May 25

Commanded Judah to seek the Lord... and to do the law and the commandment. — 2 Chr 14:4

Repentance is not complete unless we get back to God and renew our allegiance to Him.

One of our Lord’s parables tells of the casting out of an evil spirit, the man’s heart then being left empty. By and by the demon, returning after many wanderings, found his old house swept and garnished, but still empty; and, gathering up a number of other demons worse than himself, he returned into his old place. That is always the story when evil is cast out and the life is not filled with God.

There is a verse in one of Paul’s epistles in which the apostle calls upon Christians to present their bodies as living sacrifices to Him. He wants our body that He may purify it and give it back to us cleansed.

We must not think that it is merely for the help that we can give to God that He so earnestly desires the consecration of ourselves to Him; it is that He may take us, with all our sinfulness, and make us holy and beautiful, like Christ.