Did we but enter, with a more artless faith, into the truth that there is a real Man—the Man Christ Jesus, One whose sympathy is perfect, whose love is fathomless, whose power is omnipotent, whose wisdom is infinite, whose resources are exhaustless, whose riches are unsearchable, whose ear is open to our every breathing, whose hand is open to our every need, whose heart is full of unspeakable love and tenderness towards us—how much more happy and elevated we should be, and how much more independent of creature streams, through what channel soever they may flow! There is nothing the heart can crave which we have not in Jesus. Does it long for genuine sympathy? Where can it find it, save in Him who could mingle His tears with those of the bereaved sisters of Bethany ‘1 Does it desire the enjoyment of sincere affection? It can only find it in that heart which told forth its love in drops of blood. Does it seek the protection of real power? It has but to look to Him who made the world. Does it feel the need of unerring wisdom to guide? Let it betake itself to Him who is wisdom personified, and “who of God is made unto us wisdom.” We have all in Christ.
Where you see something wrong in your fellow-men go with it to the Lord, and tell Him of it as if you had done it yourself. That would be so much better than proclaiming it to others; while you are doing the latter, you might have been praying to the Lord.
No amusement is innocent which takes away the soul from Jesus, or does what it can to take it away. To breathe in the atmosphere of the world is one thing; breathe it is a thing quite different. Breathe in that element I must, else I should not be in the world; but breathe it, oh I that I never may, else I should be of the world.
Faith looks back at the cross and is at peace, it looks forward and pants for glory.
If Christians ever meet to do, or say, what they cannot engage in doing, or saying, in the name of Christ, it were better for them not to meet at all; for the scripture says, “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
They who always get help just at the right time are those who never study circumstances, but who look in steadfast faith to God, expecting Him to act for and aid them.
The proper standpoint is to look at everything for the glory of God; you are to hold fast your heart’s confidence in the unchanging love of God in Christ, come what may.
A saint’s highest glory is, that he is not merely in the house of the great King, but one with Him, and therefore connected with His glory. We all in some measure see this as future; but what I see is, that we are in this wonderful relationship to Christ now. We are of His body, of His flesh and of His bones; and it ought to be a matter of deeper interest to us to carry out and maintain the identification with Him, while we are where He is rejected and refused, than it will be to display it in the age to come, where there will be no one to deny Him, or to refuse Him His title. I believe that if each of us felt individually the dignity and gravity of our calling here as a member of Christ’s body, we should make other things secondary to it.
“Straight is the path of duty;
Curved is the path of beauty;
Follow the first, and thou shalt see
The last shall ever follow thee.”
“Time was, is past, thou canst not it recall.
Time is, thou hast, improve the portion small.
Time future is not, and may never be,
The present is the only time for thee.”