I received in the mail a handsome, leather devotional from Christian Focus Publishers. It’s Randall J. Pederson’s collection of Daily Readings from George Whitefield. For folks looking for a small daily devotional this makes a nice companion. I’ve not read much from Whitefield, though I’ve read a bit about him. Pederson has done us a service by collecting these gems from Whitefield’s preaching and organizing them for daily reflection.
Thus far, Whitefield reads as relevant today as he did in the 1700s. Here’s a brief snippet from this morning’s reading:
There is nothing lovely or desirable in man; his heart is a sink of pollution, full of sin and uncleanness. Yet our modern, polite preachers tell us, that there is a fitness in men, and that God, seeing you a good creature, gives you his grace. But this, though it is a modern, polite and fashionable way of talking, is very unscriptural. Many pulpits ring of nothing more than doing no one any harm, living honestly, loving your neighbor as yourselves, and doing what you can, and then Christ is to make up the deficiency. This is making Christ to be half a Savior, and man the other part; but I say, Christ will be your whole righteousness, your whole wisdom, your whole sanctification, or else he will never be your whole redemption.
Indeed. Christ is our Whole Savior! (1 Cor. 1:30)
