June 12, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting." — Daniel 5:27 · KJV

It is good to weigh ourselves often in the scale of God's Word. You will find it a holy exercise to read some psalm of David and, as you meditate on each verse, to ask yourself, "Can I say this? Have I felt as David felt? Has my heart ever been broken over sin, as his was when he wrote his penitential psalms? Has my soul been full of true confidence in the hour of difficulty, as his was when he sang of God's mercies in the cave of Adullam or in the strongholds of Engedi? Do I take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord?" Then turn to the life of Christ, and as you read, ask yourself how far you are conformed to His likeness. Try to discover whether you have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit that He constantly taught and displayed. Then take up the epistles and see whether you can go along with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have you ever cried out as he did, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Have you ever felt his self-abasement? Have you seemed to yourself the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints? Have you known anything of his devotion? Could you join with him and say, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain"? If we read God's Word in this way, as a test of our spiritual condition, we will have good reason to stop many a time and say, "Lord, I feel I have never yet been here—bring me here! Give me true penitence such as I read of. Give me real faith; give me warmer zeal; inflame me with more fervent love; grant me the grace of meekness; make me more like Jesus. Let me no longer be 'found wanting' when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, lest I be found wanting in the scales of judgment." Judge yourselves, that you may not be judged.