters, when He looks at us, He looks at all the days of our lives. That is what our lives are made up of.
I love the testimony at the end of David’s life and Job’s life. It says that they died in the fullness of days. I am so glad it says that about David, because we know he did not live a perfect life. But he knew the forgiveness of God and the blood of the Lamb. Those are redeemed days.
That is why the enemy, whenever we sin, loves to kick us out of the race and say, “Look, you are disqualified.” But I thank the Lord for the redeeming blood of the Lamb. A day that we start in the flesh, a day where we sin horribly, as David did in some things, can be redeemed.
By taking the blood of the Lamb and allowing Him to cleanse us from all sin and unrighteousness, that day is redeemed and counted for God. Man may say it is not, but God redeems it.
I appreciated our brother’s burden for repentance. As we enter into a spirit of repentance day by day, that is redeeming the time and redeeming that day for Him.
In Genesis 6, we read of Noah. At the end of Noah’s life, it says that the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years. Do you ever stop and think of the days of Noah?
You talk about routine and the mundane: being misunderstood, laughed at, mocked, and enduring all that day by day while building the ark.
Yet he was faithful day by day. He got up. The Lord had a work for him to do each day. He went about what he was called to do, no matter whether people mocked him, misunderstood him, or whatever else came against him.
The Lord had captured Noah so that Noah’s days counted for Him. Brothers and sisters, so often when we are faced with being misunderstood, we can draw back.
It is interesting how we measure days compared with how the Lord measures them. We say, “I had a pretty good week.” What does that mean? Maybe we had three or four good days and the others were not so good.
We love to average things out. In baseball, if you get three hits out of ten, you are in the Hall of Fame. You are a famous baseball player. But what if you live only three days out of ten for the Lord?
We lower the standard so much. We make it relative, and we try to average things out. “How was your week?” “Well, I made it Wednesday night, and I made it Friday night.” Again, we measure by outward things.
But the Lord is looking day by day, that each day would truly count for Him. May we, in this day of relativity, not merely live by averages. May we simply present our hearts to Him each day as we come to Him.
We see a beautiful picture of this daily life in the people of Israel in the wilderness. Turn to Exodus 16. Here we see the manna and how the Lord provided manna for them every day. On the sixth day, He provided twice as much.
Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or not.
—Exodus 16:4
Brothers and sisters, the Lord provided this bread from heaven for His people Israel every day. It was not only a provision; it was also a test. We have heard how the Lord tests us so that the reality of things can come in and show us what is of Him and what is not of Him.
We know how the people of Israel responded. They soon got tired of doing this every day. They complained, and their rebellious nature manifested itself. They did not pass the test, though the Lord already knew them.
The Lord provided this bread every day. They went out to gather it, and if they tried to keep it from day to day, it became rotten—except on the sixth day, when it lasted for two days.
Could the Lord have made bread that lasted for a week? Sure. If He had wanted to provide for them for a whole week, He could have said, “Here is your weekly manna.” But no, He chose for this provision to be day by day.
He has a provision for this day for us to feed upon and learn of Him. Then He has a provision for the next day, and the next. So often, I think this is one reason there are so many anemic Christians.
We come on Sunday, receive precious bread that the Lord feeds us with, and then try to live off that all week. We are eating one meal a week. Then we wonder why our Christian life is so weak.
He wants us to feed upon Him day by day. What we receive on Sunday should be a supplement to what the Lord has already spoken to us in our hearts day by day.
As we feed upon this bread from heaven day by day, there is constant nourishment, constant strengthening, and a constancy of allowing Him to show us more and more of Himself.
Recently, the Lord has been saying to me, “Mac, when you read through the Bible, stop and think about it.” So often, I just read through it. But then I stop and ask, “Why did He provide the bread every day? He could have done it for the week.”
No, He has a day. He provides for us each day, and we enter into the fullness of it.
Later, when they were in the wilderness, they had the tabernacle. When the people of Israel were camped, that tabernacle was the very center of their life.
Look at Numbers 28:3, which speaks of the daily continual burnt offering. In the morning and in the evening, this burnt offering was offered.
And thou shalt say unto them, This is the offering made by fire which ye shall offer unto the Lord: he-lambs a year old without blemish, two day by day, for a continual burnt-offering.
—Numbers 28:3
What is this burnt offering? There was an offering in the morning and an offering in the evening. It was presented before the Lord. It was a voluntary offering, totally consumed, with a sweet aroma.
A precious word associated with this offering is acceptance. Because of this offering, the people of Israel were accepted before the Lord.
Today, this offering speaks to us of all the fullness of who Christ is and all the fullness of what He has done. Out of a voluntary heart, He completely gave Himself to the Father and for us.
Today, we start each day fully accepted in the Beloved—not because of what we have done, but because of what He has done.
Do we ever wake up in the morning feeling, “Okay, today I have to earn the Lord’s acceptance”? We are starting from the wrong place. We must recognize that, in Christ, because He has freely and fully given Himself, we are accepted in Christ.
We start the day from a place of acceptance. Every day, we start from a place of acceptance.
Then, because of the mercy of that acceptance, what is our response? Our response is giving ourselves to Him. Just as the Lord gave Himself in this way, we give ourselves to Him.
Consecration is not giving ourselves to the Lord so that we can do something for Him. Consecration is responding to Him so that He can work and live in us. Consecration is simply giving the Holy Spirit permission within us each day to do His work.
This is why it is so essential that when we start each day, we first recognize our place in Christ—that wonderful acceptance we have in Him, the Lamb of God offered day by day. Then we can respond to that.
If we do not see Christ as our burnt offering, if we do not see all He has done, our acceptance, and the mercies of God spoken of in Romans 12, we can never truly enter into the spirit of consecration.
We will always be striving to please God in order to be accepted by Him. As was shared this morning at the opening, there is nothing within us that will bring acceptance before Him other than our response to what He has done. We see what He has done, and then we respond to it. Then we enter into that day.
Numbers 28 also speaks not only of the continual burnt offering day by day, but of the gatherings on the Sabbath, Passover, the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Trumpets, and other special times. It speaks of the offerings given at those times, but it repeatedly says, “In addition to the continual burnt offering.”
Whether at the Sabbath, the beginning of the month, or Passover, there was always the continual burnt offering. There was always this continuing response to Him.
Sometimes I wonder whether our gatherings on Sunday morning are not what they should be—whether the level of life is not what it should be—because we have not taken time individually that morning to spend time with the Lord, recognizing that burnt offering at home before we come here.
They met on the Sabbath, but there was always that continual burnt offering.
Whenever we come together, whether here or at a conference, do we say, “Okay, I do not have to do anything this morning. I just have to show up at the meeting”? At a conference—Harvey Cedars, Richmond, or wherever—we may think we just need to get up and go to the first meeting.
Then we wonder why we did not get much out of that conference. Maybe it is because we have not had that continual burnt offering first in our individual lives, so that we come prepared.
The Lord’s desire is that we come prepared. We enter into His courts with thanksgiving. It is not that we enter into His courts and then give thanks; we enter in with thanksgiving.
There is a preparedness and a fullness within us, so that when we come, there is an overflow—a dynamic overflow of life. May the Lord touch us concerning preparation before we gather on Sundays, at conferences, or whenever we gather.
That preparation is simply giving ourselves to Him so that He can do what He desires within us.
The Lord knows the essential nature of this daily life, but do you know who else knows how vital it is? The enemy knows.
Look at the stories of Joseph and Samson. They each had a woman in their life—Potiphar’s wife and Delilah. They were tempting them, trying to wear them out day by day.
The enemy knows the vital nature of daily life. In fact, the enemy knows its vital nature more than we do. That is why he is always trying to kick us out of the race.
He was persistent with Joseph and Samson. Thank the Lord, Joseph resisted and fled, even though she tempted him day by day. Finally, Samson got worn out and yielded to it.
There is a contrast there, brothers and sisters. We want to be those who, like Joseph, flee from temptation. We also need our eyes opened to be aware that the enemy is trying daily to knock us out of the race and to make each day not count for the Lord.
May the Lord help us to see that.
One place where “daily” and “day by day” are mentioned often is in the Psalms, in connection with worship, prayer, and the daily fullness of these things. There is one psalm in particular I would like us to consider: Psalm 68.
Blessed be the Lord, who daily beareth our burden,
Even the God who is our salvation. Selah.—Psalm 68:19
This is one of the precious promises the Lord has given us. Some translations, including the King James Version and Darby, read, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits.”
You have one translation saying that He loads us with benefits, and another saying that He daily bears our burdens. At first, those can sound unrelated. But what is the greatest benefit He gives? He bears our burdens.
The benefit of the Lord is that He is daily bearing our burden. He has borne our sin. He has borne our transgression. He is daily bearing us up and holding us. What a benefit.
Daily, do we know how He loads us with His benefits and bears all our burdens? Do we know Him as the daily burden-bearer?
Whenever we find ourselves in difficult situations, do we see Him as the precious One who cares for us so much? Not merely for some of our burdens—He cares for all of them. He desires to lift them off us, that we would see all the benefits and blessed promises we have in Him.
May He open our eyes to see this showering of benefits.
Oftentimes, we feel there are so many burdens every day. But the burdens we have are opportunities to learn Him as our burden-bearer.
As we spoke of the hymn, there are times when tragedies can become triumphs. If we look only at the burdens, they can become tragedies in our lives. But if we see Him as the burden-bearer, He turns them into triumphs day by day.
In the routine and monotony of going through life—working for that boss, being in that school, facing the same situations day by day—if we can see Him as our burden-bearer, loading us with benefits, there is a newness of life. There is triumph in knowing the victory of His life in every situation. I thank the Lord for that.
As we continue on, we can look in Proverbs. Proverbs is the book of wisdom, and really the whole book is a book of daily life. There is one chapter where wisdom is personified: Proverbs 8.
We see wisdom speaking in Proverbs 8:12, saying, “I wisdom.” We know that Christ has been made unto us wisdom. For each day, He has been made unto us wisdom.
Blessed is the man that heareth me,
Watching daily at my gates,
Waiting at the posts of my doors.
For whoso findeth me findeth life,
And shall obtain favor of the Lord.—Proverbs 8:34-35
Watching daily, waiting daily, listening daily for Christ to speak within us—we have wisdom personified living within us. Do we take the time? Do we take those moments to allow Him to speak to us in specific, particular situations?
When we do, what is the blessing? When we hear His voice, when we watch and wait, we find life. We do not merely find an answer; we find a Person. We find life to lead us through that particular situation.
This is why we call it daily life. He wants us to know His life daily in all that we experience, so that we can enter into a fuller knowledge of Him in those things.
We love the Old Testament and the prophets, but do we ever stop to consider how these men became prophets? Most of them were going about their work, being faithful day by day.
Elisha was out plowing. Amos was tending sheep. Then the Lord came in and spoke.
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel all show us the daily faithfulness of their lives. Jeremiah was able to testify in the midst of horrible situations:
The lovingkindnesses of the Lord indeed cease not,
For His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Thy faithfulness.—Lamentations 3:22-23
Jeremiah was not just writing a cute poem or trying to create a pretty chorus for us to sing. He was testifying to the reality of a life he had touched as he allowed the Lord to come in and daily bear his burdens.
He was the weeping prophet, yet in the midst of his crying and weeping over the condition of the Lord’s people, he said, “Lord, Your mercies are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness.”
Brothers and sisters, I pray that the reality of that would capture me in a fresh way: that I would know each morning the freshness of the mercies of the Lord and all that we have in His beloved Son and our precious Savior.
There is so great a salvation, as Hebrews says, that we are called to enter into. We enter into it day by day as we walk with Him.
While our Lord was walking upon this earth, He also encouraged us to live this daily life. Look at Luke 9:23-24.
And He said unto all, If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it.—Luke 9:23-24
We know that saving life speaks of the salvation of the soul. It is not speaking of losing or gaining eternal salvation. But as we daily give ourselves to the Lord for Him to work within us, as we daily present ourselves as a living sacrifice, we give the Holy Spirit permission.
What will that entail? It will entail the wonderful thing that we all love to do. I wake up every morning rejoicing, “Lord, hallelujah, I have another day to take up the cross and follow You.” I am sorry, but that is not usually my attitude.
But if we really saw the reality of the cross, the greatness of our salvation, the liberty we can enter into, and the emancipation involved in daily taking up our cross, we would embrace it.
The reason we shrink back daily from taking up the cross is that we have such a small image. We see only the negative side of the cross. We do not see the joy set before us. We do not see the liberty, freedom, and glory of being set free from the bondage of self.
We like our little comfort area. We give a little bit. But the Lord, in His mercy, knows this is a process. The daily walk shows me that this is a process of life.
If the Lord wanted to, He could have snapped His fingers and changed all of us just like that. But there is a process He desires us to go through, in which we learn of Him and Christ is formed within us.
Paul testified that he died daily, and he rejoiced in that because he saw something. I desire to see that. I desire to see the emancipation and the full salvation.
Someone prayed before the meeting that we could enter into the fullness of our salvation and really know it. Brothers and sisters, we are beggars because we have tasted so little, yet our inheritance is so rich.
I have a hunger, and I think we all do, to enter into more of what He has done for us in setting us free. Praise the Lord, He has a process through which He takes us.
This is what I love about looking through Scripture: it shows everybody just as they are. Consider the four major disciples—Peter and Andrew, James and John.
They first met the Lord in John 1. They went to the wedding feast, and they saw the Lord cleanse the temple. It was magnificent. But then, for some reason, they were not with Him for a while.
Then the Lord came back in Matthew and Mark, and He saw them a second time. He said, “Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” There was a difference of a few months there. Scripture is silent about why they went away.
They followed Him for a while, then left again. Then the Lord came back the third time in Luke 5.
In Luke 5, Peter and the others had been out fishing all night. The Lord came and said, “Go, cast your net again.” Even somewhat halfheartedly, Peter and the others went out and fished.
Then Peter saw something. He said, “Lord, I am a sinful man; depart from me.” Peter came to the end of himself, as much as he could at that point in his progress. From that point on, they followed Him daily.
This is encouraging to me. So often we can look at the disciples with rose-colored glasses and say, “Oh, there they go.” But at first, I think some of them were walking with the Lord, and then they were not.
“I can walk a few days with the Lord. I can walk a few days on my own. I can walk a few days with the Lord, and then a few days on my own.” Is that not how we sometimes live the Christian life?
We walk a few days with the Lord, then say, “Oh, I need a break. I am going to do this on my own. This is my day. I need a special day. Look how hard I have worked all week. I am entitled to this.”
I am not saying that the Lord never wants us to rest or enjoy things, so do not stretch that too far. But there is a process. The disciples came to see that they could not live a day without the Lord. They abandoned everything and followed Him.
Brothers and sisters, this is what the Lord is calling us to. We are all at different stages and in different walks, but the Lord is so patient with us. He meets us every morning right where we are. He calls us to follow Him daily.
Even on days when we have not been faithful, the very next morning the Lamb of God is there. His mercies are new and fresh.
When we have not been faithful and get to the end of a day—before we go to bed—and we have really screwed up, this is a wonderful opportunity to redeem that day. There was a lamb offered in the morning and a lamb offered in the evening.
We can come back to the Lord and say, “Lord, I lived my life today. I did not really do much for You. I just enjoyed myself.” But we can come in a spirit of repentance, meet that Lamb, close out that day for Him, and learn of Him.
This is why Scripture speaks of not letting the sun go down on your anger. So much of the time, we let things linger and do not deal with them. But there is that Lamb at the end of the day to settle things each day, so that the day would count and we could go on in Him, knowing all the fullness we have.
A couple chapters later in Luke, we have what is usually called the Lord’s Prayer. Again, it speaks of praying for daily bread—not only physical bread, but spiritual provision and spiritual dependence upon Him.
Through the Gospels, we see the daily life of the Lord and how He wants to be with us daily. Then we come to Acts, where we have been studying the birth of the church.
Look at Acts 2:46-47:
And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart,
Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.—Acts 2:46-47
The response of life is that a church was born. The ones who had life were together, sharing that life. The more there was sharing of this life, the more life was added.
One of the tragedies within Christianity today is the contrast between this and what we see in Acts. In the book of Acts, the meetings came out of life. There were ones gathering together because of life.
Today, in Christianity, we set up meetings and say, “Okay, you have to fit in here, here, and here.” But the Lord’s life does not always fit into neat little boxes. He wants His life to be expressed in fullness.
This is one of the precious opportunities we have as an assembly. As we pray on Wednesday nights—and we should all be there praying on Wednesday nights—we can seek to know the headship of Christ in a living way in regard to our Friday night times and the groups, and in regard to the life of Christ being expressed in these things.
We have an opportunity, brothers and sisters. We need to recognize the opportunities the Lord gives us. This is an opportunity to see, in a practical and real way, the headship of Christ manifested within us as an assembly.
We can talk all day about Christ being the Head, but we now have an opportunity to humble ourselves before Him and say, “Lord, as the Head, how do You want us to continue on in the Friday night groups? How do You want Your life to be expressed within us as we relate together?”
What a precious treasure and opportunity to learn of Him. May we seize this opportunity as He teaches and trains us every day—not merely so that we have teaching about the headship of Christ, but so that we may be trained to learn the headship of Christ in our daily lives together.
Would we make the most of it, brothers and sisters? Such opportunities do not come frequently, but we have an opportunity to do this together. May we allow Him to come in and meet us in this way.
Paul, throughout his writings, saw the necessity of daily life. He spoke of dying daily. He testified that even though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day.
Our inner man is being renewed. That is the character of Christ being formed within us day by day as we offer ourselves to Him.
As these old outer bodies decay—amen to that—the inner man is being strengthened and renewed. This is precious. I am very thankful for the precious treasures who meet with us and are a little older than many of us.
Their outer beings are decaying, but praise God, their inner man is alive and is an encouragement to us. I bless the Lord for the preciousness of fellowship with some of these older ones, because they have touched the Lord. We can learn from each other in the family of God.
Do we recognize the treasures we have? Do we see that life, draw from that life, and allow them to encourage us day by day?
Paul describes daily life in terms of the daily activity of walking. To walk is simply the daily activity of life. As Enoch walked with God, we walk day by day as we go through life.
How does the Lord call us to walk? As we have heard in Ephesians, it is to walk in a worthy manner. It is walking in Christ.
I stopped the other day to consider this little word walk. It is interesting how many different ways it is used in the New Testament. It speaks of walking in newness of life, not after the flesh; walking in love; walking by faith; walking in the Spirit; walking in light; walking wisely; walking to please Him; and walking together in the same Spirit and in the same steps.
This is the walking: allowing the Lord to meet us step by step as we give ourselves to Him and He works throughout each day.
Therefore be careful how ye walk, not as unwise men, but as wise;
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.—Ephesians 5:15-17
Walking wisely means walking in a way in which Christ is our wisdom, day by day. It means walking with Him and redeeming the time—making the most of the time—because the days are evil.
As Moses said, “Lord, I want each day to count for You.” Lord, redeem this day for Your name’s sake, that it would count for You. Redeeming the time means making the most of the opportunities we have.
Why? That we would understand what the will of the Lord is. Romans 12:1-2 tells us that, as we consecrate ourselves and give ourselves to the Lord as a living sacrifice, He transforms our minds so that we might know the will of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, we need to know the will of the Lord for this hour.
There is a precious testimony among the tribes of Israel: the sons of Issachar. In 1 Chronicles 12, it says that the sons of Issachar understood the times and knew what Israel ought to do.
Today, we need that spirit of the sons of Issachar within our lives, so that we, as the people of God, would understand the times in which we are living and know what we are to do.
There are many things we can do. There are many things being done in the name of the Lord. But what is upon His heart? What is His will in this hour and this day in which we are living?
May we understand the times, redeem the times, and know the will of the Lord for us.
We can be so thankful, brothers and sisters, that it is still called today. Hebrews is a letter of exhortation. Exhortation is encouragement, but it is also warning.
The last verses I would like us to consider are in Hebrews 3.
Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God:
But exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called To-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin:
For we are become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end:
While it is said, To-day if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.—Hebrews 3:12-15
Brothers and sisters, we encourage one another day by day. How do we encourage one another? Encouraging one another speaks of relatedness.
If we never see each other, if we are never in fellowship with each other, if we are all living our own lives and doing our own things, how can we encourage one another? At the very core of it, encouraging one another speaks of relatedness.
We see Christ in one another. A brother has a word: “Look what I read in Scripture. Let me share what I saw the Lord speaking to me today.”
The very essence of encouraging one another day by day is relationship and relatedness day by day—not week by week or Sunday by Sunday, but day by day.
Obviously, we cannot all encourage everybody. But the Lord brings people across our path—one, two, or three people whom we can encourage, know, and come alongside when they are going through a tough time. We can walk with them day by day through difficult times.
Again, seize the opportunity. Redeem the time. Make the most of the opportunities we have to encourage one another.
He says, “As long as it is still called today.” Praise God, brothers and sisters, it is still called today, and we have the opportunity.
Verse 14 says that we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.
I believe this is why the Lord has been speaking to us concerning these essential, foundational, and fundamental things: that we may hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm unto the end.
He is clarifying for us what the beginning of this assurance is. What is it that He is calling us to hold fast to? He is bringing us back to Christ.
Today is a day of repentance. Today is the day we learn of sanctification. Today is the day we experience justification. Today is the day we go through the narrow gate. Today is the day of consecration. Today is the day of responding to the call of God. Today is the day of testing.
We know it is His love that tests us, that we might know more of Him.
We have this today, brothers and sisters: a wonderful opportunity for all the teaching we have received in recent months to be made real within our lives, and that we could hold fast.
Much of what the Lord has shared through His Word is being challenged in this day through a spirit of relativity, a spirit of liberality, and a spirit that says, “You do not even need to be together. Everybody can go do your own thing.”
No. The Lord’s heart is a heart of togetherness, and He is calling us together. If we think we can do our own thing, we are deceived. The Lord is calling us to walk through this life together, to encourage one another together while it is still called today.
Brothers and sisters, I know that within my own mind, the reality of this has not fully hit me, and I am praying that it will. I still think I have tomorrow.
The reality of today being the day of salvation—of entering into its fullness—has not fully grasped my heart. I am touching a little of it, but I still say, “Oh, I have still got some time. My master lingers.” I am the wicked servant.
Brothers and sisters, I do not want to be that wicked servant. I want to serve Him today. When He speaks to me today, when He touches our hearts today, I want to respond today, so that His salvation can be worked out within me. I know it is your heart that it would be worked out within each one of you.
May the Lord awaken our hearts to see the necessity of this daily life with Him.
It is not a routine to tick off and say, “Okay, I read my Bible, I prayed, I did this.” No. It is a vital link to the very life of Christ, and it is a vital link within the house of God.
Do we desire to go on and be a testimony unto Him? There is no way we can do it on a weekly basis. There is no way we can do it only on Sunday and Wednesday.
We must do it day by day as we give ourselves to Him. As the Corinthians did, they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to one another.
Then the Lord can come into our lives, strengthen us, and encourage us, so that we can enter into the beautiful and precious teachings we have heard these last few months.
The Lord, in His mercy, is calling us back to the simplicity and purity of our devotion to Him. We have a challenge set before us: How are we going to respond?
But I thank the Lord that, in His mercy, His mercies are new every morning.
As we are in this school of Christ, He says, “Okay, this day you have an opportunity to learn of Me. I have a curriculum for you. I have a work that I want to do in your life today. Will you cooperate with Me?”
May we have hearts found cooperating with Him, that Christ can be formed within us and that we would be those who hasten His return.
Let us pray.
Lord, when we see how plainly You set before us throughout the Scriptures this necessity of a daily life, we have to start from a place of repentance—that we have been neglectful and have not responded to Your Word.
But Lord, we pray that You would open the eyes of our hearts.
Lord, as You opened Moses’ eyes to see Him who is invisible, he had the burden that each day would count for You. Lord, would we see You in a fresh way? Would we see the greatness of the salvation? Would we see Your heart and Your purpose, that we could daily be about Your business?
Lord, we thank You for Your patience with us. But Lord, we know that right now it is called today, and one day that will come to an end.
Lord, as we have today, may we make the most of each opportunity, that You could come in and form the very life of Your Son within us individually and together. In Your precious name, amen.