Morning and Evening Devotional with C.H. Spurgeon – June 9, 2026

Morning Section

Morning Scripture (ESV)

The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.

— Psalm 126:3

Verbatim Morning Text from Spurgeon

Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to dwell more upon what they have gone through than upon what God has done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and help which God has vouchsafed them. But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state, will come forward joyously, and say, “I will speak, not about myself, but to the honour of my God. He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings: and he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. The Lord hath done great things for me, whereof I am glad.” Such an abstract of experience as this is the very best that any child of God can present. It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully do we know this, but it is quite as true that we have an all-sufficient Saviour, who overcomes these corruptions, and delivers us from their dominion. In looking back, it would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond, and have crept along the Valley of Humiliation, but it would be equally wicked to forget that we have been through them safely and profitably; we have not remained in them, thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has brought us “out into a wealthy place.” The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, who has led us through all, and preserved us until now. Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life’s song, “He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.”

Morning Reflection/Teaching

Spurgeon is not asking you to pretend your troubles were small or that your heart is never heavy, because there are seasons when the Christian life feels like one long account of conflict, grief, and remaining corruption, and it would be dishonest to smile over pain you have actually felt. What he is gently questioning is the habit of telling your story in a way that leaves God out, as though trials were the whole melody and mercy were only a footnote you add when someone presses you to be positive. Many believers who have followed Christ for years know this pattern from the inside: you can describe the Slough and the Valley with vivid accuracy and still forget to say, with equal accuracy, that you did not remain there, that the Lord brought you through, and that the same hand which allowed the trouble also preserved you in it.

A healthy memory, in Spurgeon’s sense, does not erase the bass notes of sorrow but lets them sit beneath a song of praise, so that you can mourn what sin has done and still honor what grace has done, confess that corruptions remain and still testify that an all-sufficient Saviour overcomes them. Before this morning passes, you might simply pause and ask what story your heart has been telling lately, whether it sounds like a person who serves despair by rehearsing it, or like a person who serves Christ by remembering, even through tears, that he has already done great things for you and is not finished with you yet.

Morning Nectared Goad

You may be more faithful in rehearsing what has gone wrong than in remembering what God has done, and that is one way a believer slowly learns to serve their mood instead of the Christ who has already proved his mercy in the dark.

Evening Section

Evening Devotional Image

Evening Scripture (ESV)

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.

— John 5:39

Verbatim Evening Text from Spurgeon

The Greek word here rendered search signifies a strict, close, diligent, curious search, such as men make when they are seeking gold, or hunters when they are in earnest after game. We must not rest content with having given a superficial reading to a chapter or two, but with the candle of the Spirit we must deliberately seek out the hidden meaning of the word. Holy Scripture requires searching—much of it can only be learned by careful study. There is milk for babes, but also meat for strong men. The rabbis wisely say that a mountain of matter hangs upon every word, yea, upon every title of Scripture. Tertullian exclaims, “I adore the fulness of the Scriptures.” No man who merely skims the book of God can profit thereby; we must dig and mine until we obtain the hid treasure. The door of the word only opens to the key of diligence. The Scriptures claim searching. They are the writings of God, bearing the divine stamp and imprimatur—who shall dare to treat them with levity? He who despises them despises the God who wrote them. God forbid that any of us should leave our Bibles to become swift witnesses against us in the great day of account. The word of God will repay searching. God does not bid us sift a mountain of chaff with here and there a grain of wheat in it, but the Bible is winnowed corn—we have but to open the granary door and find it. Scripture grows upon the student. It is full of surprises. Under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to the searching eye it glows with splendour of revelation, like a vast temple paved with wrought gold, and roofed with rubies, emeralds, and all manner of gems. No merchandise is like the merchandise of Scripture truth. Lastly, the Scriptures reveal Jesus: “They are they which testify of me.” No more powerful motive can be urged upon Bible readers than this: he who finds Jesus finds life, heaven, all things. Happy he who, searching his Bible, discovers his Saviour.

Evening Reflection/Teaching

Spurgeon’s picture of searching Scripture is meant to slow you down, because he is describing the kind of attention you give when something precious is at stake, the patient digging of a person who believes treasure is really there and not merely the dutiful glance of someone who wants to check a box before moving on to something more interesting. It is possible to own a Bible, to hear it preached, and even to defend it strongly, while still treating it like a book that must be finished rather than a mine that must be entered, and many mature Christians discover, with some embarrassment, that they have been skimming the surface of chapters they have known for decades without ever asking what they reveal about Christ. The Spirit’s candle is not a substitute for effort; it is the grace that makes effort fruitful, so that words you have read many times can suddenly open and show you the Saviour they were carrying all along.

If the Scriptures testify of Jesus, then the question at the end of the day is not simply whether you read, but whether you read to find him, because finding Christ in the Word is finding life, and missing him while handling the text is one of the quiet tragedies of religious habit. You do not need to become a scholar overnight; you need to become a seeker tonight, willing to linger over a passage, to ask what it says about your Lord, and to let the book of God be treated with the weight it deserves, not because you fear judgment, but because the One you serve has chosen to speak to you here.

Evening Nectared Goad

You can honor the Bible in public and still treat it like a task to complete in private, which may reveal that you serve the habit of religion more than the Christ who waits to meet you on every page you are willing to search.

Closing

Tie-in Thought

This day moves from grateful memory to diligent searching, and the two belong together more than we often realize. Jonathan Edwards taught that truly gracious affections arise from a heart that sees the excellency of Christ, not merely from a mind that manages Christian duties, and gratitude without Scripture soon becomes sentiment, while Scripture without gratitude can become cold expertise. The Lord who has done great things for you is the same Lord who speaks in his Word; let your gladness send you to the page, and let the page send you back to him with a warmer love.

Valley of Vision Prayer

A prayer from The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers:

In Prayer

O Lord, in prayer I launch far out into the eternal world, and on that broad ocean my soul triumphs over all evils on the shores of mortality. In prayer I see myself as nothing; I find my heart going after Thee with intensity, and long with vehement thirst to live to Thee.

In prayer all things here below vanish, and nothing seems important but holiness of heart and the salvation of others. In prayer all my worldly cares, fears, anxieties disappear, and are of as little significance as a puff of wind. In prayer I am lifted above the frowns and flatteries of life, and taste heavenly joys; entering into the eternal world I can give myself to Thee with all my heart, to be Thine for ever.