From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions

May 28

Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that you bear unto your people--O visit me with your salvation. –Psalm 106:4

How is a man brought and taught to want to be visited with God's salvation? He must know something first of condemnation. Salvation only suits the condemned. The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost; and therefore salvation only suits the lost. A man must be lost--utterly lost--before he can prize God's salvation. And how is he lost? By losing all his religion, losing all his righteousness, losing all his strength, losing all his confidence, losing all his hopes, losing all that is of the flesh; losing it by its being taken from him, and stripped away by the hand of God. A man who is brought into this state of utter beggary and complete bankruptcy--to be nothing, to have nothing, to know nothing--he is the man, who in the midnight watches, in his lonely hours, by his fireside, and at times, well-near night and day, is crying, groaning, begging, suing, seeking, and praying after the manifestation of God's salvation to his soul. O visit me with your salvation.

He needs a visit from God; he needs God to come and dwell with him, take up his abode in his heart, discover himself to him, manifest and reveal himself, sit down with him, eat with him, walk with him, and dwell in him as his God. And a living soul can be satisfied with nothing short of this. He must have a visit from God. It profits him little to read in the word of God what God did to his saints of old; he needs something for himself, something that shall do his soul good; he needs something that shall cheer, refresh, comfort, bless, and profit him, remove his burdens, and settle his soul into peace. And therefore he needs a visitation--that the presence and power, the mercy and the love of God should visit his soul.

Devotion for May 28