February 26

Morning

But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation is from the LORD! — Jonah 2:9 BSB

Salvation is entirely the work of God. He alone brings life to a soul that is dead in sin, and He alone sustains that soul in its spiritual life. He is the “Alpha and Omega” of our salvation. “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” If I am prayerful, it is because God has made me prayerful. If I possess spiritual graces, they are God’s gifts to me. If I live a consistent Christian life, it’s because God upholds me. I do nothing to preserve myself, except for what God first works in me. Any goodness in me comes from the Lord. Where I sin, that’s my doing; where I do right, that’s God’s doing. If I resist temptation, it’s because the Lord strengthened me. If I live a consecrated life before others, it’s not me—it’s Christ living in me. Am I holy? I didn’t make myself holy—God’s Spirit sanctified me. Am I detached from the world? It’s because God’s loving discipline has weaned me from it. Do I grow in knowledge? It’s the Holy Spirit who teaches me. Every spiritual jewel I possess has been crafted by God.

“He alone is my rock and my salvation.” If I find nourishment in the Word, it’s because God makes it food for my soul. If I live on the manna from heaven, that manna is Christ Himself, whose body and blood I spiritually eat and drink. Am I gaining strength each day? That strength comes from the hills of heaven. Without Jesus, I can do nothing. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, I cannot produce fruit unless I abide in Him. Let this morning’s reflection remind me of what Jonah learned in the belly of the fish: “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

Evening

the priest shall examine him, and if the disease has covered his entire body, he is to pronounce the infected person clean. Since it has all turned white, he is clean. — Lev 13:13 BSB

The law concerning leprosy may seem strange to us, but there was wisdom in it. A leper was declared clean when the disease covered his entire body, symbolizing that the disease had run its course and the person was now whole again. Tonight, let’s consider the spiritual lesson of this law.

We, too, are spiritual lepers, and we can apply the law of the leper to our own condition. When a person realizes they are utterly lost and covered in the sin of their own making, when they stop pretending to have any righteousness of their own and stand guilty before God—then they are clean through the blood of Jesus. Hidden, unconfessed sin is the true leprosy, but when sin is seen and acknowledged, it has already received its deathblow, and God looks with mercy on the soul that confesses its guilt.

Nothing is more dangerous than self-righteousness, and nothing is more hopeful than genuine repentance. We must confess that we are entirely sinful, for no other confession will be the full truth. When the Holy Spirit is at work convicting us of sin, we will have no difficulty admitting this—it will come naturally.

What comfort this truth brings to a soul weighed down by guilt! The very thing that once discouraged us is now turned into a sign of hope. Stripping away our self-righteousness comes before being clothed in Christ’s righteousness. Digging deep into our sin is the first step in building on the foundation of grace. A deep awareness of sin is one of the earliest signs of grace at work in the heart.

O leprous sinner, utterly helpless and unclean—take heart from this passage, and come as you are to Jesus!

“For let our debts be what they may, however great or small, As soon as we have nothing to pay, our Lord forgives us all. It is perfect poverty alone that sets the soul at large; While we can call one mite our own, we have no full discharge.”