Daily Devotion: He Taught Them Many Things By Parables by J.C. Philpot

Bible Reading: Mark 4:1-9 KJV

Key Verse:  "And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,"
- Mark 4:2 KJV

The Scripture employs two beautiful figures to illustrate the reception of the divine testimony. One is the committing of the seed to the ground, as in the parable of the sower. The husbandman scatters the seed in the bosom of the earth, and the ground having been previously ploughed and reduced to a beautiful tillage, opens its bosom to receive the grain. After a little time the seed begins to germinate, to strike a root downward, and shoot a germ upward; as the Lord speaks, "First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear."

Daily Devotion: Christ Among the Teachers by Favell Lee Mortimer

Bible Reading: Luke 2:41-52 KJV 

Key Verse:  "And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions."
- Luke 2:46 KJV

We only hear one story of our Savior in his childhood. We would like to hear many particulars concerning him in early life, but the Holy Spirit has caused us to know the things the most necessary, and it is more necessary that we should know what Christ said and did when he was a minister—than when he was a child.

Daily Devotion: How A Person Can Be Genuinely Saved (1 of 2) by J.E. Smith

Bible Reading: Isaiah 53:1-8 KJV 

Key Verse:  "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
- Isaiah 53:6 KJV

First you must acknowledge that you are a lost sinner in need of a savior. 

"If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are LOST." - 2 Corinthians 4:3
"All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." - Romans 3:23
"The wages of sin is death." - Romans 6:23
"There is none righteous, no not one: There is none that seeketh after God." - Romans 3:10,11
"All we like sheep have gone astray." - Isaiah 53:6

Daily Devotion: More Than Parental Love by John MacDuff

Bible Reading: Isaiah 49:14-21 KJV

Key Verse:  "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."
- Isaiah 49:15 KJV

There are seasons in the experience of many of God's people, when, by reason of outward trials or inward troubles, they feel desolate and desponding. Spiritual comforts are gone. They have little of the hallowed communion they once enjoyed with their heavenly Father — little fervor or filial nearness in prayer — little pleasure in reading the Word or attending the Sanctuary. A chilling blight has passed over their spiritual being. In the bitterness of conscious estrangement from the God of their life, they are led to harbor the secret thought, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me!'

Daily Devotion: Prayer and Praise by James Meikle

Bible Reading: Psalm 72:11-18 KJV 

Key Verse:  "And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised."
- Psalm 72:15 KJV

Prayer and praise is the employment of the two families of earth and heaven—the church-militant and the church-triumphant. Prayer is the native breathings of the heaven-born soul, the lispings of the child of grace, who when grown to the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus, and taken home to his higher house—breaks forth into melodious strains of praise. Prayer suits the state below, and praise the state above. Here I am vexed with sin and temptation, with needs and infirmities—therefore I pray. But there I shall be blessed with the removal of sin and temptation, of needs and infirmities—therefore I shall praise.

Daily Devotion: Are You in Adam or in Christ? by Wil Pounds

Bible Reading: Romans 5:14-21 KJV 

Key Verse:  "For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)"
- Romans 5:17 KJV

Charles Hodge asked a crucial question: “If God requires one thing, and we present another, how can we be saved? If He has revealed a method in which He can be just and yet justify the sinner, and if we reject that method and insist upon pursuing a different way, how can we hope to be accepted?”

Daily Devotion: Consider Jesus - in Sickness by Octavius Winslow

Bible Reading: Matthew 8:16-23 KJV 

Key Verse:  "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses."
- Matthew 8:17 KJV

How closely and tenderly is Jesus one with His Church! Take the subject of the present meditation as an illustration. There is not a chamber of pining sickness, nor a couch of suffering languor, at which His presence may not be experienced in all the divine power and human sympathy of His nature. The careful reader of His life must have been deeply impressed with the frequency with which His personal contact with bodily infirmity and disease is recorded, and with what promptness and skill He addressed Himself to the task of alleviation and cure. "And He healed people who had every kind of sickness and disease." And still His power and skill are needed, and still are the same. Into the shaded chamber of how many a sick one whom Jesus loves will these pages come, breathing, it is humbly prayed, the soothing fragrance of His Name around the restless pillow! "He Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." Let us consider IN WHAT WAY Jesus did this.