Days of Heaven Upon Earth is A. B. Simpson’s year-long daily devotional: a short verse of Scripture paired with a brief, warm meditation for every day of the year. Its promise is right there in the title. Simpson believed that the life of heaven does not have to wait for heaven — that an ordinary Tuesday, lived in the fullness of Christ, can carry something of heaven’s rest and joy into present experience. This guide walks you through what the book is, how it is arranged, and how to make the most of it as a daily companion. If you would like to read it first, the full text is free on Ochorus at Days of Heaven Upon Earth.
What the book is, and Simpson’s aim
A. B. Simpson (Albert Benjamin Simpson) was a Canadian-born preacher of the later nineteenth century, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance and a leading voice of the deeper-life and healing movements. His lifelong message was the sufficiency of Christ — what he called the “fourfold gospel” of Christ as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. Days of Heaven Upon Earth takes that same conviction and turns it into daily food. You can read more about his life and work on his author page.
The title comes from an old covenant promise that God’s people would enjoy “days of heaven upon the earth” (Deuteronomy 11:21). Simpson takes the phrase almost literally as a hope for the believer: the life of heaven can begin now, in daily communion with Christ. His aim across the year is not to hand you a doctrine to admire from a distance but to draw you into a present, experiential enjoyment of all that Christ is. Each morning he sets a single verse before you and then, in a few unhurried paragraphs, presses its comfort and its claim upon the day ahead.
That is the answer, in short, to anyone asking what the book is for: it is a devotional meant to make each ordinary day a little more heavenly, by teaching the reader to draw continually on the fullness of Christ.
How the book is arranged
The structure could not be simpler. There is one reading for every day of the year, organised by month — a January entry for the first of January, and so on through December. Each entry opens with a Scripture text and a reference, then offers a meditation of a few hundred words. You are meant to take one reading at a time, not to sit and read the whole book straight through.
Simpson ranges widely across the Bible in choosing his texts. A single week might move from “Redeeming the time” (Ephesians 5:16) to “I will cause you to walk in My statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27), to the promise of the well of water “springing up” (John 4:14), to the quiet command to “Wait on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14). The variety keeps the year fresh, yet the readings return again and again to a handful of central notes, so that the daily fragments slowly build into a whole vision of the Christian life.
The central themes
Four threads run through the year and hold the book together.
The indwelling Christ
For Simpson, the heart of the gospel is not merely that our sins are forgiven but that Christ Himself comes to live within us. He warns readers not to treat holiness as a blessing to be collected, but to receive it as a Person to be trusted:
“…not as a blessing, but as a personal union with the personal Saviour and the indwelling Holy Spirit.”
A. B. Simpson
This is the note struck in “I am crucified with Christ… Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20) and in “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). The Christian life, in Simpson’s hands, is less about effort marshalled from below than about a life received from above — “your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
Abiding
If Christ lives within, the believer’s work is to stay in fellowship with Him — to abide. Simpson borrows a homely image of a fire kept burning rather than rekindled from cold ashes each morning:
“Let us abide in Him. Let us not have to remove the cinders and ashes from our hearthstones every day and kindle a new flame; but let us keep it burning and never let it expire.”
A. B. Simpson
The command to “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him” (Colossians 2:6) is exactly this idea: the way we begin is the way we continue. Simpson wants the reader’s joy to be settled rather than sporadic — “that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).
Moment-by-moment trust
Because Christ is always present, Simpson urges a faith that is renewed not once but continually — a habit of turning to God through the whole day:
“An important help in the life of prayer is the habit of bringing everything to God, moment by moment, as it comes to us in life.”
A. B. Simpson
This is his reading of “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Prayer, for Simpson, is not a scheduled duty so much as an unbroken conversation, and he describes it in words that could hang over any believer’s day: “It is the habit of prayer. It is the continued communion that not only asks, but receives.” He is equally clear that the enabling is God’s and not ours — “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
Days of heaven upon earth
All of this gathers into the book’s title theme. Simpson is convinced that a life of present rest, trust, and joy is not presumption but the believer’s ordinary birthright. The renewed mind that proves “that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2) is the mind that can find heaven near at hand. The days of heaven, he insists, are simply Christly days — days lived at the side of the risen Lord who promised, “lo, I am with you alway” (Matthew 28:20).
Who should read it
This devotional suits almost any Christian who wants a short, faithful daily meeting with God through Scripture. Its brevity makes it approachable for a busy morning, and its warmth makes it nourishing rather than merely informative.
It will especially reward readers who are drawn to the deeper-life tradition — those who sense that there is more of Christ to be enjoyed than they have yet known, and who want a companion to lead them into it a little each day. Readers who have found help in Hannah Whitall Smith’s The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life will recognise the same family of concerns here, set out in devotional form. And anyone who has read Simpson’s own The Fourfold Gospel will find that these daily readings turn that fuller teaching into food for ordinary days.
It is a gentle place to begin, too, for a reader new to the older devotional writers. There are no long arguments to follow, only a verse and a meditation — and the older phrasing quickly becomes familiar once you are inside the rhythm of a daily reading.
How to read it today
The book is built for daily use, and it repays being used the way it was made. A few simple practices help.
- Read by the date. Begin with today’s entry rather than at the front, and then take one reading each morning. The point is not to finish the book but to be fed a focused portion every day across a year.
- Start with the verse. Read the Scripture text slowly before you read Simpson’s meditation, and read it again afterwards. His words are meant to open the verse, not replace it.
- Carry one line into the day. Simpson’s counsel to bring everything to God “moment by moment” is best obeyed by choosing a single phrase from the reading and returning to it as the hours pass — on the commute, at the desk, in the interruptions.
- Keep it short and steady. A missed day is not a failure; simply pick up at the current date. Simpson’s whole vision is of a fire kept burning, not a debt to be repaid.
- Pray the reading back. Turn the day’s truth into a brief prayer before you rise from it, asking for the very thing the verse promises.
Used this way, the devotional becomes less a book you read and more a habit you keep — the daily practice of drawing on the fullness of Christ until, as Simpson hopes, ordinary days begin to feel like days of heaven upon the earth.
For reflection
These questions are meant to be lived with slowly, one at a time, alongside the daily readings.
- Simpson distinguishes receiving holiness as a “blessing” from receiving it as “a personal union with the personal Saviour.” Where in your own life have you sought a blessing when Christ was offering Himself?
- What would it look like, in the specific shape of your day, to keep the fire burning rather than kindle a new flame each morning?
- Simpson describes prayer as “continued communion that not only asks, but receives.” Are there answers God has already given that you have yet to take up by faith?
- Reflect on “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). How might remembering the indwelling Christ change the way you meet your next interruption or trial?
- If the days of heaven are simply “Christly days,” what is one ordinary moment today that could be turned toward Christ — and what would that turning cost you?
Begin wherever the calendar finds you. Take up today’s reading, let it turn the day toward the fullness of Christ, and return tomorrow. The whole of Days of Heaven Upon Earth is free to read on Ochorus, a page at a time, for a year of days.
