Daily EncouragementSample

“Your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” - could there be a better description of the essence of real Christianity? For Christianity is not mere religion, it is a living relationship to the Lord. It is a relationship of love. The Church is the bride of Christ; the believer is the beloved of his or her Lord. “I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” (verse 2).

The chief object of the enemy’s attack is genuine devotion to Christ. He is subtle and deceitful. He has his apostles and he uses familiar terms. Sincere believers need to beware. Says James Denney, “the infidelity which is subtlest and most to be dreaded, is not the gross materialism or atheism which will not so much as hear the name of God or Christ; but that which uses all sacred names, speaking readily of Jesus, the Spirit, and the Gospel, but meaning something else, and something less, than these words mean in apostolic lips.”

Someone once remarked to W. J. Petersen, the editor of Eternity magazine, about a veteran Christian leader, “He’s been a leader in evangelical Christianity for nearly fifty years, but still hasn’t lost his devotion to Jesus Christ.” It bothered me,” Petersen later said, “that he had to say, ‘But’.”