January 5 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself." (1 John 5:10).

Devotional

The Holy Spirit taking his own truth and transcribing it upon the soul—breaking, humbling, healing the heart ... witnessing, sealing, sanctifying ... opening the eye of the soul to the holiness of God's law and to its own moral guilt, poverty, helplessness, and deep need of Christ's blood and righteousness ... thus leading it to rest on him as the all-sufficient Savior ... thus producing "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17)—this is the truth experienced. This is the religion of the heart. And all other religion—no matter how beautiful its theory may be, no matter how orthodox its creed may be—is worth nothing! Without this experience there is no true belief in God's Word.

God's revelation does not ask for a faith that will merely endorse its divine credentials. It does not merely ask that skepticism will set aside its doubts and receive it as divine truth. It asks—yes, it demands!—more than this.

God's revelation demands a faith that will fully, implicitly, and practically receive the momentous and tremendous facts it announces. It demands a faith that brings them home with a realizing power to the soul and identifies it with them. It demands a faith that believes there is a hell and seeks to escape it. It demands a faith that believes there is a heaven and strives to enter it. It demands a faith that credits the doctrine of man's ruin by nature, and that welcomes the doctrine of man's recovery by grace. In a word, it demands a faith that rejects all human dependence, and accepts as its only ground of refuge "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe" (Rom. 3:22).

Oh, this is the true faith of the gospel! Dear reader, do you have it?

Through him whom thy Word hath foretold,
the Savior and Morning Star,
salvation and peace have been brought
to those who have strayed afar.

(from Psalm 119, E. O. Sellers, 1908)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.