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Today's Devotional

May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day!—2 Timothy 1:16-18 (NIV).

“He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward,” was Christ’s promise to such as should kindly entertain his apostles when he sent them forth two and two, into every city whither he himself would shortly come; and we see by this passage of St. Paul’s history, that Onesiphorus had not only done kindness unto him, but had even exposed himself to danger in waiting upon the prisoner of the Lord. He was not ashamed or afraid to seek him out in his disgrace, and to acknowledge himself his friend and follower. He ministered unto the apostle of his carnal things, and he was made partaker of St. Paul’s spiritual things, in his prayers for Onesiphorus and his house that he might find grace in “that” day, the awful day of death and judgment, when those who have shewn no mercy shall have judgment without mercy. A fearful doom, from which even the best Christians must shrink, for all need the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, without which we can have no hope of salvation: and the highest blessing we can desire for ourselves and others is, that the Lord will have mercy upon us and reward us not according to our deserts.

About the author and the source

We often do not know what stories lie behind devotional books. In the case of Daily Readings, we have a hint. It was produced “in the hope of furnishing to the Inhabitants of two Villages in Northumberland, some counter-action against the moral evils arising from the temporary settlement of Railway Labourers in the immediate neighbourhood.”